Lesson 2
Animations

Animation: We will learn how to rotate, translate and scale animations, both with simple nodes, and groups. (Lesson 1 should be completed before going through Lesson 2-?, altough not necessary it will allow you to understand some of the terms I use. If you are not new to Spazz3D, simply reading Lesson 1 should suffice.)

Turn on the working grid by clicking working grid button.
Make a group, click on the group button, then click on the working area.

Make a sphere, cube, cylinder and cone with co-ordinates at 0X,0Z stack them on top of each other. Color them all differently and place them in the group in the tree.

Stacked

Highlight the sphere in the Tree menu, then click the Wizards file and choose Animation Wizard from the pull down menu.

Animation Wizard Button

Period 10 sec, check Loop box, check Start when Clicked box, click Next. Rotate the Node on Y, click Next. DO NOT translate the Node, click Next. DO NOT Scale the Node, click Next. Click Finish.

Take a moment and look at what you have done by clicking on the Browser Simulation button. Click the big X at the BOTTOM of the Browser Simulation to go back to Spazz3d.

Browser Simulation button

Now animate the cube to rotate on the X axis, and the cylinder to rotate on the Z axis in the same way. Go look at what you have done. (When clicked the globe should rotate west to east, the cube should roll towards you, and the clyinder should move counter clockwise.)

To have animations going whenever someone is looking at it, in the tree open a Wizard Group and right click on a Touch Sensor bring up properties. In Sensor TAB click Visibility. Do this on all the animations. Go look at what you have done, you may need to move forward a little to start animations.

NOTE: So far we have used a new Animation Wizard for each animation. This takes up a bit more file size but not too bad. Most times however you can add to the Animation Wizard you have already built. The next animation (scaling) can be done either by using a New Wizard and scaling it in the Wizard or adding a node to an existing wizard. You will be working with time frames between 0-10 but not 0 or 10, the reason is that we are looping the animations and they need the same start and stop point or they will jump around.

Animation Window

Open an Animation Wizard in the tree (doesn't matter which one), open properties for Animation Wizard. To add the cone to the Wizard group, click Add Node button then click on the cone in the tree. (refer to pic Add Node highlighed in orange) Cone 1 should now appear in Node List (highlighted green) Click Edit Keys (highlighted blue). Click on time frame .25 which is between 0 and .5 (highlighted purple).

Tab over to scale, set scale to .5, return to animation tab, click on time frame .75 and again set scale to .5. The cone is now shinking then growing.

(At this point you may wish to save the lesson after you look at what you have done.)

Add Group 1 to the Wizard group, click Add Node button then click on the Group 1 in the tree.

Group 1 should now appear in Node List (highlighted green)
Click Edit Keys (highlighted blue). Click on time frame .25, and then Insert After (highlighted yellow). You now have a time frame at .375, this will NOT change any of your other animations.

Tab over to Trans, set Locations to 1X, 2y, -2Z. Now go look at what is happening. (The whole group jumped up and moved away to the right corner.)

Go back to Spazz3d, click Edit Keys, place Group 1 in node list by scrolling down Node List menu. Set time frame .75 Locations -1x, -.5Y, 3z. Go look. (The whole group jumped up and moved away to the right corner, then moved to the bottom left corner closer to you before returning to center.)

NOTE: This is the method used to animate things to move around the field. You can turn the view to different vantage points, at different time frames to see where each time frame places the object. This can be used to make birds fly or fish swim ect. To make a person walk, you would need to animate thier legs (use rotation tab and cut the rotation sequence in the time frames so instead of the leg going up and over the persons head it merely moves forward then back), then animate the whole person to move to different places by translating.