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Electric Image Animation System 7 Tutorials
Animation / Motion Path Editing pt. 1
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Subtitles of the Movie (Electric Image Animation System 7 / Animation / Motion Path Editing pt. 1)
This lesson is all about the shape of the motion path in our animation. Let's preview. And we have a new animation of the spaceship coming towards camera in a zigzag fashion. So now we can see that we have four position keyframes. I'm going to turn off the alien landscape for now so that we can see the path of the spaceship more clearly. Let's expand the top view again. Now as I click on each of the keyframe position points, you can see handles tangent to the path line. These handles indicate what kind of path Animator has created. The handles are Bezier Handles so the path type is Bezier. Up in the Animation Menu, we can select Set Path To and see that we have four types of paths available to us in Electric Image. Let's choose Linear. Now we can see in our top view that there is no curved path at all; only straight lines between the keyframe position points. Good for a mechanical or simple animation I suppose. Now back to the Animation Menu and this time I'll choose Natural Cubic. Now we have our curve back but no handles. Natural Cubic rounds the path between the points as much as it can and averages the curve. This may create a path that's more shallow or wider than you really want. It just depends on the proximity of the points along the path to each other. It will produce a very smooth animation though. Hermite creates more tension along the path between points. But both Natural Cubic and Hermite are more difficult to edit precisely because as you can see when I change one of the middle control points, the entire path shape changes. But F Curve is the same as a Bezier Path and is the only path type to have handles at the points. By moving the handles, you can quickly define the exact shape of the path you want. Move one point and the entire path shape doesn't change; just the path that's immediately connected to that point. An important note here; you can not mix path types. You can not have a position keyframe start out as Linear and then switch to F Curve at the next keyframe, for instance. So F Curve creates Bezier-splined motion paths. It's the default and usually the best choice. So we'll leave it set to F Curve. If you want a smooth path, beware of lumps created by the Bezier Handles along the way. Usually want to keep the two handles on the same side of the path. Let's cross the path with the handles at the third keyframe and zoom back the top view and preview. The spaceship hits that third keyframe and makes a jumpy hairpin turn. I'll pause and then scrub through it. Right there; it bumps to the right suddenly. We can make sharp changes but they should look as natural as possible. So let's shrink both sides of the handles but keep them on the same side of the path like this and preview. No bump; much better. But let's say we really do want a straight line between points on the path. We can't use the Linear Path Type without destroying the rest of the curve so what we have to do is break the path handles. Hold down both the Command and Option Keys and drag one of the handles. I've broken the see-saw of the Bezier Handles so that they operate independently. In this way we can have a very sharp angle in the path. Let's do the same to its neighbor and align the broken handle so that the path in between becomes straight. You may have to do this in more than one World View. There. Let's preview. Now we have a linear path in the middle of our curved path, all done with the F Curve Path Type. If you want to unbreak a Bezier Handle, then hold down the Command Key and click and drag on the handle. Back to normal.
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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