Getting Started
with VNS 2 Part 2C.
Animation Basics
64. Now that we know the ins
and outs of keyframe operations, let's animate more Components.
Go to the Land Cover Task Mode and open the Spruce-Fir
Forest Ecosystem
Editor to the Rules
page. The Ecosystem currently renders on polygons with a Maximum
Slope of 45°.
65. Create a key for this value
at 0 seconds.
66. Change the Maximum Slope
to 90° and keyframe it at 20 seconds.
67. View the Timeline.
The Ecosystem Maximum Slope increases from 45°
to 90° over the course of the animation.
68. Close the Timeline
window and jump to the end of the animation. Save the project
and render a Main camera preview. It's a good idea to check renders
at keyframes before continuing.
69. Let's move on to the Water
Task Mode, open the Ocean Lake Editor, and animate the water level. Change the Elevation
to 1800 meters, and keyframe it at 0 seconds.
70. Switch the Main camera
to realtime mode and use the frame slider to advance to just
past the point where the camera passes the high tension tower,
at about 6 seconds.
71. Let's make the Ocean
elevation visible at the bottom of the frame. Ctrl+click
a new water elevation at the left notch in the slope.
72. Create a keyframe at the
current frame.
73. Jump back to the beginning
of the animation and play it. If we set the keyframes correctly,
the water should appear to rise ahead of us as we fly by the
island. It may not be clear in the preview, but the Ocean level
rises to its maximum value and suddenly stops. We're going to
smooth out the transition.
74. Open the Timeline.
Sure enough, the Ocean elevation rises at a constant rate
from 0 to about 6 seconds and abruptly stops.
75. To make the rate of rise
to slow as it approaches the maximum value, select the second
keyframe and change its Tension to 1. You'll recognize
this as the same change we made to the camera latitude and longitude
timelines. Keep your changes and save the project.
76. Go to the Sky Task Mode
and open the Moon Celestial Object Editor to
the Size & Position page. Create a key for
the position group at 0 seconds.
77. Move the Moon to a
new location for the end of the animation and create a key at
20 seconds.
78. Next, we'll animate the Sun
position from morning to afternoon. Go to the Light Task Mode
and open the Light
Editor to the Position
& Orientation page.
79. Select Set Position by
Time. The project has a 3:00 PM Light, so let's keyframe
that at the end of the animation, or 20 seconds.
80. Change the time to 9:00
AM and create a key at 0 seconds.
81. Save the project. Go back
to the beginning of the animation and play it. The sun starts
in the east, reaches a noontime position midway through the animation,
and drops to the west. This is easier to see in the plan view
as the terrain shading changes during the course of the animation.
82. The last Component we're
going to animate is the Tower 3D Object. Although we can't
import animated objects from other programs into VNS, we can
animate 3D Object position, rotation, and scale,
and deform the object by animating vertex position.
83. Go to the 3D Object Task
Mode. Open the 3D Object Editor
to the Size & Position page. Keep in mind that 3D
Object axes follow a different convention than terrain axes.
For terrain, the x-axis runs east-west,
the y- axis runs north-south, and the z-axis
is elevation. For a 3D Object, the x-axis
still runs east-west, but the z-axis is north-south
and the y-axis is elevation. According to the dimensions,
this object is about 82 meters wide, 27 meters deep, and 123
meters tall.
84. We're going to animate Geographic
Position and cause the tower to sink into the ground. It
will start the animation at its current elevation relative to
ground, so create a key at 0 seconds.
85. Frame slide to the last point
where we see the entire tower, somewhere around 3 seconds.
86. By this time, we want the
tower gone from view, so change the Elevation to -125
meters and create a keyframe.
87. Open the Elevation Timeline.
To expand the timeline in the first few seconds, slide the horizontal
axis Visible slider to the left.
88. To make the rate of ascent
ease in and ease out, change each keyframe Tension to
1.
89. Keep the changes and
save the project. Jump back to the beginning of the animation,
and play.
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