Animated digital clock for Blender

Felt the need to take a break from graphics work and do more Blender. I should finish at least the next 5 backgrounds for Nibbles soon. Being completely honest, I haven't seen a lot of excitement for the game, despite it being the first full game I actually make from scratch and get to finish... having patrons pull out with the "creator isn't as active as expected" survey is a little meh.

Anyway I've been improving my room scene which I plan to use in a few short animations. One of the things that was missing was my digital clock, which I've been holding off of since I wanted to actually make it functional. Blender doesn't offer you an easy builtin choice, as with most automation there are multiple approaches and each requires being smart about it. I went with one based on material attributes.

A single bone is used to control the time by default, position 0 represents hour 0:00 and position 1 is 24:00, it can be animated freely to sync with the sun in the world material. The dial is defined as one object and instanced multiple times for each number, every instance uses an integer property to define the number being displayed, drivers control the value of each one: Each material emits light based on which digit the combination represents, a node group is used to customize the 7 lines for the right combinations.

In the included model the digits are 2D meshes used on a curved display: You can easily remodel it to suit your needs... for instance to make the hour a 3D hologram, or have the material change color instead of controlling the intensity. For realism lines that are off still emit a tiny amount of light. Designed to work in both Eevee and Cycles, the display will realistically cast light with both engines so this should look nice in dark rooms.

https://blendswap.com/blend/30385

You can also get the Blend here once it's been approved. As a fun reward for patrons only, I included two photos of the real clock and my bed stand for comparison to the replica and the 3D scene I'm using.