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Animating Objects

In this chapter you'll learn how to build a simple animated logo, displaying call letters spinning around a planet.

In this Chapter

You'll learn about:

animating superior and inferior objects

transforming an object by moving its origin

animating a superior object

saving a view

animating a single frame

changing the script length

This chapter describes how to animate superior and inferior objects and how to work with changing objects' origins. (This should help you better understand the difference between a body and an object).

Setting Up Your Animation

When you're building an animation, even a simple one, it's a good idea to spend a little time before you start, figuring out exactly what you want to do.

You need to determine which types of elements are going to be animated, how you want them to move (or change), then finally, how to set those objects up properly so that they behave in the manner you expect when you animate them.

In this example, suppose you've been given the task of animating a set of call letters, like those for a radio or television station, orbiting around a globe.

Creating the Elements

If you're working with 3D objects, then you're going to create your elements in N-Geometry. First, let's create a set of call letters that we're going to animate.

In N-Geometry:

1. (CLICK-L) on GeoMenus>New Object>Text.

Enter the call letters in the Character(s) text edit box, and select a font using (CLICK-L) on Font>New.

Figure 3.1 Creating text characters in N-Geometry

Your letters should appear in the N-Geometry window:

Figure 3.2 Created text

2. (CLICK-L) on objects in the element sensitivity menu.

When you create a string of text, the individual letters are grouped as inferior objects to the "word" object group.

Figure 3.3 Selecting the text object

3. (SHIFT-L) on the word object, then (CLICK-M) on Home.

This makes the origin of all inferior objects (the letters) the same as the superior object (the word):

Figure 3.4 Initializing the home position of the inferior objects

4. (SHIFT-L) on the bodies in the element sensitivity menu.

Remember that an object consists of a transformation matrix and a body. You transform (rotate, scale, & rotate) objects in N-Geometry.
Earlier, we worked with our letter objects. Now, we'll modify the letter bodies so that when we rotate the object, we'll see the correct animation.

5. (SHIFT-L) on the letter W, then (CTRL-L) on Axis Move>Z.

Enter a distance of 15 in the dialog box that appears.

Figure 3.5 Axis Move the body of the letter forward along the Z axis

In order to make a perfect circle, however, we need to line up the center of the letter right over the z axis.

6. Press the "z" hot key to aim the camera along the Z axis.

7. (SHIFT-L) on the letter W, then (CLICK-L) on Axis Move>X.

Align the letter so that it looks like this:

Figure 3.6 Axis Move the body of the letter so it's aligned over the Z axis

Repeat the process with the other letters so that they're also aligned with the Z axis. Your letters should look something like this when you're done:

Figure 3.7 All letters moved out along the Z axis

8. (SHIFT-L) on the letter N, then (CLICK-M) on Rotate>Y.

Move the letter until it's a good distance from the W, something like this:

Figure 3.8 Moving the letters out, one by one

Repeat the process for the other letters, until your word has the correct spacing around the Y axis:

Figure 3.9 The letters in position

9. (CLICK-L) on GeoMenus>New Object>Sphere.

This sphere will serve as our globe. Your elements should look something like this:

Figure 3.10 The globe and the call letters in place

Building the Script

Initially, you might think that you need a different channel to animate the spinning logo. But if we want to take advantage of the structured hierarchy of the object, we can animate the entire word as a single object.

: Note. A small green tick mark appears in the frame range area over the last animated frame; this serves as a handy reference when you're making changes to a script and want to go back and animate the same frame to see the affect of any changes you may have made to a script.

Your N-Geometry window should look something like this:

Figure 3.19 Elements in their default position

The globe is a little bit below our letters; this is because the default center for a globe is its midpoint, while the default center for a letter (or word) is its lower left anchor point.

27. (CLICK-L) on bodies in the element sensitivity menu.

28. (SHIFT-L) on the sphere, then (CLICK-L) on Axis Move>Y.

Adjust the sphere until it's lined up with the text:

Figure 3.20 Aligning the elements

29. Save your script.

Changing the Script Length

Suppose you're now happy with the way your animation looks, but find out that instead of a one-second piece, you need a three-second piece. You need to change the length of your script.

30. (CLICK-L) on the frame range button in the lower right corner of the script editor (shown in Figure 3.18).

The following pop-up appears:

Figure 3.21 Changing the script length

31. (CLICK-L) on Change Script Length.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 3.22 Specify time or frames

32. Enter a new length of 3 seconds, and press RETURN.

The new script length (in frames) is also displayed. You can change either of these values; each is updated automatically as required.

: Note. Stretch Subchannels is on by default. If set to Yes, any channels in the script are stretched (or squashed) to fit the new script length. If set to No, the script length is changed, but subchannels are not changed. (This is useful if you want to give yourself more frames to work with, but don't necessarily want to change the animation you've already created.)

33. (CLICK-L) on Done.

The new script length is displayed in the frame range button.

34. (CLICK-L) on Animate.

35. (CLICK-L) on Playback.

The Text object spins 360 degrees around the Y axis, but this time we've improved the camera angle and increased the length of the animation.

36. Save your script.

Congratulations!

You've created your first complete animation! You've learned a little bit more about working with objects and bodies, saving a view to a script, how to animate a single frame, and how to change the length of your script.

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