Warmup 3: Very Basic Animation
In this tutorial, we will briefly introduce you to some of Blender's basic animation tools. Some of the orthodontic tools in ODC take advantage of these tools. So much of this will happen automatically, but it is good to have a very basic understanding of what Blender is doing.
- download the warmup_file
- rename it lastname_warmup_3.blend
- find the "Animation" tab from the "Tools Panel"
- find the "Timeline" below the 3d View
- select the active keying set
For now, because we have not animated anything yet, the timeline will not mean much. However later, once we have started to animate, it will be very important to keep track of where the current "frame" is in the timeline. It can be frustrating to make changes to an object only to realize that we have made those change at the wrong time!!
Frames are an arbitrary unit within the timeline. They have no specific "time" measurement to them until we assign the length of time an individual frame represents. The current frame is indicated here and the by the vertical green line.
- Make sure you are at frame 0
- Select all the teeth you plan to move
- Press "Insert" in the Keyframe menu
Keyframes are points in the timeline where certain properties of an object are defined by the user. At all the frames in between, Blender will "interpolate" those properties. Position and rotation are the main properties we will animate, but keep in mind that there are multitudes of properties which Blender allows the user to animate (Like it's color, transparency, size, visibility and many many more)
- Go to the end of the timeline
- Grab and Rotate the objects into a nice position
- Insert a key frame
