Electric Image Animation System 7 Tutorials
Animation / Intro to the Function Curve Editor pt. 1
Visitors to VTC.com will be able to view all introductory videos for each training course.
Free Trial Members will gain access to first three chapters for each training course.
Full Access Members have full access to VTC.com�s entire library of video tutorials.
Learn More
Subtitles of the Movie (Electric Image Animation System 7 / Animation / Intro to the Function Curve Editor pt. 1)
Now that we've seen how to edit the shape of our animation through space, let's see if we can edit and refine our animation through time. This means editing the velocity of our objects as they animate and that means we need a graph called the Function Curve Editor or FCE for short. We can open the FCE Window by going up to the Menu Bar, select Animation and then select Function Curve Editor or press Command Y. What opens is a new window with a list of channels on the left and a graph windowpane on the right. The Mini Tools on the top affect the appearance of the graph and offer editing tools for controlling the curve of that function of the object's animation. Right now we have no curves and nothing to graph. So how this works is that you have to tell the Function Curve Editor what channel you want to examine and to add a channel you need to use the Project Window. This is where having a two-monitor setup comes in handy. But for these tutorials, I'm using one. So bear with me as I move things around from time to time. Let's go up to our Project Window and twirl down the Spaceship Hull Attributes. Now, I'll just double click on the X-Form and you get an alert; do we want to remove the existing velocity controls? No, we want to edit them. So click No and all of those channels get loaded into the FCE. There's no modifier key. Just double click on the channel you want to load and it appears on the FCE. So on your left we have the column listing all of the channels. On the right we have a graph that shows the animation of those channels. Your curves may be larger than fits in the graph so hold down the Option Key and click the Magnifying Glass in the bottom right corner and just like any other window, the contents shrink to fit. Each attribute and its curve is color coded. You can turn off your viewing of any channel by click on its Visible Button on the left. Option Click on the Visible Button to turn off the display for everything below it too, just like in the Project Window. If you have a lot of graphs, then organization is key. Click on the Folder Icon in the FCE's Mini Toolbar and a new folder appears in the list. Select it and press Return to name it. Then you can drag select whatever channel or channels you want and place them into it. Let's focus on the Position Channel and its curve. I'll select, let me drag open the column more by dragging the dividing line in between the panes. Velocity of Position, Spaceship Hull, X-Form. But instead of turning off the visibility for the other curves, I can solo the visibility of the position curve by clicking on this button; Display Other Paths. Let's Zoom to Fit. AT the top of the graph is a time thumb. Hold down the Option Key and drag and then we can scrub through the animation just like we can in the Project Window. So the horizontal divisions of this graph indicate the increase of time. The vertical divisions indicate the increase of velocity. Now please notice; this is a velocity graph, not a value graph. So you're seeing speed increase or decrease over time, not distance in world units. So if we want the spaceship to slow down or speed up, we can just drag the points in the graph up or down without changing the timing of the keyframes these points represent. You have Bezier Handles so you can bias the velocity if you want. If the curve goes below zero, it turns red but it Animator, this means the velocity is still zero, not reversed as it is in some other applications. Of course, you can also mov the points left or right to change the keyframe's positions in time.
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 |
VTC Sign up & Benefits
- Unlimited Access
- 81,350 Video Tutorials (14,200 free)
- Video Available as Flash or QuickTime
- Over 715 Courses
- $30 for One Month Access
- Multi-User Discounts Available
