3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [260]
FIGURE 21.10
Enabling ghosting lets you know where an object is and where it's going.
Animation Preferences
The Animation panel of the Preference Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 21.11, contains several preference options dealing with animations. When a specific frame is selected, all objects with keys for that frame are surrounded with white brackets. The Animation panel offers options that specify which objects get these brackets. Options include All Objects, Selected Objects, and None. You also can limit the brackets to only those objects with certain transform keys.
Tip
The Key Bracket Display option is helpful when you need to locate specific keys. When the selected object for the given frame has a key, the object is surrounded with brackets. •
FIGURE 21.11
The Animation panel includes settings for displaying Key Brackets.
The Local Center During Animate option causes all objects to be animated about their local centers. Turning this option off enables animations about other centers (such as screen and world).
The MIDI Time Slider Controls include an On option and a Setup button. The Setup button opens the MIDI Time Slider Control Setup dialog box shown in Figure 21.12. After this control is set up, you can control an animation using a MIDI device.
FIGURE 21.12
The MIDI Time Slider Control Setup dialog box lets you set up specific notes to start, stop, and step through an animation.
You can use the Animation panel to assign a new Sound Plug-In to use, as well as to set the default values of all animation controllers. The Override Parametric Controller Range by Default option causes controllers to be active for the entire animation sequence instead of just their designated range. The Spring Quick Edit option lets you change the accuracy of all Spring controllers in the entire scene in one place. The Rollback setting is the number of frames that the Spring controller uses to return to its original position.
Clicking the Set Defaults button opens the Set Controller Defaults dialog box. This dialog box includes a list of all the controllers and a Set button. When you select a controller and click the Set button, another dialog box appears with all the values for that controller.
When you first start up Max, the default first frame on the Timeline is frame 0, but if you enable the Auto Key Default Frame option, you can set the first frame to be any frame you want. This is convenient if you like to use some frames to set up a shot or if the starting frame of the shot is not at frame 0.
Cross-Reference
You can learn more about specific controllers in Chapter 22, “Animating with Constraints and Simple Controllers.” •
Animating Objects
Many different objects in Max can be animated, including geometric objects, cameras, lights, and materials. In this section, you'll look at several types of objects and parameters that can be animated.
Animating cameras
You can animate cameras using the standard transform buttons found on the main toolbar. When animating a camera that actually moves in the scene, using a Free camera is best. A Target camera can be pointed by moving its target, but you risk it being flipped over if the target is ever directly above the camera. If you want to use a Target camera, attach both the camera and its target to a Dummy object using the Link button and move the Dummy object.
Two useful constraints when animating cameras are the Path constraint and the Look At constraint. You can find both of these in the Animation⇒Constraints menu. The Path constraint can make a camera follow a spline path, and the Look At constraint can direct the focus of a camera to follow an object as the camera or the object moves through the scene.
Cross-Reference
For more on constraints, including these two, see Chapter 22, “Animating with Constraints and Simple Controllers.” •
Tutorial: Animating darts hitting a