2010

Once a viewpoint animation is recorded, you can edit it to set the duration, the type of smoothing and whether
it loops or not.
There is also nothing to stop you copying viewpoint animations (hold down the CTRL key when dragging an
animation on the Saved Viewpoints window), dragging frames off the animation into a blank space on the Saved
Viewpoints window to remove them from the viewpoint animation, editing individual frames attributes, inserting
cuts or dragging other viewpoints or viewpoint animations onto the existing one, to continue developing your
animations.
Animation Cuts (Pauses)
Cuts in a viewpoint animation are simply points where the camera pauses for a while. They are inserted
automatically when you click Pause during the interactive recording of a viewpoint animation, or you can insert
them manually into an existing viewpoint animation.
To create a viewpoint animation in real time
1 If the Animation toolbar is not displayed, right-click anywhere in the toolbar area of the screen, and click
Animation on the shortcut menu.
2 Click the Record button
on the Animation toolbar.
3 Navigate around in the Scene Area while Autodesk Navisworks records your movement. You can even move
the section planes through the model during your navigation, and this will be recorded into the viewpoint
animation too.
4 At any point during the navigation, you can click the Pause button
. This will pause the recording while
you maneuver into a new position. Click the Pause button again to continue recording the viewpoint
animation. The resulting viewpoint animation will contain a “cut” on page 252 for the duration of the pause.
5 When finished, click the Stop button
.
6 If the Saved Viewpoints window is not displayed, click View ➤ Control Bars ➤ Saved Viewpoints. This is
where your new viewpoint animation called "AnimationX", where 'X' is the latest available number, is added
to. The name will be editable at this point if you want to name it yourself. This viewpoint animation will
also become the current active animation in the Available Animations drop-down box on the Animation
toolbar.
While the above method is useful for creating quick viewpoint animations on the fly, sometimes you need more
control over the viewpoint camera. To do this in Autodesk Navisworks, you need to set up several viewpoints
and add them to an empty viewpoint animation. When playing back the animation, Autodesk Navisworks will
then interpolate between these viewpoints.
To create an animation frame by frame
1 If the Saved Viewpoints window is not already displayed, click View ➤ Control Bars ➤ Saved Viewpoints.
2 Right-click the Saved Viewpoints window, and click Add Animation on the shortcut menu.
A new viewpoint animation called "AnimationX", where 'X' is the latest available number, will be added to
the Saved Viewpoints window. The name will be editable at this point if you want to name it yourself. There
will be no plus sign next to the viewpoint animation, showing that the viewpoint animation is indeed
empty.
3 Create the viewpoints where you want the camera to move through during the animation and save these
on the Saved Viewpoints window. They will become the frames for the animation. The more frames you
have, the smoother and more predictable the viewpoint animation will be. See “
Save Viewpoints” on page
240 for more information on creating viewpoints.
4 When you have all required viewpoints, simply drag them onto the empty viewpoint animation you just
created. You can drag them on one-by-one, or you can select multiple viewpoints using the CTRL and SHIFT
keyboard keys and drag several on at once. If you drop them onto the viewpoint animation icon itself, then
252 | Chapter 10 Record and Play Animations