Miscellaneous Animation Hints

Various contributors

If there's is one great weakness in Truespace, it is surely in its animation controls. I think every experienced Truespace user eventually pulls out his own hair trying to get the keyframer to perform the way he thinks it should. Caligari truly needs to re-design this whole animation thing in a future release. But until then we have to live with it. So....

Here's are a collection of tips for getting control of the animation functions in Truespace. Most of these tips end up being critical for accomplishing certain tasks, but they are neither obvious nor well-documented. Good luck! ;-)

• Most folks like to work with AutoRecord off (accessed by right-clicking on the record button). This means you have to manually press the record button to record keyframes, but you won't create keyframes unintentionally either.
• Remember that keyframes are only recorded for the currently active tool. So if you have AutoRecord off, and you want to animate an object both moving and rotating, you'll need to record the move keyframe with the move-object tool active before doing the rotation. Then do the rotation and record its key with the rotate-object tool active.
• I've found, however, that I prefer to have AutoRecord on when animating complex hierarchical and articulated objects like hands. Its nice to be a able to rotate each finger joint into place without having to hit the record button every time before moving on to the next joint.
• Start your keyframing at frame 1, not frame 0. Lot's of wierd problems occur if you don't.
• Its virtually unanimous: Leave the keyframe monitor off. It will cause unpredictable behavior and generally make your life a living hell. There are some exceptions though....
• One exception to the "Keyframe Monitor Off" rule, is that at the very beginning of an animation session, you'll want to disable look-at/look-ahead keyframes using the keyframe monitor. Otherwise, TS will often inadvertently record a look-at key when you don't want it to. If you're having problems getting an object rotation key to "stick", then a look-at/look-ahead key has probably been accidently recorded. So, disable look-at/look-ahead keys first thing when starting an animation, then dismiss the keyframe monitor.
• Its a very good idea to localize your rotation keys using the animation control panel. In fact, this is a good idea for all object actions. That way, you can delete/extend/etc them individually.
• If you create an object for the purpose of animating it, make certain you visually set the axis upon its creation. If the axis is out-of-whack, you'll have hell trying to animate any rotations for it. Worse, it will be difficult or impossible to fix its axis if you've applied any other animation to the object.
• If you want to move an object and its animation path, you should make the objects path visible before you move it (by clicking on the path button). If you move an object without the path visible, you only move the keyframe you're at, but if you move it while the path is visible, you move the whole path at the same time. The same principle holds true for rotating objects and their paths as well.
• Always record non-object keyframes (eg. changing background color or bitmap, raytrace on/off, etc.) in "scene" mode. You access the scene/object mode toggles by right-clicking on the play button.
• To animate texture and color changes, you have to use the Paint Over Existing Material tool, not the Paint Object tool. Also, you must activate Auto-Record for material animation keyframes to record.
• The TS keyframer is so quirky that you should get in the habit of always making backup copies of scenes (save as scene1.scn) before major tweaking. Then if you really get screwed up, you can abandon the tweakage and start over.

Selecting Single Spline Points on an Animation Path

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

PROBLEM: I am trying to alter the spline parameters (continuity/bias/tension) for one of the spline points (at a keyframe). The problem is, I am having difficult selecting the appropriate spline point because more than one keyframe exists at the same position (X,Y,Z). Therefore, I can NOT use the mouse to select the appropriate spline point. Is there another way to select a spline point based on keyframe/frame number? I need to change the single spline point from sharp to smooth and cannot select the appropriate point with the mouse.

If you're making an animation spline, you can set the spline parameters for each point by using the Animation Tool to jump between keyframes, by entering the keyframe number of the frame textfield. Then you can set the spline parameters for the selected keyframe only. The critical thing is to hide the spline/path while you do this, or else you'll have to select each keyframe with the mouse.

Animating Waves

Philip D. Thorn, pthorn@eri.erinet.com

Make a large cube and scale it fairly small in the Z axis. Pick the deformation lattice and subdivide it many times in the X and Y direction. Make sure you have DynamicDivision on and pull up points randomly to make your wave peaks. Once you are saatisfied with the general shape apply a water-like material with a subtle bump map.

Now the Wave object can be animated by pulling it's lattice in X or Y directions to move the wave crests over the object.

Note: if this is to be a looping animation or a fairly long one you will want to repeat the pattern of pulled-up vertices at least once so the lattice can be moved half the distance and a loop is made.

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

Using tS I have got quite good results using only bump maps on top of a large box. You can use the orange.tab that comes with tS if you stretch it a lot in one direction, and possibly compress it in the other. To get a bit more realistic waves you should make your own bitmap for the bumpmaps, preferably tileable.

For closeups you have to model the surface of the water as well. You can select the upper face of a box and then subdivide than several times. Then you can put a deformation lattice on this form. Then you just pull up where you want the wavetops to be. In combination with bump maps and a reflective surface you can get quite convincing waves. Animating it convincingly is a bit more difficult though... A quick solution for a not-so-close sea is to just move it back and forth and set a couple of keyframes. Then can make this a repeating action. It makes kind of a glittering wavy effect.

Animating Events at Regular Intervals

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

If you have an animation in which certain events occur at regular, whole-number intervals such as 1/2/2/4/1 seconds or whatever, follow this easier-on-your-brain procedure: Select the object. Using the Animation Tool, start with the first frame (ie. frame 0) and setup the initial size/position/rotation. Then go to the frame numbers that represent the whole-number intervals (as in our example above: 0 (start), 1 (one), 3 (one+2), 5, 9, 10) and set up the desired action for each one. Finally, bring up the Animation Project Window and click/drag the animation "line" to the desired length. Most of you probably already knew that but it sure is easier than calculating the frame numbers with respect to the number of frames per second, when your events occur, etc.

Copying Animation Paths to Other Objects

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

You can copy and paste animation paths from objects to other objects via the Path Library. Simply:

• select your animated object
• click on Path
• copy that path to the Path Library
• (click on the selection arrow)
• click on your other object
• click on Path
• click on your anim path from the Path Library
• and Voila !

The same animation path will be applied to the new object starting from the current location of that object.

You can also make an animation path into a spline polygon also via the Path Library. This could be used to render a pedestal or column upon which the object would travel around the perimeter.

Deleting Keyframes

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

If you want to quickly and easily remove all the animation (ie. keyframes, etc) from an object, simply open up the Animation Project Window and use the "right-click & drag" trick to delete the object's action bar (the black trapezoid).

Tunnel Run Animations

Bruce G. Vryenhoek, bvryen@telerama.lm.com

If anybody wants to try one of those "going-down-a-tube-into-Tron-space" animation sequences:

• Select or create a generic object. Normalize it's Location.
• Manually draw a new Spline Path for the object. This should probably be a closed Spline Path, in case you want to loop the animation.
• Save this Path.
• Delete the generic object
• Create a circle polygon and subtract another circle from it's center. Use this as your extrusion template. Normalize it's Location. I rotated this object 90 degrees around the Y-axis so that the extrusion template was perpendicular to the extrusion path.
• Choose the macro extrusion tool and pick the previously saved path. Do the extrusion. Make sure the Bend option is on, so that the extrusion template rotates as it moves.
• Once the "tunnel" is complete, create a camera and normalize it's Location.
• Select the same path you used for the extrusion and use it on the camera. Set the Look Ahead setting for the camera, making sure the Bank switch is on.
• Hopefully at this point, the tunnel and the camera's path will have the same shape, such that the camera will travel all the way through the tunnel without passing through any of it's walls.

If you want to do a chase plane type of thing, create another object that you want to follow through the tunnel and apply the camera's spline path to the new object. Offset the start time of the camera in the Project window so that it lags behind the object it is following.

BTW-In order to get a decent texture for the tunnel walls, I found that the number of V repetitions should be many times more than the number of U repetitions. Experiment with whatever textures you have.

Orbit Animations

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

Just a little tip if you want to make an object orbiting around a globe, or something similar. I've been using this technique a lot when moving something on the surface of a sphere, like a car on a globe. It's difficult to do it if you try to move it manually, as it very easily either disappears inside the sphere, or it leaves the surface and starts flying around. The way I'm doing this is that I'm using rotation instead of moving.

• Start with a sphere. Make sure its center is at 0,0,0.
• Click normalize location to move it to the center of the world.
• Make your object, and move it to the top of the sphere, or at the distance from the surface you want it to "orbit" in.
• Click the Axis icon.
• Click Normalize location when the axis are shown.
• Click Axis Icon again.

That's all.

Now you can move the object around the surface of the sphere by rotating it around the X or/and Y axis. Rotation around the Z axis rotates it like with a normal rotation.

This offset axis technique is also helpful if you want to make a "custom" sphere, consisting of separate objects instead of a single faceted surface:

• Select/make an object, move it away from the world center the distance you want the radius to be in your new "sphere".
• Move the axis to the world center as decribed above.

Now you can copy and rotate the new objects, and they will all be located on the surface of the "sphere".

Animating Spotlights

Ian Firth, IanFirthDS@aol.com

Click the Axes tool and move the axis of the light to the tip. Then rotate the light. Don't rotate or move the light from the lights "Camera" window, if you are doing so.

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

I suggest you place the spot and set an animation path. Key frame (record) the starting position. Then place a window in the upper part of the screen, select the spot (white) then go to camera view in the small window. Using the object rotate tool move the light around the stage a little ways. Set another key, and move it some more, set a frame....you get the idea. You can see where it's going to shine through the little window. trueSpace will properly tween the movement for you. It looks very neat to do this if you build a stage with curtains. Suggest you place a few colored omni lights at the base of curtains for effect.

Making Objects Appear or Disappear

Its a limitation of Truespace that all objects in an animation must exist for the entire animation. In practice therefore, objects that need to appear or be removed during the course of an animation are typically moved into or out of the camera's view. Here are some tips to accomplish that.

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

Make a move keyframe for the frame just before the object is to disappear. Set Grid Snap on, with a high value for Z. Move to the next frame, and move the object out of sight along the world Z axis, or wherever it is out of sight. Using the grid snap allows you to use the same technique to have objects suddenly reappear too, in the same location. You might have to adjust the spline path parameters to make the movement straight.

Mark Koehler, mkoehler@ix.netcom.com

There are a couple methods to accomplish the same feat:

1. Move the object out of view at the point of destruction.
2. Render the animation in two passes. One before the missile disappears and one after. Then put the two pieces together using VidEdit, Premiere, etc.

Automatic Object Banking

Truespace has the ability to make an object "lean into" a turn as it moves, like an airplane.

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

How do you do it?

You load/create your object and a spline path for it to follow. Then you left-click on Look-Ahead (to enable it) and right-click on it (to display the settings). In the resulting panel, you can change the Tension (basically, how close the direction of the object parallels that of the path -- follow it exactly or look slightly further ahead in anticipation), Bias (how much the object's direction will ease in and out of curves), and Bank (the amount of 'roll' on curves).

What aspects of the motion can you define?

Add to the above all the spline-path controls (movement, rotation, scaling, tension, continuity, bias, etc) and there's not much you can't define.

Can you define the degree of banking?

Yes. By keyframing rotations along the path. With the bank setting, you tell it how 'bank-able' this object is and trueSpace handles the rest. After a few test runs, you soon get used to what values produce how much banking. As you know, jets bank different amounts depending on the type of turn (abrupt versus long and drawn-out) and this is what TS handles automagically.

Can you adjust the banking motion for each individual curve along a path, or is it just one setting that applies itself uniformly to the entire path?

Currently, the look-ahead feature (and the related settings) apply to the entire path. However, as alluded to above, there's really no need to manually set the bank for each curve. Of course, if you want to, you still can but this would be where you would define rotation keyframes. TrueSpace gives you the option of doing either (or both). And, TS2.0 can keyframe 'look-ahead' so it could be enabled or disabled for certain curves or for any part of the animation.

Cut-away Animations

David Sieks, dsieks@arnarb.harvard.edu

To animate a cut-away object (eg. a engine cut in half to reveal the piston churning):

• Copy your object, then use boolean subtract to form the cut-away. This leaves you with 2 versions of your object: one whole, one cut.
• Now copy the cut object.
• Subtract the cut object from the whole object: all that remains is the cut-away section.
• So now you've got 2 objects that fit together like a puzzle to (apparently) form a whole object. If you haven't moved anything it should look pretty much seamless.

You can animate these interlocking objects any number of ways to reveal the cut-away: either have the cut-away section float off, or make it suddenly disappear by moving it far off-camera in one frame, or animate surface materials so that it fades to transparency.