Full Circle Magazine FR

After some days spent in hospital with a very good sample of pneumonia I am back on track and ready to talk about animation. Animation is the process of creating a continuous motion and shape change by means of the rapid display of a sequence of static images that minimally differ from each other (source wikipedia.org). But we, users of blender, are more interested in computer animation. Once more we will trust Wikipedia for a description: Computer animation or CGI animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term ‘computer-generated imagery’ encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images. A movie or an animation scene needs at least three things. A camera, an object of interest, and, of course, a light source to illuminate the scene. If any of the values (position, rotation, shape, etc.) change through time, we can have an animation (or a movie). If none of the values change, we have a still image; however, this is not the point, so we will talk about changing the values of our objects through time. Lets jump to blender. Tip: A new major, stable version of blender has just arrived so I suggest you grab version 2.70a. For the release notes and new features go to: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.70

Open up a new blender file. Press num-pad 3 to have side-view on your 3-d view window (in version 2.70a of blender, when you change to top, right or front view, automatically you are in an Orthographic view. If you change the view by moving your mouse holding down the middle mouse button you change the view to user perspective view). Press the N key to bring up the properties window at the right on your 3-d view, if it is hidden. Check that everything on the properties panel looks normal like in the image below. Select the cube and press the I key on your keyboard. A window pops-up titled Insert Keyframe Menu. Select Location. Now check the properties window. It looks a little bit yellowed, as the image below. This indicates that we are on a key frame. Tip: Key frame in animation and filmmaking is a point that defines the start and end point of a movement. Now it’s time to focus on another window in blender: the timeline window (shown above).

We haven't actually mention this window ever before but blender has it in its default setup. Why is that? Because time line is where all the movement (animation) is happening and creating just simple or complex static 3d-objects is not really so fun. Now, we are going to play with the 4th dimension. Time! The green line indicates the frame that we are currently on. At the bottom of the timeline window, we can see three numbers which are (by default) 1 for Start, 250 for End, and right of the End is the number 1. The last number is the current frame. Change that to 120 by clicking on it or by clicking on the timeline. Back again to the 3D view window. Move the cube around and when you are satisfied with its position hit the I key and select Location to set a new location key frame.

Back to the bottom of the timeline window. Right after the current frame we have the set of keys. From left to right we have: Jump to the first frame, Jump to the previous frame, Play backwards, Normal play, Jump to the next frame, and Jump to the last frame. Let’s hit the right-most key to jump to the last frame. On the properties window set x, y, z values to 0. The cube returns to its initial starting position. Hit the I key and select Location to set a new location keyframe. Now press the first of the six buttons to Jump to the first frame. Back to our 3d view window. Adjust the view to have a good look of your scene. Press the play (fourth) button. The cube starts to move. This is your first animation. Now that we know the very, very, very basics of animation, we are ready to create interesting animation movies. To be continued…