First Lesson in Animating On Max

Today was our first lesson in the animation techniques used on the software. We learnt the basic skills to animate our machines.We was firstly taught about the interface. The timeline lies at bottom if the screen in frames.Key framing like 2D animation works by setting a key n make a change, max will tween this.

Top tips

When animating, right click and go to object properties, show frozen in grey. (Don’t click in grey) freeze so they do not move.

The Time Slider provides an easy way to move through the frames of an animation. To do this, just drag the Time Slider button in either direction. The Time Slider button is labelled with the current frame number and the total number of frames. The arrow buttons on either side of this button work the same as the Previous and Next Frame (Key) buttons.

Time configuration box. Change speed and how many frames u want to make. Frame rate. NTSC is US generic. Usually 30FPS.Use 30 fps. Start and end times can be set. The timeline will change and accommodate this. Time display, frames or .SMPTE will change to minutes and seconds.

Set Key and Auto Key

Two ways of animating, set key(precise animation) and auto key (multiple changes).The Set Key button offers more control over key creation and sets keys only when you click the Set Key button. It also creates keys only for the key types enabled in the Key Filters dialog box. You can open the Key Filters dialog box, by clicking the Key Filters button. Available key types include All, Position, Rotation, Scale, IK Parameters, Object Parameters, Custom Attributes, Modifiers, Materials, and Other (which allows keys to be set for manipulator values). The Red key means you have set the position. Then to finish set key. To edit speed move the key and drag it backwards. Spreading the keys out makes it slower. Copy keys, click on key and click shift to copy.

Auto Key

Click auto key, use a modifier and click stretch. Set key filter! Don’t forget. Make sure active viewport is checked so you can see your animation.

When the Auto Key button is enabled, every transformation or parameter change creates a key that defines where and how an object should look at that specific frame.

Each frame can hold several different keys, but only one for each type of transform and each parameter. For example, if you move, rotate, scale, and change the Radius parameter for a sphere object with the Auto Key mode enabled, then separate keys are created for position, rotation, scaling, and a parameter change.

Cameras
Cameras present a scene from a particular point of view. Camera objects simulate still-image, motion picture, or video cameras in the real world.

The benefit of cameras is that you can position them anywhere within a scene to offer a custom view. You can open camera views in a view port, and you can also use them to render images or animated sequences.

Free Camera
A Free camera has a single icon to animate. Free cameras are easier to use when the camera's position is animated along a path. The Free camera object offers a view of the area that is directly in front of the camera and is the better choice if the camera will be animated.

Target camera
Put it in the top view port. A Target camera has two icons to animate, the target and the camera. Target cameras always face their target. The camera and the camera target can be animated independently, so target cameras are easier to use when the camera does not move along a path.

Lesson Notes
Need camera view when rendering. Perspective viewport. Don’t look at left viewport. Set left to camera view. Camera 001.Then renders view port.

Path Constraints
Path constraint restricts an object's movement along a spline or at an averaged distance between multiple splines.

Tutorial which I found online for creating a path constraint.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hqS5-2ruoE

Render out animations Notes

Click render set up. Click active time segment. Change output size. Save as AVI FILE. Click Okay for compression set up and click render.

Set to 645 x 480.

My next step will be storyboarding for my 30 second animation.