COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Workshop 9 Notes, Week of  October 27,  2014

Introduction to Animation, File Transfer From Rhino, Dynamics, Keyframing

Animation KeyFraming is one of the more common techniques for describing the movement of objects within a 3D model. Dynamics introduces physics simluations which can also used to facilitate movement.

Part I: Transfering Geometry from Rhino , Dynamics

1. Create a Rhino File with a ground surface, box, sphere, truncated cone and V-Ray sun light,  and create the setup below using methods covered in earlier tutorials. Create separate levels for a) the ground surface, b) the box, sphere and truncated cone, and  c) V-Ray sunlight. Or, reuse the Rhino file developed at the end of the tutorial developed for Workshop 9.

2. Within Rhino use the "File/export selected"command, select the geometry within the file, and export it to an external Motionbuilder "fbx" file (filmbox) with the default options.

The FBX export default options should be evident in two sequential dialog boxes. Use the "simple controls" option fo rthe second dialog box:

3. Launch Maya. Go to the menu item "Windows/Settings-Preferences/Plugin-Manager" and ensure that check-box is selected for the plugin titled "fbxmaya.bundle".

5. Next, go to the menu item"File/Import", set the type file to "All files", and import the fbx file exported in step 3.

4. Within Maya, select the "4" key to turn on wireframe view mode, and select all the objects.

5. Note that within default coordinate system in Rhino, the Z-axis is vertical. However, within the default coordinate system within Maya, the Y-axis is vertical. Rotating the objects 45 degrees witin Maya transposes the geometry so that the vertical direction is correctly oriented. Therefore, select the geometry within Maya. It it isn't already showing, open up the "channels" dialog box by selecting the icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Maya application Window. Now within the Rotate X channel, enter the value -45. This should restore the geometry to the appropriate upright position.

6. Select the three solid objects within Maya as well as the "move" tool on the left-hand side, and using the up-arrow (yellow color) on the move tool, reposition the objects above the ground plane. The move tool is similar to the "Gumball" tool in Rhino.

7. Use the pull-down menu in the left-hand corner and change the active module to dynamics. Next, go to the "Soft/Rigid Bodies" menu, and with the three objects still selected, choose the option "Create Active Rigid Body".

9. Next, select the ground plane, and returning to the menu "Soft/Rigid Bodies" select the option "Create Passive Rigid Body".

9. Next, the "rotate" tool is just below the "move" tool on the left-hand side of the screen. Select it and rotate the cube and the truncated cone so that they are slightly off vertical axis.

10. With the cube, sphere, and cone still select, go to the menu item "Fields" and select the "Gravity Field".

11. To expand the number of frames, select the number "120" on the timeline at the bottom of the Maya window, and change the number to 1000 to expand the number of visible and total frames in the animation sequence.

12. To control the playback speed, right-click on the timeline at the bottom of the application window, and set the playback speed to "Real Time".

Play the animation and see the three solid objects fall onto and collide with the plane surface, bouncing a few times. The result should look similar to the following (select the image to play the animation):

Part II: Basic Object Creation & View Control

1. Open Maya 2015
2. Make a simple nurbs object

Create/nurbsprimitives/sphere

Drag to create size interactive/or single click for default values

VIEW CONTROLS

1. Mouse button forward/back – zoom in/out
2. Alt left mouse button – rotate up and over, left to right
3. Alt-right mouse button/move left right – zoom in/out
4. Alt-middle mouse buttom – pan left/right
5. Ctl-alt – low left/up right box – zoom in
6. Clt-alt – up right/low left box – zoom out

MODIFY SPHERE USING CHANNEL BOX

1. Select sphere.
2. Select channel box
3. Modify scale, rotation, translation by entering values
4. Note coordinate system z forward, x to right, y is up.
5. Translate x-3
6. Scale y – 1

CREATE BOX USING HOT BOX

1. Hold space bar
2. Select Create/nurbsprimitives/cube

CREATE CONE USING SHELF

1. Display UIElements/Shelf (go into modeling mode)
2. Surfaces/nurbsprimitives/select icon for cone
3. change channel box attribute for cone to -4.

CHANGING ATTRIBUTES OF OBJECT WHILE CREATING IT

1. Select create/nurbsprimitives/cone and “box” in cone selection menu
2. Change height to 3.
3. Select create button.

CHANGING ATTRIBUTES OF EXISTING OJECT

1. Select a cone primitive with arrow selection icon
2. Select “Inputs” tab from channels box
3. Change value (height ratio to 4 on cone.
4. Hit enter to complete.

ATTRIBUTES OF SURFACE TORUS

1. Radius (half-diameter)
2. Start sweep (begin angle of sweep clockwise)
3. End sweep (end angle of sweep clockwise)
4. Minor sweep – unfolds torus
5. degree linear/planar or cubic/curved – less or more smooth.
6. sections – divisions in U (horizontal) direction
7. spans – division in the V (vertical direction)
8. height ratio – ratio height to depth

POLYGONS

1. Less data needed than nurbs (will not have radical geometry)
2. Composed of faces, edges and vertices
3. subdivisions = smoothness
4. six types: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, plane and torus
5. create/polygonprimtives/torus
6. use menu or hotbox (spacebar) or shelf

CHANGING POLYGON PRIMITIVE ATTRIBUTES (Varies per object type, not all attributes appear on all objects)

1. In options box during creation/channels input box after creation
2. Subdivisions height = # times surface divided
3. subdivisions height/width/depth = divisions height/width/depth
4. subdivisions axis = divisions of surface along central axis
5. cap subdivisions = divisions of cap – concentric (cone, cylinder only)
6. radius = half diameter
7. section radius = torus section radius
8. width, height, depth = overall width, height, depth
9. twist = rotates facesaround tube of torus (vertically)

TEXT {SKIPPED DURING ACTUAL WORKSHOP}

1. curves, trim or poly = (no surface, trimmed surfaces, modifiable surface, poly is surface with more modifiable options)
2. create/text/box pick type, font, text -> placement by origin.
3. Try making planar surface from cuves type object  (poly not selected)

NAMING OBJECTS 

1. Select object
2. Click on name to Change it at top of channels box (or do this during creation)
3. or change name with attributes editor select object/control a (icon next to IPR symbol)

PIVOT POINT

1. Pivot point is origin of object
2. hit “insert” (“home” key on Apple_and select move to move pivot point (then try a rotation)
3. center a pivot point; select object – modify menu/center pivot

PART II: SETTING UP A PROJECT FOLDER

1. File/project/set …. Establishes name (folder) and directory location
2. Or File/Project/Window allows you to more interactively establish the project folder.
   2a. Under images type “images’ – subfolder where animations are kept.
   2b. Under “scenes” type scenes – subfolder where all scenes are kept
   2c. Or, rather than steps 2 and 3, use "default" option.
3. save scene at end.
   

PART III: SIMPLE KEYFRAME ANIMATION 

1. Create sphere, go to frame 1, type “s”
2. go to frame 48, move sphere, type “s”
3. hit play button
4. see in   wireframe and shader mode (hit #4 and #5 keys)
5. select rendering panel (display uielements/shelf/rendering)/ select globals
6. Change rendering to low quality raytrace and image type to jpg.
7. test render (batch rendering the animation as a whole will be addressed in the next workshop)