Intermediate Bryce 5 - Lesson One, Animation Basics: Page Two

This is page 2. If you haven't finished page 1, please do so before starting this
page.

Rotate the Cube at the Last Frame Cube is unrotated for the First Frame
Try this. Move the Scrubber back to the end of the animation, hold down the
Command/Ctrl key to get the rotation handles, and rotate the cube on any axis. Now
use the Scrubber to move back to the beginning of the animation. You will notice
that the cube straightens back out, so that it is in the upright position again for
the first keyframe.

Remember this, because it will save you untold grief.

Whenever you are making any changes in a picture that is animated, look first to
see where you are in time.

This is important, because unless you are trying to animate something, you must be
in the first frame. If you aren't, then your change will be animated if you are
using Auto Key, and may be lost if you are not.

(When Auto Key is disabled, any changes made to something that has keyframes are
lost if a new keyframe isn't made at that point in time. However, any changes to
things without keyframes are present for the duration.)

Of course, if you are changing something that has already been animated, like the
ball, you will have to change it for every keyframe where you want that change to
be, or remove the keyframes that animate that particular feature. We'll get to that
later.

Frame Zero; no rotation on second cube 3 Seconds, 5 Frames; rotation on second

cube
Try this. Make sure that Auto Key is enabled. Move the scrubber back to frame 0,
and create a new cube. Move the scrubber towards the end of the animation, and
rotate that cube. Play the animation, or simply move the scrubber manually from the
start to the finish. You will notice that the cube rotates, even though there is no
trajectory.

Trajectories are formed only when the position of an object changes.

Move at Frame Zero 3 Seconds, 5 Frames; move is not animated

Make sure Auto Key is still enabled, move the scrubber back to frame zero, and move
the cube someplace else. Now run the animation. You will notice that the cube
doesn't move, but it does rotate. As long as you move it at frame zero, you can put
it anyplace you want, and it will stay there for the whole animation.

This is because Bryce makes keyframes only for those channels that show change
after frame zero. A channel is an attribute that can be animated. Position,
Rotation, Scale, Sheer, etc. each have their own channels. (Materials have lots of
channels.) Since there was no change in the Position channel, there is no keyframe,
and no animation. (Frame zero is constantly updated, as long as you have Auto Key
enabled.)

Keyframes can be eliminated; but it's time consuming if you have a lot of them. If
you are going to be using Auto Key, it's better to get in the habit of simply
watching where you are in time before you change anything.
Frame Zero; change made but no Keyframe created. Frame Zero; animation is
unchanged, change in position is simply lost.
Try this. Disable Auto Key, move your scrubber, and change something. Now play the
animation from beginning to end. Your change has disappeared. No keyframe, no
change.

Add a Keyframe Trajectory Appears

Leave Auto Key disabled, select the second cube, and move the scrubber to a place
on the timeline before you applied the rotation. (The easiest way is to hit Shift
and the comma or period key (< or >) to move to the appropriate keyframe, and back
up using the comma key.) Change the position of the cube. Now, click on the plus
sign to the left of the button with the key on it. A pop-up menu appears with
Camera, Sky and Sun on the Top, and Cube 2 on the bottom. These are the things you
can make a keyframe for.

Choose Cube 2. Notice that you can choose to make a Keyframe for "All Timelines" or
for only the position, rotation, etc. Choose "Position." The trajectory appears,
and the key turns yellow to show there is a Keyframe there.

Remove the Keyframe Rotation Disappears

Play the animation. Notice that the cube slowly rotates as it moves. Both keyframes
are still active. Now, advance to the keyframe with the rotation. The key should be
yellow, to show that there is a keyframe there. Click on the minus sign to the
right of the Key icon. Once again, you get the menu, but this time the controls for
the Camera etc. are dimmed because there are no keyframes there to remove.

Choose Cube 2, and you will see that you have a choice of All Timelines, Rotation,
Scale or Shear. Only Keyframes that exist can be removed individually, and the only
thing that you changed here was rotation. (Scale and Shear always go with Rotation.
Remember that when you are adding keyframes.) Click on All Timelines, to eliminate
them all in one step, and you will see the Key go from yellow to white, to show
there is no longer a Keyframe there.

Move the scrubber back to Frame Zero, and play the animation. Notice that this
time, although the cube moves, it no longer rotates. That keyframe is gone, and
where there is no keyframe, there is no change.

Alright. There are just a few things left on the Animation controls.

To the far left, you will see a group of six white lozenges on a gray bar. Those
are memory dots, and they work exactly the same way they do everywhere else in
Bryce. These control your position on the timeline. Move the scrubber, click on one
of the white dots to turn it blue, and move the scrubber again. Click on the blue
dot, and you will return to the exact moment in time where you were when you first
clicked there. (Well, on the timeline in Bryce, anyway.) Option/Alt click to clear
them, as always.

To the right of the Keyframe buttons is a button that looks like it has a picture
of a wave crossing a line on it. (It's not really a sideways 8.) Click on that, and
it will take you into the Advanced Motion Lab. (You knew there had to be a lab
connected with animation somehow, didn't you?) We aren't going to be exploring it
this week, so if you went there, click on the crooked arrow in the bottom right
hand corner to leave it and return to your normal Bryce window.
To the right of that is the Flippy Triangle that will give you the Animation
Options. The first of those, Auto-Key, we've already worked with.

Below that, you can choose how many ticker marks are displayed, what the Play Mode
is, and whether your Time Display will show frames or SMPTE.

Ticker marks are the little white lines. There are a number of choices for how many
frames each one will represent. (This becomes more important in longer animations,
where too many can be confusing.)

There are three Play Modes to choose from. Once, of course, will play the wireframe
preview one time. Repeat will play it all the way through from beginning to end,
over and over until you stop it. Pendulum will play it from the beginning to the
end, backwards to the beginning, to the end again, and so on until you click
anywhere on the screen to make it quit.

SMPTE will display the time and frames, and Frame Count will just display the
frames, as always.

You might want to play with all of these for a few minutes to acquaint yourself
with them.

Above that, tucked up right under the working window, you will see a series of tiny
vertical bars that start very small, and get taller. That is the tool to scale the
timeline. If you click on it, it will get white. Drag, and you will see the tick
marks spread out or condense. They are still showing the same amount of time, but
you are essentially zooming in and out of the line. This allows you to pick out
single frames very easily, or to move over a longer animation with relative ease.

Finally, double click the scrubber itself. The Animation Setup dialog will open.
It will tell you exactly what frame the scrubber is currently on, how many frames
per second your animation is set for, and how long your animation is going to run,
given that rate.

All of these are text boxes, and you can enter numbers into them. You move from
field to field by hitting the Tab key.