COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Workshop 10 Notes, Week of November 14, 2011

Animation, Demonstration of Generative Component Surfaces

1. Animation

Part I. Animation WIth the Animation Producer Dialog Box

Animating Views and Sun
1. Construct a simple model with a surface plane and three simple solid objects (slab, sphere and cone – from Solids palette) in iso view.

2. Go to the front elevation view.
3. Select perspective too from view 3 window (quick method tool selected in window below).

4. Begin to save a series of views that establish a sequence of movement towards the three objects. Keep in mind that as you set up your views (keyframes) you will be able to apply different velocity descriptors: "constant", "accelerate", "deaccelerate" as a way to control the seed of movement between views. We will will use "constant" velocity further below. Go to: utilities/saved views, and save at least three successive views of the model.

• enter Name "v1" and Description "start view", and select inside the view 3 window.
• Next: rotate view slightly and zoom in slightly
• Return to utilities/saved views and enter enter a name and description ("v2" and "middle view")
• Then: zoom view again, and save another view by entering a name ("v3" and "end view") and so on for as many views you want incorporated into the animation.

5. Once you have saved the views you can begin to assemble the views into your animation sequence. Go to: Task List Animation. Select the animation producer icon highlighed below (Q1).

and then, from the "Animation Producer" dialog box, open "tools/saved views":

as depicted below, in the Script Saved View dialog box::
double click on v1 and enter: Start Time "0", Interpolation "spline", Velocity "Constant"
double click on v2 and enter: Start Time "20", Interpolation "spline", Velocity "Constant"
double click on v3 and enter: Start Time "40", Interpolation "spline", Velocity "Constant"

.... and so on if there are any additional saved views you wish to incoporate into the animation sequence.

Note that Interpolation “Spline” refers to the movement between your views as key framed locations for the camera in the model space. Velocity “Constant” refers to the velocity that the animation moves between the given views.

Next, create a subdirectory, such as one named "movieframes", for storing individual animation frames on your local hard drive (a folder).

6. Go to Visualizationm task, select the W1 lighting manager tool, to setup global lights and turn on the sunlight. Check also that the Ambient Light and Flashlight are set to appropriate intensites and that the color of all the lights is white.

6. To preview your movie from within the Animation Producer dialog box. goto Tools/ Preview, and play through the results for view 3.

7. Next, return to Animation Producer dialog. Go to File/Record Script in order to record animation as a series of single single jpg files with the following settings:

• Output File: select the "movieframes" folder (created in step 5 above) on your local hard drive and name the first file "animation000.jpg"
• Resolution: 320 x 200 (roughly for low resolution test)
• Format: "JPEG"
• Render Setup: "Untitled"
• Render Mode: "Luxology"
• Light Setup: "From View"
• Antialias: "Medium"

Select the "OK" button, and animation will render with a visible echo back to the view screen.

8. To play your movie: go to the menu utilities/image/movie, and then with the "Movies" dialog, box, go to "Load" and find the image file "testani000.jpg" under whatever folder you have created in step 5 above.

9. From the same Movie dialog box, you can then use file "Save As" option to save the completed movie to single file ( avi etc.), such as
" animation.avi".

10 . In order to simulate the pathway of light throughout the course of a day, in the Animation Producer dialog box/animation palette go to:
Lights/Global/Solar/Time, and right-click on the word "Time" to select the "script" option. This results in the "Animate Settings" dialog box.

In the "Animate Settings" dialog box, create the following settings for two different times:

• Solar Time "8 a.m." Start Time "0", Interpolation "Linear", Velocity "Constant"
• Solar Time "6 p.m." Start Time "60", Interpolation "Linear", Velocity "Constant"
  
  

11. As before, record animation in the jpg format with the following setttings:

• save to name animation.avi

12. Use the "Environment Maps" (A5) tool to create background environmental conditions for the "Untitled" setup, such as for fog as depicted with the settings below. Note that the value for "Density" at 10.0 would represent a fairly thick fog. Density is a setting that can be animated through the animation producer dialog box, similar to solar time.

PART 2. Animating Objects

1. Making an actor

• Go to Animation Task/Aactors palette / and use Create Actor tool (W1) to make the slab into the actor named “box".

• Choose the degrees of freedom desired (in the above example, there are six degrees of freedom for "Move Along" and "Rotate About"):
• Select the object and then select a point locate the origin of actor (right-hand side in image above) .

2. Now keyframe the actor via Animation Producer Dialog box:

• Go to Tools/Named keyframes
  
  
  

• Select the Create Button and name a key frame for the box and give it the Name "box-ground" and the description "box on the ground" (see dialog box above).
• Use the Manipulate Actor tool (W4) to move the box up the z-axis in the "F" front construction plane.
  
  
  
• Crate a second key frame for the box with the Name "box- inair" and the Description "box in the air" (similar to making the key frame "box-ground" ).

3. Now script the keyframes at 0 and 60

• From the Animatiion Keyframes dialog box, double-click on the keyframe for the ground and set the frame 0
  
  
  
  
• Similarly, double-click on the keyframe for the box in the air and and set the keyframe to 30.
  
• Disable views v2 and v3 in Animation Producter Storyboard Panel so that only v1 is recorded.
  
  
  

4.Record the animation as jpg or avi as before.

• resolution 320 x 200
• raytrace – antialias

5. You can then make and select more actors (animate more objects) if so desired.

6. Using algebraic descriptors

6.1 Go to the Tools/parameters in animation Producer Dialog box, and create a variable

From the Animation Producer dialog box's Tools menu, choose "Parameters" .

1. The Animation Parameters dialog box opens

2. Click the "Create" button and the The Create Parameter dialog box opens.
3. In the Name field, key in the name for a new parameter (e.g., "cylinder_height").
4. In the Value field, key in a value such as 10.
5. (Optional) In the Description field, key in a description of the parameter.
6. Click the OK button.
7. The Create Parameter dialog box closes, and the parameter is added to the Animation Parameters dialog box.
   

6.2. Now, go to the Script actor tool (W6), and select the "box".

In the blank field for "Z Position" , enter "cylinder_height * frame/maxFrame" and select the OK button.

6.3 Record animation using methods already expored.
res. 320 x 200
raytrace – antialias
save to walk4.avi

6.4 Similarly, the Z Positio parameter could use the Sine function "sin" and the absolute value functions "abs" such as in the expression:
"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.

Note: 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.