CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
How do you create an animation in Blender 2.36 (i'd like some info on all the key frame entering and all) ------------------ |
Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Hi there, I'll give you a quick way of doing it. It's really, really simple. What you have to notice first is the frame that you are currently in, this is located to the bottom left of the 3D viewport window. For instance it may say "(1) Sphere", if a sphere is selected. Try animating something like a sphere first. First select the sphere, then press 'I' to set the keyframe. You'll notice that there are many options to set for the selected object, such as Location, Rotation, Size. Most of the time I set the keyframe for all 3 of those just to be safe! After setting the keyframe simply press the right cursor key to move the current frame forward, or left to move it backward. You'll notice that the frame number changes. Change it to something like 30, then move your sphere all the way across the screen. Then go ahead and set the keyframe for it, like we did it above! When you're ready to view it hit alt+a. And it will show it in the 3D view. To render it just make sure that the "Buttons Window" is open, and then click on 'Anim'. You can also set the Codec that you want to the left of this. Pretty simple huh? I hope so, if not then let me know and I'll try to explain a little better. Also, I thought I'd show the movie that I made while playing around in Blender a few weeks ago, the whole animating process only took about 5 minutes; it's about 1MB: http://www.3rddaystudios.com/movie/bota/CWorld_2.avi ------------------ |
goop2 Member Posts: 1059 From: Registered: 06-30-2004 |
I thought Blender was a shaping tool, but when I opened it up last night it didnt look like one to me. ------------------ I dont like siggys. They are to hard to think up :( |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
You mean a 3D modeler? Yeah it is. It ranks up there with 3DS Max, Maya, Lightwave, but it's a bit different though. It's designed for speed. Which is good, but learning it is not a walk in the park to say the least! But it's free! ------------------ |
CoolJ Member Posts: 354 From: ny Registered: 07-11-2004 |
I've just started looking into blender too, specially for 3d game character animation. Does anyone currently use blender for this? One thing that looks promising is that blender supports BVH animation files. And there are hundreds freely available for non commercial. If you go commercial, i think its just 49& for everything. http://www.e-motek.com/stockmoves/ the dance moves ROCK!  they are in UMF format, but they provide a converter o BVH http://www.e-motek.com/entertainment/stockmoves/convert.html now if I can just learn how to use blender |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Wow those are some nice moves! I'm currently using MilkShape for character animation though... still learning how it's done in Blender. It doesn't look that hard though, I have the bones and the vertex groups and everything set. I just have to figure out how to assign the joints to different vertex groups, which probably isn't that bad. I'll probably be using Blender character animation more for pre-rendered movies. But yeah, I definately like those animation moves, and the really good thing is that they are free! Thanks for the link! ------------------ [This message has been edited by brandon (edited February 12, 2005).] |
Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
quote:
[This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 12, 2005).] [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 12, 2005).] |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
I meant the right cursor key on the keyboard. '->' Sorry for the confusion! ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
ok thanks. ------------------ |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
alright when you say move it across the screen then do the keyframe like before, everytime i do it the sphere moves the back to middle and if i do it 30 more times it would be 60 in the keyframe, so then i hit alt + A and i see this black box with numbers increasing, what does it mean? so when i stop that and hit ANIM it shows the picture change alot in the rendering window and i see a little thing it the top right hand corner that says fra: and right by that theres a number increasing. I have no clue what it's doing, please help me! ------------------ |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Yeah anytime that you want to record a position or a state of any object, you must select the object, then go to the frame that you'd like, then set the keyframe. So if you start on say frame 0 and set the keyframe for your sphere. Then move the frame counter on to frame 30, then move the sphere across the room, and then set the keyframe. You'd have an animation that lasted for 30 frames, and the sphere would slide all the way across the room to where you put it when you set the 30th frame. No you don't have to set a keyframe for every frame. Now that would be painful. Instead just put the objects where you want them, then scroll to the frame that you want then set the keyframe, and Blender will fill in the "middle frame transformations" (a transformation is any change in the object; position, rotation, size) For instance let's say you had a sphere in the center of the screen, then you set the keyframe for the sphere while at frame 0. You could then move the frame to frame 100, and then scale down the sphere to where it's really small. Then set the keyframe for that frame. Then you could hit Alt-A and watch the sphere slowly shrink.
And that's basically how it's done. ------------------ |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
ok heres what happend for me after i did what you said: I Selected the object. Then i selected the frame and made it 30. then i moves the sphere across the screen using the G key.(I have one question about this, where should the camera be when i do this and the next step?) then you say to Set the keyframe using the I key, but which key? theres 8 diffrent things to choose from. Also, should i be in edit mode when i do this? So i tried it and it ended up doing the same thing as before (the fra: # kept increasing when i hit the ANIM button) And where does Alt+A come it to play here? Also, is it possible to do what you said?: "then you set the keyframe for the sphere while at frame 0", when i try it'll only go down to 1. Sorry for all the questions. ------------------ [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 14, 2005).] [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 14, 2005).] |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
Also, it would help if you could explain the keyframe to me, I sorta don't ever know what you mean when you say it besides that it's the I-key. But you don't have to if you don't wanna.  ------------------ |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Setting the keyframe is like storing the 3D data of an object during a certain frame of animation. For instance lets say that you are on frame 1. If you set the keyframe (store the position) for a sphere and then select Loc (Location) in the keyframe popup menu. Then for that frame the sphere will be locked at the location that it was at when you set the keyframe. Then when you scroll on over to frame 30 and then move the sphere to your desired location, and then set the keyframe using Loc again, you'll have an animation that last 30 frames. The sphere will move from the position in frame 1 to the position in frame 30. Now to add to this you can set the keyframe for more than just the 3D position, you can set it for the size and rotation. To make it simple, you could always select "LocRotSize" which is all three. You should be in Object Mode when doing this. Make sure that you set the keyframe while the frame is at 1 first, so that you'll have a starting point. Select "Loc" in the keyframe menu that pops up. "Loc" is for setting the selected objects current location to the current frame. I've tried to find some tutorials on static animation, but my search has only lead me to character animation and other intermediate to advanced tutorials... so hang in there, once you understand the concept you won't believe how fast and simple it all is.
[This message has been edited by brandon (edited February 14, 2005).] |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
it worked! thanks man, but it always goes off the screen after about 11 frames after i click ANIM. What do I do with the camera? And when i hit play and under the play button is a thing called "end" and it was set at 250, I put it at 30 and then i hit play and it goes up to around 225 jpg images then loops. Can you explain that? [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 14, 2005).] [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 14, 2005).] [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 14, 2005).] |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Good deal, glad to hear that you finally got it working! You can animate the camera the same way that you animate the other objects as well. If you want the camera to follow the sphere, then you can make it point to a certain object. To do this select the camera, then press 'F7' on your keyboard, next find the Constraint sub menu at the bottom-right of the screen, then click "Add Constraint", then select "Track To". A new set of options appear, now in the "Target" textbox enter the name of the object that you want the camera to point to. Under this textbox you'll see a set of buttons, there is one set that are labled with "TO:" select -Z, and the one next to it is labled "UP:", set that one to "Y" After doing this, the camera should point to the target object whenever you move it or the camera around. Not to sure about the jpg problem, maybe try to animate it again now that you have 30 frames set, then try to play it and see if that helps... ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
one little hint I learned. You can move the camera while looking though the camera (i.e. press the numpad key 0 [zero], click on the solid black lines and then press G, then move the mouse). You can also animate the moving of the camera. yo, Brandon, if i begin at frame 1 and move to frame 25, then press I, then Locrotsize, and moce the object, the object's movements are recorded(if i accidendently moved the mouse left, instead of right, then fixed it by moving the mouse right, the little dance is recorded!). Is there any way to turn that off? ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
Another few Qs. Everytime i aply a texture to something it gets colored purple. Is there a site that has some libraries that have textures packed with 'em? Or any libraries at all? Like the sonix best car paintjob library? ------------------ |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Hmm.. interesting that your object turns purple, I've had a similar experience but only when texturing by using the UV method, I still don't know why this happens. But when I texture using normal materials, it works fine. (It also works fine with UV's 95% of the time.) There are some cool texture links here:
quote: Sorry, but I don't quite understand what you mean. Are you animating one of the dancing characters? ------------------ |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
Thanks Brandon, for everything. Theres just one more thing i need to know, how do I send what I've animated to a file like WMV? like what you did with yours. Thanks man. ------------------ [This message has been edited by mattiethomas (edited February 16, 2005).] |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Just hit F10 to go into "Scene Mode". Then in the bottom right corner you'll see a set of buttons, click on the one to the right of "Crop". And there you can choose which codec you want to use. I chose the AVI Codec. After this you can choose the Video Compression. "Microsoft Video 1" works pretty good. Then hit "Anim" and it should record it into an AVI file. On my computer it records to the "C:\tmp" directory. Hope that helps  ------------------ |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
Alright that worked. Now where can i get a url for my video? like what you have. ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
Well I think I got it fixed. Must have been pushing LocRotSixe too much Thanks alot for ur help. I've dome my first 1 min animation. How would I get a nice background for my render? One that wouldn't make my objects look like they're flying? ------------------ |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
You can change the background by selecting the camera. Then hit F5 (Shading Mode). Here you can actually set up the parameters for your horizon! On the left side there is an image that is the color of your horizon, you can change it with the buttons there. You can also add things like stars, mist, and set many cool effects for each of those! I haven't tried to add a sky-sphere or sky-box yet, but I think it's possible in this same menu. ------------------ |
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MadProf Member Posts: 181 From: Larnaka, Cyprus Registered: 01-24-2001 |
One thing which may be odd in playback (the "PLAY" button) is I think if you are rendering to a sequence of images (jpegs, say) rather than an .AVI file, blender will probably play though all the .jpg files which have the name 0001_0001.jpg in that directory (I think). I could be wrong, it's a long time since I have used this particular functionality. So say you render an anim 300 frames long, then create a new animation, of 50 frames long, and render it into the same directory, then press "PLAY" it may play through the new 50 frames, and then through the 250 frames of the previous animation. I may be wrong, but if you are having odd things happening like this, this could be it. If not, just ignore my rambling. Dan ------------------ |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
quote: Thanks madprof! en972 said you've used blender for 5 years, so can you help me with a couple more things? and brandon if you know you can help me too. Ok I just made a closed Bible model and i animated it to open. And I need to know how to zoom in on the page when the Bible opens. I also need to know how i can get a url for my animation so i can post it on here. Thanks guys! ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
hey mattiethomas, keep ut the posting. ur answering some of my q's ------------------ |
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MadProf Member Posts: 181 From: Larnaka, Cyprus Registered: 01-24-2001 |
Mattiethomas: Yeah, I've used blender for aaages. :-) I'd be glad to help. About the zoom thing. You know how you used the "I" hotkey (IKEY in blender talk) to add keyframes to objects? To zoom in, you use the same principle. In blender, the same principles are there throughout. So the first method you can use to do this is to select the Camera object, and on the first frame of the animation, press IKEY and add a LocRot keyframe, and then go to the last frame of the animation, move the camera to where you want it to end up, and press IKEY again, and add a new LocRoc keyframe there. then if you run the animation, you will be able to watch as the camera zooms into the new place. Pretty cool The second method (which can be combined with the first method, or used instead of) is slightly more complex, but not much. If you select the camera object, and then go to the Editing Buttons (F9), you can see a few buttons for controlling the camera exactly. The "Lens" value, "ClipStart", "ClipEnd", and so on. The one you want is "Lens". Again, go to the first frame of the animation. Now, move the mouse so it is anywhere in the Buttons Window, and press IKEY! You can now insert a keyframe for the lens value! And if you go to the final frame of the animation, and change the lens so it is zoomed in, you can again add a keyframe with the lens set higher (or lower) so that it looks right. You can also add keyframes in (almost) any of the buttons windows. For instance, for materials, you can animate textures, transparency, and so on by using the IKEY keyframes in the Material Buttons. About finding animations you have rendered... if you look in the Render (Scene) Buttons (F10), in the "Output" tab, at the top of it is a Directory name. This is where rendered animations will be put. You may have to look around in that directory (using Windows Explorer or "My computer", or Nautilus, or ROXfiler, or whatever you use) to find the exact file, if there are a lot. One thing that may be a little confusing, I dunno, is that blender can save animations in all kinds of formats. In the Scene buttons, in the "Format" tab, you can see what it will save the animation as. On this computer, "JPEG" is the default, which means it will save each frame of the animation to a seporate .jpg file, which is a bit annoying if you want to post it somewhere online! There should be AVI or some other format in there which is more useful to you. Oh... By the way... blender does not need to "Save" the animation once you have finished rendering it, as it writes it to the harddrive (to file) as it finishes each frame. This is because an animation is quite large, and it would fill up all your memory to keep it somewhere until finished, and then write it to a file. Hope this is helpful... God bless, Dan PS - I am happy to help you here, but if I forget to check the forum for a while, and you need an answer, you can email me ... my address is the same as my user name, at the same as my user name DOT net. ------------------ |
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MadProf Member Posts: 181 From: Larnaka, Cyprus Registered: 01-24-2001 |
*madprof is mad... this message deleted on account of sheer unobservancy, and gross inanity* Dan ------------------ [This message has been edited by madprof (edited February 22, 2005).] |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
quote:
also, thanks for the help mad. And can you tell me how to get a url for my animation?, I don't think you told me how in the last two posts. ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
Hey, how can I get the camera to move along a line "recording" as it goes? ------------------ |
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MadProf Member Posts: 181 From: Larnaka, Cyprus Registered: 01-24-2001 |
mattiethomas :
quote: did that answer your question? CPUFreak91: I don't understand your question, I'm afraid... MadProf ------------------ |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
I found the AVI animation on my computer but it's not an http it's a C:\ . ------------------ |
CobraA1 Member Posts: 926 From: MN Registered: 02-19-2001 |
People can't access your computer directly, so it's not as easy as creating a link - you have to host the AVI somewhere. ------------------ Switch Mayhem now available! Get it here |
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Mattiethomas Member Posts: 24 From: Registered: 11-06-2004 |
quote: I know, do any of you know a site i can host it on? ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
www.netfirms.com gives you 25 MB of space for free. It also includes FTP access (www.smartftp.com) ------------------ |
ArchAngel Member Posts: 3450 From: SV, CA, USA Registered: 01-29-2002 |
Mattie, ask CCGR if she can host it for you. ------------------ |
en972 Member Posts: 562 From: NOT TELLING! Registered: 08-27-2004 |
Matt is this the bible animation? If it is don't host that one yet.... REMEMBER, Thats exclusive Fishers of Men inc. Material ------------------ |
Klumsy Administrator Posts: 1061 From: Port Angeles, WA, USA Registered: 10-25-2001 |
what is fisher of men inc? must be serious to have be a legally incorporated company though ------------------ |
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en972 Member Posts: 562 From: NOT TELLING! Registered: 08-27-2004 |
Fishers of Men inc. Is mine and matts, and maxs company. Guess what the bible is foR? ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
oh, sorry, lemme explain: moving along a line: I downloaded some blender demos and stuff and there was a line going through multiple cameras. When you played it, the camera followed the line left, right, up down. What I mean by multiple cameras is that it looked like there were about 5 cameras placed on the line. Is this a better explanation? ------------------ [This message has been edited by CPUFreak91 (edited March 29, 2005).] |
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