For architectural visualization presentations, you probably found some projects that required more than a view from the interior of the scene. For instance, a section cut of the project showing the floor plan in perspective or the vertical structure of a building. In Blender, we can use several techniques to create section cuts from models, but a new Add-on called CutAway might get the job done in just a few seconds.
The shader has different utilities for both animation and still render, but in architectural visualization, you will benefit from the creation of section cuts along a 3d model. You can create a full model to render with Cycles and later add some perspective section views to improve your presentation.
For artists that never had to deal with Add-ons that included Nodes, it might get confusing at first, but you will find a detailed tutorial showing how to use CutAway shader right at the download page.
In architectural animation, the CutAway shader will help you to create impressive “reveal” transitions. You can place all furniture models at the scene and at the proper time just move the plane up, and all objects will receive a beautiful fade animation appearing at the scene. The problem later will be all rendering necessary to get such animation ready for presentation.
Without such tool, you would have to create the section cuts manually and then animate them by either Shape Keys or Hooks in Blender. Since the Add-on will handle most of the work for creating sections, you will have some spare time to focus on lighting and the overall development of your scene.
The Add-on is free to use and is still in “alpha” release, which means you should use the tool with caution. Always make backups from important files before you try. But, I believe you already have the practice to backup your projects, don't you?
Visit this link to get the source code of CutAway Shader.
Thanks Alan (and Daniel Whiteman at first), it seems very useful!