Chapter 4 - Basics of Key frame Animation in MAYA | FREE tutorial , lesson & video training | Beginner | Advanced page 1
Chapter 4 - Basics of Key frame Animation in MAYA (Beginner tutorials & video lessons)
Author - Saju Asokan
Last Updated: July 25 2009
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In this page, we will learn about the most vital Interface elements we have in Maya to aid key frame animation.
Animation Controls in Maya
We are going to animate the ball in Maya using Key frame animation. In this animation technique, we set key frames at key intervals where the position, rotation or a property of an object has high significance. For example, in the ball bouncing sequence, there are three crucial key frames. 1) The frame at which the ball is at the initial top most position 2) The frame at which the ball hits the table surface 3) The frame at which the ball reaches the top other extreme after bouncing. We will have to specify at least these three key frames in Maya over a span of say 100 frames at proper positions (e.g.: 1st frame, 50th frame, 100th frame). The remaining frames that lies between these key frames will be interpolated by Maya.
Note:In conventional 2d animation, the term frame referred to a slide of image that varied from the adjacent ones so as to create the effect of animation. In 3d animation using Maya, a frame is nothing but a conceptual entity. Maya represents the state of each object in each frame over the whole animation range using it's own internal numeric representation. Don't think too much about it unless you are a programming geek... You will eventually break your little head.
Before we set our first key frame in Maya, you need to know a few more basic things about Maya 's animation related controls. The first among those is the animation time line. You can locate the Time line along the bottom region of the Maya window. The time line is the place where you can see all / parts of the frames that are present in a scene. You can click anywhere on the timeline in Maya and jump to that specific frame represented by that region in the timeline. Try it yourself.
You can see in the image above that the animation in the scene has 48 frames (Start Time: 1 and End Time: 48). But the Play back range is a subset of the whole animation range (24 only) in Maya. What it means is that though the scene has 48 frames in it, only 24 of them (1 to 24) are visible in the Time line and hence playable in Maya. Now the Playback range is from 1-24. We can change that by dragging the 'Playback Range Slider' in Maya (see the image on top) or by changing the Playback Start Time and Playback End Time.
The red vertical line in the image shows a key frame in Maya. Key frames are represented in the time line using vertical red lines. They appear in the Time line only if key frames exists in the scene.
To the right most end of the Time Line you will see a text box. This text box displays the number of the frame which is currently active. You can directly jump to a specific frame in Maya by entering it's value inside that text box and pressing Enter key. Just give it a try yourself.
We will learn specific details of Playback controls and also general animation preferences in the next page
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