Getting Started
with WCS 6 Part 2B.
Animation Basics
29. To save a series of OpenGL
frames to disk, open the Main camera view popup menu and
select Make Quick Sequence.
30. Move to the WCSFrames folder, name the sequence Main,
and Save.
31. The animation will play slowly
in the camera view and the Status window will show the
Quick Sequence progress as the frames are saved.
32. After WCS is finished, go
up to the menu and select View > View Image >
From Disk.
33. The View Image file
requester will open in WCSFrames,
the last folder we were in. There will be 600 numbered Main frames:
20 seconds at 30 frames per second. We'll use a separate application
to assemble the frames into an animation. I'm going to use QuickTimePro5
since it's hard to beat its $30 price tag for the handy features
you get.
34. Launch QuickTimePro
and select File > Open Image Sequence.
35. Navigate to your WCSFrames folder and open the first Main bitmap,
Main0001.bmp. On a Mac the frames will have a pic extension.
36. Choose 30 frames per second
from the Frame rate dropdown in Image Sequence Settings.
37. Click Ok to import
the frame sequence.
38. To save the movie, choose
File > Export.
39. Name the movie MainOpenGL.
We could go with the default settings, but they're not very appropriate
for animation. Select Options.
40. This will open the Movie
Settings. Click Settings.
41. Choose the Animation
compressor, Thousands of Colors, Best Quality,
and 30 frames per second.
42. When QuickTime finishes exporting
the movie, open it to admire your handiwork.
43. If you like your camera path,
you're ready to continue! If not, change it and make another
Quick Sequence. It's a good idea to preview your camera moves
this way before committing to long render times later on.
44. Let's say that we liked our
camera path but wanted to shorten it from 20 seconds to
10 seconds. That's where Scale Key Frames  comes in. One place you can access
it is from the Animation Toolbar, next to the Add and Remove
Key Frames buttons.
45. Since Main Camera Longitude
is still active and we're in Group mode, the Scale
Key Frames window opens up ready to scale the camera position
group.
46. In the Key Frames section,
we want to scale All Frames to the range from 0
to 10 seconds. Click Operate to scale the frames.
47. Now if we go back to 0 by
entering it into the frame counter, the Next key frame
button jumps us to 10 seconds, not 20.
48. To scale our key frames back
to 20 seconds, click the Animation Operations button next
to any of the position parameters in the Main Camera Editor and select Scale Keyframe(s).
49. Choose All Frames
and enter an upper range value of 20 seconds. Operate.
50. Return to frame 0, jump to
the next key frame, and you'll see that we're back where we started.
51. Let's change the camera path
midway through the animation. Enter 10 into the frame
counter and Enter to jump to 10 seconds.
52. Select one of the Main
camera position parameters in the Scene-At-A-Glance to activate the camera, if it isn't already activate.
53. Go to Move Mode if
you aren't already there, move the camera southeast of its current
position, and drop the elevation to 2000 meters.
54. Create a key.
55. Save the project, go back
to the beginning, and play the animation. It looks like we dropped
the elevation too much and we're plowing through the ridge.
56. To see what that looks like
graphically, let's open the elevation Timeline. Select
the Animation
Track
View 
from the Animation Toolbar; it lists all animated items in the
project.
57. Expand Cameras and
Main and you'll see the position parameters we've key
framed. Click the Open Timeline button for Camera
Elevation.
58. Click the key frame at 10
seconds and drag it up and down to change it or enter a new
elevation in the value field.
59. I like the original camera
path, so let's delete this key frame with Delete Point.
60. Keep your changes
and close out the Animation
Track View. We still
have latitude and longitude key frames at 10 seconds, so use
Animation Operations to Delete Key(s).
61. Select Single Frame
at 10 seconds. This should put us back where we started
with key frames at 0 and 20 seconds. Save the project.
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