How can I make an existing mesh appear to be drawn in animation? I have a mesh of a football field that I want to render so that it seems to be drawn onto another plane in an animation. The basic idea, in the end, is that I want to make an animation that shows a football field being created on a barren piece of land, but I first want to figure out how to do this first step of drawing the lines. 

Here's my mesh:

I'd like for it to either start smack in the middle or on one of the corners, from nothing to the mesh here.  

Thanks in advance.
You can use animate the size of another object (e.g. the radius of a cylinder) using keyframes, and then apply a boolean intersect modifier to your mesh.



Step by step


Create a cylinder with the middle in the point where you want the "drawing" to start. Make sure that it's thick enough to cover all the mesh on the Z direction



Scale it down on the X and Y directions hitting S then Shift+Z


Set a keyframe to the current size using I > Scaling. Then move to the end frame, scale it up (again only along X-Y with S and Shift+Z), and set another keyframe (I > Scaling).


Optionally, you can avoid the visualization of a solid cylinder by setting its maximum draw type to wire


Last, select your mesh and add a Boolean modifier, using the Intersect method and your cylinder as the reference object