Basics of animation in 3DS Max

Here is the Generic interface, most of the animation area can be found at the bottom of the interface, such as the slider, key frame information, the animation player and the time configuration box.

To animate, you move the sider to the frame where you want any action to start, in this image it is frame 15. Click on Autokey and move the model, in this case a sphere and a key will be set for that movement in the trackbar. Autokey automatically places keys in frames when ever you animate. You will know that you are animating because the viewport and slider will turn red. Between one keyframe and the next, 3DS Max will automatically 'tween' the animation between those frames.

There is another way of animating, which is using SET key. Here you move to the frame that you want to start animating on, and press Set Key. Now everytime you wish to add a key, you must press the large square button with an image of a key on it. You are therefore manually setting keys, which sometimes has an advantage over using Autokey. Sometimes automatic animation overruns slightly which can cause problems, whereas Setkey doesnt have this problem.

You can click and drag key frames to move them within the trackbar, and you can shift/click on the key frame to copy a key.

Mini Curve editor

At the bottom of the interface beside the track bar on the left hand side is a small graph icon. This is the Mini Curve editor. What it allows you to do, is to see the animation curve in three dimensions of your animation. You can change your animation just by tweaking these curves. The nice thing about the mini curve editor, is that it is located underneath the interface, so that you can see your animation and the curve editor at the same time.

Curve Editor

You can access the main curve editor, via either the Graph Editors drop down box at the top of the interface or via a small graph like icon along the main tool bar.

The Curve Editor allows you to do all sorts of things to your animation, from adding a sound track to applying modifiers.

The side panel, allows access to all the different parts of the animation, but this can be quite complex. You can change your animation by selecting a node (which is the graph's representation of the animation key) and moving the node. You can change the weighting of your movement by using Tangent types, which are the small graph-like representations at the top of the curve editor. Here you can specify and change the interpolation of the curve to fast in, fast out, slow in , slow out, etc. Have a go at this and see how it affects your animation.

You can also gain access to these tangents when you right click on the node.

You will notice that your animation graph will end with a dotted line. This is known as 'end of range'. It maybe that you want to repeat this range for some reason, and in order to do this you can use 'out of range types'. This can be found via a graph icon within the curve editor

These out of range types, allow you to loop, cycle, pingpong etc an animation, which is really useful if you want to show a walk cycle, and want to repeat it for example.

Happy New Year and welcome to Semester 2 - Animation!!

The Brief

Programme Identity

Corporate identity is vital in today’s fast changing and competitive environment, particularly in television, where many different companies battle to improve their ratings. Broadcasting companies have had a corporate style since television began, but since the advent of cable and digital television, corporate image has come to the fore, with a plethora of different broadcasting companies vying for recognition and status. Campaigns which used to change yearly are now changing season to season, month to month.
The most recent memorable ident campaigns are those for BBC1, BBC 2 and Channel 4.

So why are corporate idents needed?

They provides a breathing space between programmes
They allow for announcements between programmes
They orientate and remind viewers which broadcasting company they are watching
They are increasingly eye catching and creative in order to capture the viewer’s imagination, so that the company is advertised through word of mouth.
Promotion of the company


Using 3D Studio Max, you are to produce a set of three idents to promote a channel of your choice. The idents should be innovative and imaginative, and actively celebrate the ethos of the corporation that they represent.

Using the Light Lister and Ram Player

In order to see what lighting you have in a scene a really useful tool is the light lister. You will find this under tools > Light lister. Here you can change the listed parameters without having to enter the modify panel and you can keep the lister up on your desktop for easy viewing.

Another very useful tool is the RAM Player. This allows you to render two images and load them into the player. This is ideal when you are tweeking the lighting in your scene. Sometimes the changes are very subtle, and therefore the ram player allows you to toggle between the two renders to see the changes.

Go to Rendering > RAM player, and up pops the Player on the desktop. In Channel A, click on the small green teapot, which will allow you to load your last render. I have changed the colour of the spotlight and then re-rendered the image. In Channel B load the newly rendered image. Now you can see the two renders, and can move the small slider along to see the difference in the renders.

Basic Lighting - Spotlights, Directional and Omni Lights

Max has two default lights in the viewports which enable the user to see their models in a basically lit environment. As soon as you start to add your own lighting, that default changes, and Max updates the view to whatever lighting that you specifiy.

Make a small scene, click and drag a plane in the perspective viewport and place assorted standard and extended primitives on that plane, so that you can test out the different lights.

Go to the Creat panel, and click on the small lighting symbol. In the Front viewport click and drag a target spot.

In order to see your lighting update it is a good idea to change one of the viewports to Perspective view - Active Shade - Spot.

Target Spotlights are very useful for mood lighting, free target spots can be used for car headlamps, streetlamps etc. A potlight illuminates an area within a cone, similar to a stage light. Target Spotlights point at a target that you aim, whereas freww spotlights are taargetless, so they can be moved easily. You can align a target light to a path and animate it if you wanted to.

With your target spotlight highlighted, go to the modify panel, and it will reveal a target spotlight rollout.

Under general parameters, you can change the light to either an Omni light or Directional light. An Omni light radiates light in all directions and is ideal for general sunlight, or an overhead light in a room, the light radiates from the one source. Directional lights use a cone of illumination and the sides of the cone are parallel rather than radiating from a single source like spotlights.

You will also notice that you can add shadows. Just check the box next to shadow and miraculously you will get shadows within your scene. Here you can specify different shadow types using different rendering techniques , which will be covered next semester.

In the next box you will find Intensity/Colour Attenuation. Here you can change the intesity of the light by changing the Multiplier spinner, and if you click on the colour square you can change the colour of the light. Here I have changed the colour of the light to light blue, and have added an extra target spot to illuminate the scene even more so that you can see the changes.

You can also change the attenution, but again this will be covered next semester. You can change your spotlight from a round stagelight to a square light in the spotlight parameters box.

In Advanced effects you can add a map to your spotlight. Check the projector map box and click on the map box to add either a proceedural map or one of your own. I have added a speckle map to mine and here is the effect it provides. Omni lights and Directional lights have the same rollouts and parameters, so it is a good idea to play with these to see what sort of lighting effects that you can produce.

Tutorial 9 - Producing a reflective material

1. In the Create panel go to Extended primitives. Click and drag a torus knot in the perspective viewport.
2. Open the Material Editor. Pick an Anastropic shader as this is ideal for metal materials. Check on the diffuse button and change the colour to a dark blue. Make sure that you have a high specular level approx 60 and a high anastrophy approx 80.
3. Navigate to the maps rollout further down the panel, Click on Reflection > None and click on Material Library. In the Material library there should be some environmental maps - pick a scene such as Hong Kong. This will now add the Hong Kong image to the reflective map channel.
4. Drag the material from the slot to the torus knot.

Tutorial 8 - Material ID and Multi/Sub Object Proceedural Map

This technique is great when you have a poly model that requires different materials - such as a character wearing clothes.

1. Click and drag a teapot into the perspective viewport.
2. Convert the teapot to an editable poly.
3. In the modify panel, check element.
4. Scroll down to polygon properties to Material ID
5. Click on the teapot spout and allocate ID 1
6. Click on the lid and allocate ID 2
7. Click on the belly of the teapot and allocate ID 3
8. Click on the handle and allocate ID 4
9. Come out of editable poly.
10. Open the material editor.
11. Click on Standard to pull up the proceedural map menu > choose Multi/sub object material > OK.
12. You now have 10 material slots. You add materials or maps to the first four slots. Click on Material#standard and either add a map or make your own material. You then see these materials in the sample slot.
13. Click and drag the sample slot material to the teapot and the different materials are automatically assigned to the different elements of the teapot.

Tutorial 7 - Making your own materials

In order to make your own materials to import into 3DS Max, you need to use Photoshop.

Make a new file, approx 3cm x 3cm. Using the brush, make a random pattern within the file. Save as a bitmap.

In 3DS Max, click on the Material Editor. Click on a slot and got to the diffuse slot. Next to the slot is a small box. Click on this and it reveals the material editor. At the top of the material editor is Bitmap. Click on Bitmap, and a dialogue box appears to allow you to find the image you made in Photoshop. The image will appear in the material slot. Click and drag it to your object.