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There is also nothing to stop you from 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 Click Animation tab ➤ Create panel ➤ Record
.
To the far right of the Animation tab, notice that the Recording panel displays.
2 Navigate around in the Scene View 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.
3 At any point during the navigation, click Animation tab ➤ Recording panel ➤ Pause
.
This will pause the recording while you maneuver into a new position. To continue recording the viewpoint
animation, click Pause again.
The resulting viewpoint animation will contain a “
cut” on page 300 for the duration of the pause.
4 When finished, click Animation tab ➤ Recording panel ➤ Stop .
The animation is saved automatically in the Saved Viewpoints window (click View tab ➤ Workspace panel
➤ Windows drop-down ➤ Saved Viewpoints). Your new viewpoint animation is called “AnimationX”,
where “X” is the latest available number. 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 list on the Playback panel of the Animation tab.
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 necessary, display the Saved Viewpoints window (click View tab ➤ Workspace panel ➤ Windows
drop-down ➤ Saved Viewpoints).
2 Right-click the Saved Viewpoints window and select Add Animation.
A new viewpoint animation is created, called “AnimationX”, where “X” is the latest available number. The
name will be editable at this point if you want to name it yourself. There will be no plus sign next to the
new viewpoint animation because it is empty.
3 Navigate to a position in the model you would like to add to your animation and save the new location as
a viewpoint. (Right-click the Saved Viewpoints window and select Save Viewpoint.) Repeat this step as
desired. Each viewpoint will become a frame for the animation. The more frames you have, the smoother
and more predictable the viewpoint animation will be. See “Save Viewpoints” on page 283 for more
information on creating viewpoints.
4 When you have all required viewpoints, 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.
300 | Chapter 10 Record and Play Animations