Getting Started
with WCS 6 Part 2C.
Animation Basics
62. Now that we know the ins
and outs of key frame operations, let's animate more project
Components. Go to the Land Cover Task Mode and open the
Spruce-Fir Forest Ecosystem Editor
to the Rules page. The Ecosystem is currently set to render
on polygons with a Maximum Slope of 45°.
63. Key frame this value at 0
seconds.
64. Change the Maximum Slope
to 90° and key frame it at 20 seconds.
65. View the Timeline
and you'll see that our Ecosystem Maximum Slope increases
from 45 to 90° over the course of our animation.
66. Close the Timeline
window, 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 key frames and see if the result is the effect you were looking
for.
67. It is, so let's move on to
the Water Task Mode and open the Ocean Lake Editor. Change the Elevation to 1800
meters, and key frame it at 0 seconds.
68. 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 7 seconds.
69. We'd like the Ocean
elevation to be visible at the bottom of the view at this time,
so right-click drag up and down. We're still in Move Mode, so
we're interactively changing the elevation of the active Component,
in this case, the Ocean Component.
70. It looks like something around
2000 meters is about right, so create a key frame here.
71. Jump back to the beginning
of the animation and play it. If we set our key frames 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 our Ocean rise
to its maximum value is not smooth.
72. Open the Timeline
and you'll see that the Ocean elevation rises to 2000
meters and abruptly stops.
73. We'd like the rate of elevation
increase to slow as it approaches 2000 meters, so select the
second key frame and change its Tension to 1. You'll
recognize this as the same change we made to the camera latitude
and longitude timelines. It's a good idea to check your timelines
after creating key frames and see if the transition across the
key is the effect you want. Keep your changes and save
the project.
75. Let's move on to the Sky
Task Mode and open the Moon Celestial Object Editor to the Size & Position page. Create
a key for the position parameters at 0 seconds.
76. Move the Moon to where
you'd like it to be at the end of the animation and create another
key at 20 seconds.
77. The Sun is next on
our list, so go to the Light Task Mode and open the Sun
Light
Editor to the Position
& Orientation page.
78. Open the Light Position
by Time window. Our project has a 3:00 PM Light, so
let's key frame that at the end of our animation, 20 seconds.
79. Change the time to 9:00
AM and create a key at 0 seconds.
80. Save the project, go back
to the beginning and play the animation. 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.
81. The last Component we're
going to animate in this project is the high tension tower 3D
Object. Although we can't import animated objects from other
programs into WCS, we can animate 3D Object position,
rotation, and scale and deform the object
by animating vertex position.
82. Go to the 3D Object Task
Mode and open the High Tension Tower 3D Object Editor to the Size & Position page.
The Dimensions section shows the model to be about 123
meters high. Keep in mind that 3D Object axes follow a different
convention than terrain axes. For terrain, the x-axis
runs east and 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.
83. 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.
84. Frame slide to the last point
where we see the entire tower, somewhere around 3 seconds.
85. By this time we want the
tower gone from view, so change the Elevation to -125
meters and create a key frame.
86. To make the rate of ascent
ease in and ease out, open the Elevation Timeline and
change the key frame Tensions to 1.
87. To expand the timeline where
the action's happening in the first few seconds, slide the horizontal
axis Visible slider to the left.
88. Keep the changes,
save the project, jump back to the beginning, and play the animation.
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