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Animation basics
After familiarizing yourself with three-dimensional space, you’re ready to start making fun
animations. While there are many factors you have to take into consideration when creating an
animated project, it’s definitely worth taking the time to learn some basic ideas. From there, it
will be easy for you to advance to creating stunning and complex animation sequences. The
Animation Toolbar and its enhanced Timeline provide highly versatile functions for animating
your objects. Brief descriptions of the Animation Toolbar functions are listed below.
•
View: Timeline Toggles between displaying and hiding the Timeline Window in the
workspace.
•
Object List Allows you to select an active object that you can modify from the list
box. The first on the list is always labeled as Group which merges all the objects
and subgroups you’ve added as a single object. Only when you split the text will the
characters be displayed separately, allowing you to work on the objects individually.
•
Properties Menu Lists all of the basic properties of the 3D object. If you have
applied a plug-in effect to the object, this will be listed as well. The Timeline
Control, just to the right of it, shows the timeline and key frames that are related to
the property that you have selected from the list.
•
Timeline Control Allows you to choreograph your animation with key frames. The
top line represents the frame-by-frame position, while the bottom line displays key
frames. Key frames are those frames in which you specify an attribute or behavior
of an object. For plug-in effect timelines, an additional Control Line (in red)
appears between these two lines when you enable Plug-in Mask.
•
Add/Delete Key Frame Lets you add or remove a key frame from the Timeline
Control. Each time you add a key frame, you can change the attributes or behavior
of an object. When you remove a key frame, all attributes associated with that key
frame are also removed.
Plug-in Mask
Number of
Frames
Current
Frame
Frame Rate
Smooth
Motion Path
Properties
Menu
Timeline
Control
Add/Delete
Key Frame
Object
List
View:
Timeline
Reverse
Plug-in
Enable