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CHAPTER

Understanding

Animation and

Keyframes

ax can be used to create some really amazing images, but I bet more of
you go to the movies than go to see images in a museum. The differ- IN THIS CHAPTER
Mence is in seeing moving images versus static images.
Controlling time
In this chapter, I start discussing what is probably one of the main reasons you
decided to learn 3ds Max in the first place—animation. Max includes many dif- Using the animation mode
ferent features to create animations. This chapter covers the easiest and most buttons to create keys
basic of these features—keyframe animation.
Using the Track Bar
Along the way, you’ll examine all the various controls that are used to create,
edit, and control animation keys, including the Time Controls, the Track Bar, Viewing and editing key values
and the Motion panel. Keyframes can be used to animate object transformations, Using the Motion panel and
but they also can be used to animate other parameters such as materials. If you trajectories
get finished with this chapter in time, you may have time to watch a movie.
Enabling ghosting
Using the Time Controls Setting animation preferences
Animating materials
Before jumping into animation, you need to understand the controls that make it
possible. These controls collectively are called the Time Controls and can be Creating previews
found on the lower interface bar between the key controls and the Viewport
Navigation Controls. The Time Controls also include the Time Slider found
directly under the viewports.
The Time Slider provides an easy way to move through the frames of an anima-
tion. To do this, just drag the Time Slider button in either direction. The Time
Slider button is labeled with the current frame number and the total number of
frames. The arrow buttons on either side of this button work the same as the
Previous and Next Frame (Key) buttons.
The Time Control buttons include buttons to jump to the Start or End of the ani-
mation, or to step forward or back by a single frame. You can also jump to an
exact frame by entering the frame number in the frame number field. The Time
Controls are presented in Table 21.1.

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