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1052 Chapter 14: character studio
Automatic Tr ansitions
When you create a script, default transitions are
used b etween the clips. Default t r ansitions use
minimum motion loss and are quick to compute.
However, the best quality transitions are the
optimized transitions. Once the Transition Editor
is open, the first thing to try, before manual
editing, are the optimized transitions (upper-right
corner of the dialog).
Length (Tr ansition Duration)
Set the duration of a transition in the Length field.
A value of 10, for example, creates a transition
of 10 frames between the source and destination
clips. During the period of transition, the velocity
of the source clip is interpolated to the velocity of
the destination clip. If the transition takes place at
the last frame of the source clip and the first frame
of the destination clip, and Length is set to 10, then
thelastframeofthesourceclipisinterpolatedwith
the first 10 frames of the dest ination clip.
Editing Transitions M anually (Ghosts)
Manually setting the Start Frame for the source
and destination clips offers the most control.
Unwanted motion in either clip can be avoided
and judging the best Start Frames for both clips is
left to you.
The Ghost area Frame spinners allow you to v iew
andscrubthesourceanddestinationclipsby
displaying stick fig ures (g hosts); yellow and red
stick figures represent the source and destination
clips. When a suitable Start Frame is located for
both clips, use Set Start Frame in the Ghost area to
copy the Frame values to the Start Frame fields in
theSourceandDestinationClipareas.
Scrubbing the time slider over the transition
period enables you to view the biped’s transition
from the yellow stick figure (source) to the red
stick figure (destination).
Other Tr ansition Editor Fea tures
Rolling and Fixed specify whether a clip is rolling
(in mot ion) or fixed (single fr ame) during the
transition. Change the direction of t he destination
clip using the Angle field.
Other parameters in the Transition Editor allow
you to create and name new transitions, scroll
through the saved transitions, jump to the
transition-starting frame, set automat ic transition
parameters, and go to the next transition in the
script
All transitions and their attributes are saved with
a .mfe file.
See Customizing Transitions (page 2–1034) to
manually and automatically customize transitions.
Interfa ce
Probability—Set a probability value for random
transitions. This is used by Create Random
Motion when a random script is generated.
Lengt h—Sets the number of frames for the
duration of the transition.
Transitions are calculated by matching velocities
inbothclips.Smoothoutabruptvelocitychanges
using longer transitions.