Getting Started
with VNS 3: Animation
Basics
Part 2D. Animating Components
1. 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°.
2. Create a key for this value
at 0 seconds.
3. Change the Maximum Slope
to 90° and keyframe it at 20 seconds.
4. View the Maximum Slope
Timeline. The Ecosystem Maximum Slope increases
from 45° to 90° over the course of the animation.
5. Close the timeline window
and jump to the end of the animation. Save the project and render
a Main Camera preview. We have forest covering everything
at the end of the animation, just like we wanted.
6. 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 Create Key at 0 seconds.
7. Switch the Main Camera
view to realtime mode and use the frame slider to advance to
just past the point where the camera passes the high tension
tower, just past 6 seconds.
8. Let's make the Ocean
elevation visible at the bottom of this frame. Ctrl+click
a new water elevation at the left notch in the slope.
9. Create Key at the current
frame.
10. 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 obvious in the preview, but the Ocean level
rises to its maximum value and suddenly stops. We're going to
smooth out the transition.
11. Go to the Ocean Elevation
and View Timeline. Sure enough, the Ocean elevation
rises at a constant rate from 0 to about 6 seconds and abruptly
stops.
12. To make the rate of rise
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 earlier. Keep your changes and save the project.
13. Return to frame 0. Go to
the Sky Task Mode and open the Moon Celestial Object Editor to the Size & Position page. Create
Key for the position group at 0 seconds.
14. Move the Moon to set
at the end of the animation and create a key at 20 seconds.
Don't forget to click out of Move Mode when you're done.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. Change the time to 9:00
AM and create a key at 0 seconds. Close the Light Position by Time window.
18. 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 planimetric
view as the terrain shading changes are more obvious during the
course of the animation.
19. The last Component we're
going to animate is the High Tension 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.
20. 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, 123 meters tall, and 27
meters deep.
21. We're going to animate Position
and cause the tower to sink into the ground. It will start the
animation at its current elevation relative to ground, so Create
Key at 0 seconds.
22. Frame slide to the last point
where we see the entire tower, between 2 and 3
seconds.
23. By this time, we want the
tower gone from view, so change the Elevation to -125
meters and Create Key.
24. View Timeline. We
have the default Tension values that don't make for smooth transitions.
25. To make the rate of ascent
ease in and ease out, change each keyframe Tension to
1.
26. Keep the changes and
save the project. Jump back to the beginning of the animation
and play.
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