Bachelor Maths/Physics/Computer Science University Paris-Sud Digital Imaging Course Blender 3D Animation Christian Jacquemin
Introduction to Computer Animation Animation Basics animation consists in changing the parameters of a 3D scene over times: location and orientation parameters shape parameters visibility and any specific parameters that can be animated over time
Introduction to Computer Animation Human Visual System and Animation the human visual system requires approx. 1/25 second to transform light into nerve signal persistence of vision it is possible to make the brain believe in animation by sending discontinuous images it should be fast enough, so that the brain does not perceive the discontinuity video, film, computer animation produce one image at least every 1/25 s
Blender Animation Timeline Timeline window used to play/navigate/define the animation begin frame end frame current frame markers play/stop/replay...
Blender Animation Keyframing Basic notion: Keyframe stores parameter values of animated objects interpolates between two KF can be placed at any frame of an animation the more dense, the more accurate the animation I: insert Keyframe
Blender Animation Curves Basic notion: Animation curve the parameter values interpolation between keyframes is displayed as curves (values over time) here location (red) and rotation (blue) of the camera the current interpolation is Bezier curves
Blender Animation Interpolation View menu of animation curves: all/selected Key menu of animation curves interpolation mode: linear (uniform speed) Bezier (slow dieown at keyframes if horizontal tangent) constant (value changes abruptly at keyframes) smooth keys (for fluid animation) Example of linear interpolation (a car at constant speed)
Blender Animation Overview
Blender Rendering: Properties Render Properties defines the format, size, length... of the image, sequence of images or movie for rendering Render Menu image F12 sequence Ctrl F12 play rendered sequence Ctrl F11
Blender Animation: Path Add Curve/Path move control points to place path in 3D in path Object data check Path animation checkbox define the number of frames that animation should last Add Object add constraint: follow path select the curve that the object should follow select follow curve if the object should be oriented along the curve tangent
Blender Animation: Path Path Keyframe Animation in path Object data and for each selected frame in the animation, right click on evaluation time value insert keyframe keyframes are associated with positions along the curve according to the ratio evaluation time/number of frames note: if the path is oriented the wrong way: in path edit mode, Curve/Segments/Switch direction
Blender Animation: Bones (simple) Add Armature place the bone inside the body at the place where you would like it to influence the mesh use Wireframe shading to better view the bone inside the mesh other bones can be added (independently) or extruded (for joint connections)
Blender Animation: Parenting select First mesh select Second armature Ctrl P or Parent / Armature deform / With empty groups in case of a full skeleton it can be quicker to use automatic weights
Blender Animation: Weighting select the mesh and go into Weight Paint mode select the bone of interest paint in red the vertices of the mesh influenced by the bone and in blue the non displaced vertices
Blender Animation: Posing select the bone of interest go into Posing Mode move the bone (translation and rotation) to give the mesh the desired shape insert keyframe for the corresponding frame of the animation