Hey everyone. I am continuing to explore 3d animation and have finally gained enough knowlege of the software that I can finally show you guys some of the stuff I am trying. First off, a special thanks goes out to Ender, who helped me figure out some stuff on Maya's dope sheet and for telling me how to save my animation as a movie. :D Okay, I am trying the old pick up a box exercise for the first time. I am setting keyframes to get the timing right before actually animating him fully. I want him to hold his pose and look at the small box for a few frames longer than he is now. The thing is, I dont know how to make a character hold a pose in 3d since I can't simply add a few frames of him staying like that into the time slider. I wanted to resolve this problem before moving on because I was afraid that while fixing this problem I'll end up messing up some of the frames down the line. So, if someone could tell me how to solve this dilema I'd greatly appriciate it. :)
Here's a link to the block animation:
www.angelfire.com/ab3/PlanetPichu/PickUp.mov.avi
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
The easiest way is the open up the dope sheet and right mouse click on it and go to View and toggle on Scene Summary.
Scene Summary shows you where all the key frames are for all objects in the scene. By looking at your animation you want to scale up all your frames because everything is too fast so you want to select all your frames. Now make sure the Scale Tool is on and pull one of the ends. This will increase all the time between all your keys and slow down the motion. If you want to be more exact you can select the whatever keys need to and use the move tool as well.
The best thing to do after you scale (and while your keys are still selected is to go to Edit>Snap and that will set all your keys to whole numbers again.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
Thanks Ed! I'll try that after I get back from class. :D
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane