8
294 Chapter 12: Animation
See
Euler XYZ Rotation Controller (page 2–312)
,
Position XYZ C ontroller (page 2–340)
,and
Scale
XYZ Controller (page 2–355)
.
Controlling Rotation
Below the Transform controller is the Rotation
controller. Rotation is a data type that can use
most of the standard cont rollers such as TCB,
Linear, and Noise.
Rotations in 3D are very complex. Even the
standard controller types behave differently when
used for rotation. The most common way of
calculating rotations in 3D animation uses four
components to define rotation about an arbitrary
axis.Thisisthe
quaternion
method.
The benefits of using quaternion rotation include:
• It produces a direct one-to-one relationship
between the quaternion values and how objects
interactively rotate in the scene.
• Itproducessmootherrotationthanother
methods.
The drawbacks of using quaternion rotation
include:
• Rotationvaluesinkeyinformationcanbe
difficult to understand.
• Quaternion rotation controllers do not display
function curves in Track View — Curve Editor.
For this reason Euler XYZ is now the default
rotation controller assi gned to all objects.
You can use the following controllers only as
rotation controllers.
Smooth R otation
Use
Smooth Rotation (page 2–359)
when you
want rotation to have a smooth and natural
look. Smooth rotation uses nonadjustable
curved interpolation, and has the following
characteristics:
• YoucanmovekeysinTrackViewtochange
timing.
• You can directly rotate objects in the viewpor ts
to change rotation values.
• You cannot display controller or key prop erties,
or function curves.
Euler XY Z Rotation
Use the
Euler XYZ Rotation controller (page
2–312)
when you w ant individual function curve
control for each axis of rotation. Euler XYZ is
a compound controller that combines separate,
single-value float controllers to specify an angle of
rotation about each of the X, Y, and Z axes. Euler
XYZ Rotation is the default controller applied to
all objects.
Euler XYZ is not as smooth as quaternion rotation,
butitistheonlyrotationtypethatyoucanuseto
edit rotation function curves.
Euler angles are well suited for animating
mechanical rotations. They can also be a good
choice for an object in an inverse kinematics chain
becauseIKRotationaljointsaredefinedasEuler
angles. X, Y, and Z function curves displayed by
this controller in Track View represent rotations
in "world" or "parent" space which is the rotation
system used by most 3D animation packages.
Customers upgrading from earlier versions of the
program might find s ome difficulty in adapting
to using Euler XYZ rotation controllers. If you
find yourself experiencing unexpected rotation
behavior, this might be the reason. Reassign TCB
rotation as the default rotation controller and you
will be able to regain your customary workflow.
Controlling Colors
You can animate colors in 3ds Max just l ike most
other parameters. There are two data typ es used
for controlling colors.