Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 13
Animation
Animation skills are not only for creating explosive visual effects scenes or bringing impossible characters to
life. A solid understanding of basic animation skills can improve productivity, enhance your workflow, and
give you more options in your creative endeavors. Knowing where to start is key to making your first foray
into animation a positive experience. This chapter covers the following:
• Creating keyframes for animation
• Using the Graph Editor
• Setting up motion paths and constraints
• Rendering sequences and composing in After Effects
Creating Keyframes for Animation
At its core,
animation
is the process of creating changes in a scene over time.
Keyframes
are the frames set
by the user. For typical animated motion, these frames represent the key points in time that define motion or
changes. Think of these as the plotted points that define a curve. These can be used in two ways: to define
animated motion (as mentioned) and to set up values for rendering individual frames in succession.
Keyframes can be set on almost any attribute in modo (position, rotation, scale, color, reflectivity, and so
on). This means that almost any attribute can be animated via simple keyframes. To set keyframes on an at-
tribute, animation needs to be enabled. Every attribute that can have keyframes set has gray circles located
to the left of its value field.
Figure 13-1
shows an example of a mesh attribute tab with the keyframe fields
highlighted.
Figure 13-1:
Any attribute with a gray circle can be animated. Click the gray circle to enable animation.
