Workshop 11 Notes
18 November 2008

Animation & Modeling with Fence Tools

TOPIC A: Animation

Note: For further animation reference materials you may want to consult the ARCH 545 website:
http://www.arch.virginia.edu/arch545/handouts.html

Part I. Animation WIth the Animation Producer Dialog Box

Animating Views and Sun
1. Construct a simple model with a surface plane and three objects (slab, sphere and cone – from "Task List - Basic 3d" main palette) in iso view.

2. Go to front elevation view.
3. Change to perspective (quick method from view tools icon).
(move mouse to lower left to get perspective)

4. Begin to save views (Keep in mind that as you set up your views (keyframes) you will be able to apply different motion descriptors: constant, accelerate, decelerate.)
Go to: utilities/saved views
enter name (view 1: start view)
Next: rotate view slightly and zoom in slightly
Return to utilities/saved views enter name (view2: middle view)
Then: zoom view again, and save again enter name (view3: end view)
And so on for as many views you want incorporated into the animation.

5. Once you have the saved views you desire you can begin to assemble the views into your animation. Go to: Task List Animation. Select the animation producer icon.

and then under tools/saved views

enter keyframes for :
settings/saved views view1 – frame 0, spline, constant
settings/saved views view2 – frame 10, spline, constant
settings/saved views view3 – frame 20, spline, constant

And so on for all your saved views “spline” refers to the interpolation between your views in the model space and “constant” refers to the velocity at which views are moved between. Both can be varied, notice the options available.
Next, create a subdirectory on your hard drive (a folder) for stored images and the animation; keep everything together.
6. Go to Task List - Visualization and to global lighting to setup global lights (turn sunslight on and make sure it isn't locked).

7. Return to animation producer dialog.
Record animation as single jpg
res. 320 x 200 (roughly for low resolution test)
raytrace – anitalias
name walk000.jpg
8. To preview your movie, goto Tools/ Preview
9. File save as options ( avi etc.)
Save to name1.avi
10. To play your movie: utilities/image/movie
11. In order to test solar conditions, in the animation producer dialog box/animation palen go to:
lights/global/solar/time, and right-click on the word "time" to select the "script" option.

solar-time, frame 0, 8 a.m.
solar-time, frame 60, 6 p.m.
make velocity constant
12. Record animation as jpg
res. 320 x 200
raytrace – anitalias
save to name walk2.avi
13. Play move … utilities/image/movie
14. Add bspline to new layer
15. Utilities/render/flythrough (select spline/used fixed method)
Reset sunlight to mid-day for optimum lightingbox
Record directly to walk3.avi

Animating Objects
1. Go to:
Animation/actors/create actor of slab into “box” (or whatever object you want to animate).Select the pick actors key, choose the degrees of freedom desired: select the object with a tentative click on a known point to choose the origin of movement and describe the movement.

2. Now keyframe the actor via Animation producer Tools/Named keyframes, one for the box on the "ground", and then, with moving the box up the z-axis using the actors mainipulation tool, a second for the box "inair"

3. Select keyframes ground at frame 0, and "inair" at frame 30
disable view changes in script producer
4. record animation as jpg as before.
res. 320 x 200
raytrace – antialias

5. You can then make and select more actors (animate more objects if so desired. We can aslso work with the cylinderusing algorithmic descriptors.

6. See Tools/parameters in animation producer dialog box, and create a variable, such as

cylinder_height with a value of 10.

cylinder_height = 10

Script cylinder.
Z Position = cylinder_height * frame/maxFrame

record animation
res. 320 x 200
raytrace – antialias
render to jpg2
save to walk4.avi
change parameter to use both sin and absolute value functions:
Z distance – fabs(heightbox * sin(frame * 360/ maxFrame))

Additional variables

Additional functions

These functions are identical to those in the standard C math library, except that all angular values are expected and returned in degrees rather than radians.

The use of cylinder_height above is but one example of a customized animation parameter. We can paramterize objects in a way that is similar to how we used algebraic expressions within generative components.

 

6. A third method of scripting an actor: Graph it.
Make truncated cone into an actor
Key frame low and high positions.
Script low and high position using de-acceration towards later.
IOpen view/ velocity graph in animation producer window in the StoryBoard Panel

Select move points tool and select control point of velocity graph
And select “send to velocity graph”
Modify curve.
Create animation to jpg and then save through movie editor to walk5.avi.

7. Throughout, remember to to subdirectory to keep all the rendered images of the animation together.

8. To move an actor or camera along a path. You first create a path, such as bspline.. You also create a camera. You then set the actor or camera in motion along the path.

9. The path can be a closed element (such as a block or circle), or an open element (such as a line, line string, curve, arc, or B-spline curve).

 

When working with this tool, you can identify the actor graphically, or you can double-click its name in the drop-down Actor List menu in the tool settings. Now, within the Animation Cameras palette, labelled "R", choose the first camera icon to create a camera pointed in the direction of the path.

 

The next step is to animate the camera along the path. Here, you select "Define Actor Tool" from the Animation Actor palette. When selecting the path element, if the actor is near one end of it (within 10% of the total path length) the direction of the actor is automatically calculated and the actor will animate over the entire length of the path. If, however, the closest point of the actor to the path is some distance along the path then an arrow displays to indicate the current direction. You can change the direction by moving the pointer to either side of the point on the path and entering a data point when the correct direction is displayed.

Immediately following the selection of the path and the camera, you are prompted to indicated the frame numbers, velocity and other properties of the cameras movement.

Part II: Creating Movie Files from Frames

Animations saved as AVI can be viewed though Quicktime which can be found in Start/multimedia/quicktime.
Animations can also be compiled and saved directly through Quicktime Pro available on public computers in the school

Part III: Animation Through Simpler One Off Options (not covered in workshop)

1. Solar Animation

1. Go to: Utilities/render/solarstudy
2. Select a start time and total time
3. Pick the number frames
4. Save (AVI 16 bit) in desired drive/directory
5. Use the above steps for viewing.

2. Fly By / Through

1. Go to a plan/top view and zoom out and create a separate level on which to place your path.
2. Use a bspline curve to set your path by drawing the curve towards your model from across the screen. Go to a side view to move the curve up in space.
3. Then:
Utilities/render/flythrough
4. Fix target position
Output view 3
Raytrace
30 frames

TOPIC B: Editing by Projection: Modeling With the Fence Tool

• Create some solids on a plane
• Draw a FENCE from the front view window (make sure that the ACS PLANE LOCK is of) with FENCE MODE set to CLIP. This mode isolates what's inside the fence from the outside.
• Select the MOVE TOOL and under the MOVE ELEMENTS DIALOGUE BOX turn on the option to use fence. Use your mouse to move the geometry within the fence.
• This is a quick boolean operation. Here we are working from a 2D projection of the objects onto the view plane.

 

2. STRETCH FENCE

• EDIT/UNDO the previous operation from step 1.
• Use the FENCE TOOL again, changing the fence mode to INSIDE, drawing a fence that encompasses the top edge of two of the elements.
• In the fence tool dialogue box, pull out the MANIPULATE FACE SELECTION dialog. Change the operation to STRETCH, go to front plane by hitting the "F" key,, and move the fence upward with your mouse. The top edge of the fenced objects will stretch accordingly. As in part 1, here too we are working from a 2D projection of the objects onto the view plane.