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Module 2 Animating Key Frames in Maya

The document provides an overview of animating keyframes in Maya, focusing on the timeline as a primary tool for managing animation frames. It explains the process of setting, deleting, and manipulating keyframes for objects, particularly emphasizing the importance of attributes in the Channel Box. Additionally, it introduces the concept of playblasts for previewing animations in real time.

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Jane Gelindon
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5 views15 pages

Module 2 Animating Key Frames in Maya

The document provides an overview of animating keyframes in Maya, focusing on the timeline as a primary tool for managing animation frames. It explains the process of setting, deleting, and manipulating keyframes for objects, particularly emphasizing the importance of attributes in the Channel Box. Additionally, it introduces the concept of playblasts for previewing animations in real time.

Uploaded by

Jane Gelindon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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3D ANIMATION

Module 2
Animating Keyframes in
Maya
Computer animation is the process used for digitally
generating animated images. The more general term
computer-generated imagery encompasses both static
scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only
refers to moving images.
Placed directly below the viewport, the timeline is the most
visible animation tool in Maya. Though relatively simple it is
extremely useful. You can think of it as a summary of your
animation. The dark gray bar is called the time slider. Its
position represents the scene's current animation frame,
information also indicated by the value on the right. To
change the slider's position, simply left click anywhere on
the timeline. You can also "scrub" the slider across the
timeline by left clicking and dragging the mouse left and
right.
Below the timeline are the range values. The two outtermost numbers (1.00, 60.00) are
the start and end times of the entire animation, while the inner numbers (1.00, 30.00)
designate the part of our animation that the timeline shows. Essentially, the timeline
is just a window into the overall animation of the scene. To move this window, you
can manipulate the gray bar inbetween the range values. Left click and drag the
center of the bar to move it around, or drag one of the two small boxes to resize it.
You can also just edit the values manually
To the right of the timeline are the playback controls. Click or to play the time slider
either backwards or forwards respectively. You can alter the playback options by right
clicking on the timeline and choosing Playback Speed → Real-time or Play Every
Frame. For now make sure that the playback speed is set to Real-time, as it is the
best approximation of your animation's timing, whereas the timing of Play Every
Frame is variable.
Click or to send the time slider to the beginning or the end of the playback range,
and or to step the time slider back or forward one frame.
Maya uses "keyframes" for animation (we also refer to them in short as "keys"). A
keyframe is basically a marker used to specify an object's position and attributes at a
given point in time. To set a keyframe on the ball at the current frame, select the ball
and go to Animate → Set Key (or just hit s). A red tick mark should appear on the
timeline near the slider, indicating that you have "keyed" the ball on the current
frame. You may also notice that the attributes in the Channel Box have turned pink,
an indication that the object has been keyed. The Channel Box's role in keyframing
will be explained in further detail a little later.
Try setting another keyframe. Move the time slider to a different frame and use the
translate tool to alter the ball's position before keying. After you set the key, scrub the
time slider back and forth across the timeline. The ball should switch between its old
and new positions. Note that the keyframes are probably set to "stepped" mode,
which means that a keyframe will stay in effect until the next key is reached..
To delete a key, move the slider to the offending frame, right click on
the timeline and select Delete. Sometimes you will want to delete or
move a group of keys all at once. To accomplish this, you first need to
select a portion of the timeline. Hold down shift then left click drag over
the keys you want to work with. The selection should look something
like this:
As pointed out before, keying the ball will cause all of its attributes in
the Channel Box to turn pink. However, it is important to note that the
ball itself is not being keyed. Its attributes are. When you hit s to set a
keyframe on an object, you are actually setting a key for each
individual attribute (usually each attribute visible in the Channel Box)
One implication of this is that you can key a
single attribute. Go ahead and delete all of the
ball's keyframes. You can either do this
through the timeline, or you can select all of
the attributes in the Channel Box (left
click Translate X and drag down to Visibility),
call up the right click menu, and choose Delete
Selected. The attributes should turn dark gray,
signifying they no longer have keyframes on
them. Right click on any attribute and
choose Key Selected. Just like the Set Key
operation it will create a key on the current
frame, but now only for the selected attribute:.
Once you have a number of keyframes you will
want to review your motion. Playblasts are
Maya's way of creating a preview of your
animation that runs in real time and is much
faster to create than a render. Go to Window →
Playblast options. Change the Display size to
"Custom" and enter 640 and 480 for the two
values. Change the scale to "1.00", and check
"Save to File" and name it appropriately. If you
do not specify a save path, Maya will output it
to your current project directory.
https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse459/12au/
exercises/basic_animation_exercise.html

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