Illusion Tools

The Illusion Tools allow you to apply the optical illusion to other objects that were not created with the Paradox Toolkit Addon. This way you can include complex geometry and local lighting, while preserving the optical illusion.

Usage: Select the objects you want to manipulate. Then, add the illusion object to the selection (you can use Shift + Left click on the illusion object to do so). It is important that the illusion object is selected at last, so that it is marked as the Active Object. Notice that the illusion object must have been created with the Paradox Toolkit addon.

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Illusion Translation

Moves the selected objects along the illusion light of sight. The objects are moved exactly by the distance between the two illusion points of the active illusion object. This operation is ideal to move small objects from one illusion point to the other.

Options

• Direction: Backwards or Forward. Chose to move the object from the front illusion point to the back illusion point, or vice-versa.

Ilusion Duplicate

Creates a duplicate of the selected objects, then applies the Illusion Translation to move it forward or backward.

Options

• Direction: Same as for the Illusion Translation
• Constrain Duplicate: The duplicate object will use Child-Of, Copy-Rotation, and Copy-Scale, to copy the translation, rotation, and scale of the original object.
• Linked Duplicate: If selected, the duplicate will use the same object data as the original object. Changes in the original mesh will be reflected in the duplicate.

Illusion Bisect

Uses the bisect tool cut Mesh objects across the illusion plane of the active illusion object.

Options

• Illusion Clear - Front: Bisects the object and deletes half of the bisected mesh using the front illusion point.
• Illusion Clear - Back: Bisects the object and deletes half of the bisected mesh using the back illusion point.
• Illusion Clear - Closest: Bisects the object and deletes half of the bisected mesh using the the closest illusion point to each selected object.
• Illusion Clear - None: Bisects the Mesh. If you enter in edit mode you can see that new vertex were created along the illusion plane.

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Behind the Scenes

The Illusion Tools all work by detecting the illusion points of the active illusion object. If you go the the Mesh Object Data you will notice that all illusion objects come with at least two Vertex Groups called "IllusionFront" and "IllusionBack". To perform the translation operations the addon measures the distance between these two vertex groups, and moves the objects according to their separation. To perform the bisect operation, the addon measures the average location and normal of the vertex in one of the two groups, and passes this information to the native Bisect Tool from Blender.