Learning Kinemac 2 – Developing your 3D eye

In the previous tutorial, you started to get to know how the stage functions as a space for developing your animation.  This tutorial will build upon that by introducing the Z axis and developing your 3D eye.

Moving forward (and backward)

Create a new Kinemac animation by opening Kinemac or pressing command+N if Kinemac is already open.

Create a 3D object, for instance a text object.  For a text object, make sure you use a simple, short word.

Kinemac automatically creates all sprites (objects) 800 ticks long.  At 60 ticks per second, this gives an animation length of just over 13 seconds.  Position your object at 0, 0, 0 in the position section of the Object inspector.

Create a series of keyframes as follows:

1. At zero ticks with Z value at -1000
2. At 200 ticks with Z value at -500
3. At 400 ticks with Z value at 0 (zero)
4. At 600 ticks with Z value at 500
5. At 800 ticks with Z value at 1000

Press the space bar to see the animation. Notice the difference in views between the default camera (press D) and the working camera (press W).  The default camera will show the object getting larger as it moves towards you, while the working camera will show it in perspective with the object moving diagaonally across the screen.

Smoothing the movement

You may notice that the movement of the object seems to slow as it approaches each keyframe.  This is because the keyframe defines a point where objects are essentially stationary.  Kinemac respects the stationary position and therefore slows the object.  However, you can make the movement more smooth buy invoking the bezier control window (command+3).

The Bezier window

The Bezier control window shows the movement of objects through space on each axis and in every attribute.  For this exercise, while the bezier window is open, press the Z key to show only the Z axis position.  Notice that the line representing the movement of the object through the Z axis has curves which flatten through each keyframe.  This is the object slowing to the keyframe position.  To smooth the movement, select the dot on the line at the position you want to smooth.  Notice that two bezier handles appear.  You can move these around to  speed up or slow down the movement.  Try to get the handles lying over the path.  This will give a very smooth movement through the point.  Do this for each point, including the first and last.

Play your animation again with the smooth movement.

Set the camera back to Default Static Camera on the View menu (press “D”) to see the effect of camera position.  You may have to zoom out to see the whole animation.

By now, you will be getting to know the way in which objects can be moved around the stage.  This is essential for developing great animations.

Export your sprite

The next tutorial will start working with multiple sprites so before you close Kinemac, export the sprite you have just created using the Export Sprite command on the File menu, or pressing command+shift+E.  Save your sprite to a folder where you can easily find any exported sprites.  This will help in creating future animations by enabling the re-use of sprites.

Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 3:49 pm and is filed under thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.