Electric Image Animation System 7 Tutorials
Animation / Intro to Keyframes pt. 1
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Subtitles of the Movie (Electric Image Animation System 7 / Animation / Intro to Keyframes pt. 1)
We've examined tools like textures, cameras, everything we need to set up our scene. You know what they say; lights, camera, action! Now we need to get things moving. In this chapter we're concentrating on animation. The Project Window is essential to accessing the attributes of our scene and changing them over time. In the Timeline Data Section, we see that every object in our scene starts off with one keyframe; that small diamond next to its name here on the right. Also, every object in the Project Window has a disclosure triangle next to its name on the left. This means that we have access to any aspect of our models, cameras, lights, materials, anything and we can animate them. Just click once on the triangle next to a camera and we see its position and lens attributes. Click on that triangle again to hide these attributes. Same thing for a light; all of its parameters come into view. And in this scene we have a spaceship flying over an alien landscape. Click on the triangle next to the word Spaceship Hull and we see Visibility, X-Form and Material Channels. Next to those attributes are more disclosure triangles. Click on the one next to X-Form and we get the Position, Rotation and Scale Channels. In the left-most column next to the names of the channel are a stack of green triangles. These green triangles indicate that the channels are ready to be animated. Let's move the time thumb a bit and grab the Rotate Tool and spin our ship around. Now let's click the Preview Button in the Camera Window. The ship doesn't move. And we can see in the Project Window that we have no new keyframes; no new diamonds. You must enable the animation for the entire object before any channels can be animated. You do this by making sure you have the model you want to be animated selected, then go up to the Menu Bar and the Animation Menu and select Enable Animation. This will activate the object to be animated. Simpler still, you can just click the green triangle on or off to enable animation or delete the animation for that object. Now let's rotate our ship. A keyframe has been added with a bar connecting it to the first keyframe. Let's preview. Yes, we now have animation. Animator interpolates the change from the one set of values it sees in the first keyframe to the second set in this new keyframe. It did all the in-betweening for us. Click anywhere to stop the preview. So it's important for me to point out once you've enabled animation for any object, any change to that object will be automatically recorded as a keyframe. As you can see, Animator has created keyframes for every attribute of our object. But you can also toggle off animation for any of these channels to prevent creating a keyframe. Let's say you know you never want to animate the material of your model. You don't want to accidentally set a keyframe for the material so just switch off the green triangle next to the word Material. Now if you need to make a change to the model's material, it will affect the look of your model for your entire animation and not just around the time you're at. A keyframe can also be created manually. Drag the time thumb ahead in time. Then go to the Animation Menu and select Add Keyframe or Command K. This will create a new keyframe with the values of the previous keyframe. This effectively creates a hold in your animation. I'll show you another way to duplicate keyframes. Click on a keyframe in your timeline once. Hold down a Shift Key and click on another keyframe. Now both are selected. Next hold down the Option Key and drag to the right past the third keyframe. Now you have duplicates of those keyframes. Let's preview. The ship spins, holds, then spins back and spins forward again. This is once simple way to create a repeating or oscillating animation.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Electric Image Animation System 7 |
| Author: | Scott Simmons |
| SKU: | 33996 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-45-9 |
| Release Date: | 2009-06-01 |
| Duration: | 8 hrs / 102 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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