8

274 Chapter 12: Animation
Track Bar—
Provides quick access to keyframes
and interpolation controls. Can be expanded
for function curve editing. See
Track Bar (page
3–750)
.
Motion Panel—Use this panel to adjust transform
controllers that affect all posit ion, rotation, and
scale animation. S ee
Working with C ontrollers
(page 2–284)
.
Hier ar chy Pan el—Use this panel to adjust all
parameters governing the linkage of two or
more objects. These include inverse kinematics
parameters and pivot point adjustments. S ee
Hierarchy Panel (page 3–816) .
Time Controls—Use these controls to move through
time in the viewport displays. You can move to
any point in time, and play animations in the
viewports. The time controls, documented in
Animation and Time Controls (page 3–759) ,
include:
•
Time slider (page 3–748)
• Auto Key button (page 3–760)
• Set Key buttons (page 3–761)
• Animation playback buttons (page 3–766)
• Current frame field (page 3–767)
• Key Mode toggle (page 3–767)
• Time Configuration button (page 3–768)
To get st a r t e d w i t h a n i m a t i on , se e Using Auto Key
Mode (page 2–274)
.
Usi ng Auto K ey M ode
Startcreatingananimationbyturningonthe
Auto Key button, setting a current time, and
then changing something in your scene. You can
change the position, rotation, or scale of an object,
or change almost any setting or parameter.
When you make a change, a key storing the new
valueforthechangedparameteriscreatedatthe
current time. If that key was the first animation
key created for the parameter, a second animation
key is also created at time 0 to hold the parameter’s
original value.
K eys are not created at time 0 until you create at
least one key at another time. After that, you can
move, delete, and re-create keys at t i me 0.
TurningAutoKeyonhasthefollowingeffect:
• The Auto Key button, the time slider and
the b order of the active viewport turn red to
indicate you are in animation mode.
• Keys are created whenever you transform an
object or change an animatable parameter.
• The time slider sets the time where keys are
created.
To begin animating an object:
1.
Click Auto Key to turn
it on.
2. Drag the time slider
to a t ime other than 0.
3. Do one of the followi
ng:
•Transformanobject
.
• Change an animatable
parameter.
Forexample,ifyouhaveacylinderthathasnot
been animated yet, it has no keys. If you turn on
Auto Key , and at fra
me 20 you rotate the c y linder
90 degrees about its Y axis, rotation keys are
created at frames 0 and 20. The key at frame 0
stores the origin
al orientation of the cylinder,
while the key at frame 20 stores the animated
orientation of 90 degrees. When you play the
animation, the c
ylinder rotates 90 degrees about
its Y axis over 20 frames.
Modeling Withou
t Anima ting
Just as you can animate at any time by tur ning
Auto Key on, you
can also model at any time in
your animation without creating animation keys.