How to make "Animated" UGC items

[asteriiez (aster)]

Might be a no-brainer to some, but I was wondering if anyone could explain how people make those “animated” UGC items & how they work?

These are a few examples, as far as I’m aware it’s just a bunch of thin planes and somehow the way they’re textured gives them that “animated” effect, but I can’t find any info about it online and I’d just like to learn HOW they do it exactly

More specifically, I’d like to know how they turn their shapes into these planes, for example this person turned this wing shape into a bunch of planes so it looks animated, is there a way to do that with a modifier or something or do you have to do it manually?
I hope this makes at least a little bit of sense lol–

[awry_y (Charlotte)]

It’s a bit simple.

You have your mesh, then you need to slice it into really small faces. Something like:

Then you need to fix any issues with it an you’re done.

[asteriiez (aster)]

Thank you! Do you have any idea how they texture it? Where it changes based on the angle you look? Probably pretty easy I’m just having trouble understanding how that’d be done

[awry_y (Charlotte)]

Usually done by just rotating the faces.

You make your mesh, select all the faces, ensure individual origins is set and rotate.