9

Animation 909
Animated textures can also be materials with
keyframed parameters. In addition, i n the context
of par ticle systems, a material that uses the Particle
Age map (page 2–1675) or the Particle MBlur map
(page 2–1676) is considered to be animated.
In general, when applying an animated texture to
particles in Particle Flow, be sure incorporate it in
a Material Dynamic operator (page 2–191).
Animation
Animation is based on a principle of h uman
vision. If you view a series of related still images
in quick succession, your brain perceives them as
cont inuous motion. Each image is called a frame.
Historically, the major difficult y in c reating
animations has been that the animator must
producealargenumberofframes.Dependingon
thequalityyouwant,oneminuteofanimation
might require b etween 720 and 1800 separate still
images. Creatingimagesbyhandisabigjob.
That’s where keyframing comes in.
Most of the frames in an animation are routine,
incremental changes from the previous frame
directed toward some predefined goa l. Early
animation studios quickly realized they could
increase t he product ivity of their master artists
by having them draw on ly the i mporta nt frames,
called keyframes. Assistants could then figure
out the f r ames that were required in b etween the
key frames. These frames were (and still are) called
tweens.
Use the software as your animation assistant. As
the master animator, you create the keyframes
that record the beginning and end of each
transformation. The values at these keyframes
are called keys.Thesoftwarecalculatesthe
interpolated values b etween each key value,
resulting in tweened animation.
3ds Max is not limited to animating
transformations (such as position, rotation,
and scale). It can animate just about any
parameter you can access. Thus, you can animate
modifier parameters, such as a Bend or a Taper
angle, material parameters, such as the color or
transparency of an object, and much more.
Early animation studios also had to employ ar tists
to add the ink and color to each frame. Even toda y,
production of a cartoon usually requires hundreds
of crafts people and artists to generate the
thousands of images. With 3ds Max, the renderer
takes ove r the job of shading and rendering each
frame and storing it as you direct. The end result is
a high-quality finished animation.
The quickest way to animate is to turn on Auto-Key
(page 2–278) and start transforming objects at
different fra mes. Each time you transform an
object, y ou set a key. Then you can play the
animation onscreen (page 3–723),orrender it to a
file (page 3–9).
Animation Controller s / Transform
Controllers
All animation in the software is performed
through anim ation controllers. The most common
animation contr ollers, those for move (position),
rotate, and scale, are also referred to as transform
controllers.
Each animation track has its own controller, and
each controller can be diff erent.
In the hierarchy list, the controller tracks are
represented by controller icons. The icons can
appear differently depending on the controller that
is assigned, for instance a Noise Float icon differs
from a Bezier Float icon. You can also see which
specific controllers are assigned to each tr ack by
turning on the controllers display in the Track
View (rig ht-click Filters in the Track View toolbar,