I have these curves I am using via a Illustrator file, then blasts to separate my individual parts. I would like to carve each part out of a box/plate to have a sort of plasma cutting effect. Where the cut is wide enough to let light shines through when back lighting, enviorment and texturing are aplied.

Similar to this except the environment and back lighting would provide the light, the sheet being cut would be thick enough to produce an object that would then fall etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCZUWubBqeY [www.youtube.com]

The video below is my actual first hack at this.

I am just key framing two different parts of the curve with a carve and added a polyextrude for some thickness but I'm not sure where to go from here to allow this process to cut out of, well.. anything.

Or maybe and probably there is a better way?

Thank you in advance