Hexagon Door

I was given the task to create a visually appealing door effect that could open and close, and take any size or rotation.

I began by creating a single hexagon piece in blender, with a texture to highlight the edges.

My door needed to have both a dynamic size, scalable in the scene, and a dynamic hexagon size. I took the door object's bounding box and divided it by the size of the hexagons to determine how many hexagons I'd need, but that was only the beginning.

In order to spawn them in a hexagon pattern, every other row would need an offset half the size of the hexagon. I also gave every hexagon its X and Y coordinates, so I wouldn't have to deal with a larger mess when trying to target individual hexagons later. When the hexagons spawned, they would randomize their opacity and flicker speed.

The door's material was very simple, except for one part. The team wanted me to animate a glow, moving across the door. The hexagons were all individual objects with their own UV maps, so I had to improvise. By using a modified world aligned texture, and passing the size of the door into the material, I was able to cast a glow across the entire door seamlessly.

Finally, I created a simple open/close effect by using the previously saved row and column location on each hex. I hooked them up to their respective events, and the door was complete!