Ghost an object

Ghost objects let you see how an animation moves through a scene. Unlike Motion Trails, which simply use a line to illustrate where an animated object moves, a ghost object shows a semi-transparent representation of the object at the points in time you specify. Cached playback lets you ghost deformed meshes, and improves the speed of playback.

The opacity and the color of ghosts make it easy to differentiate between the individual frames of your animation. By default, the opacity gradient ramps down linearly from the ghost closest to the current frame to the ghost farthest away. You can adjust the ghost opacity and color using options in the Attribute Editor.

Note: When ghosting a deformed mesh, caching must be enabled. For more information, see Cached Playback.

To ghost an object

1. Select the object or the root of the hierarchy that you want to ghost.
2. Select Visualize > Ghost Selected > in the Animation menu set (F4).
3. Set the Ghost Options options you want and click Ghost.

To set the number of ghosts that are drawn

1. Open the Animation (Display) preferences. (Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences, then select the Animation category under Display.)
2. In the Ghosts section, set the ghosting preferences.

Modify your Ghosts

To change the color of ghosts

1. Select the object and do the following:
   • In the Attribute Editor, select the shape node, expand Display > Ghosting Information, and select a color in the Pre Frame Color and Post Frame Color fields.
   Note: The Pre Frame Color and Post Frame Color affect deformed mesh ghosts, letting you easily identify the frames before and after the current frame based on the selected colors.

To change the opacity of ghosts

1. Select the object.
2. In the Attribute Editor, select the shape node.
3. Select Display > Ghosting Information.
4. Adjust the Pre Frame Alpha and Post Frame Alpha values.

   The Pre Frame Alpha controls the maximum opacity of the ghosts before the current frame, and the Post Frame Alpha controls the maximum opacity of the ghosts after the current frame.

   By default, the minimum ghost opacity is fixed at 15% (0.15). In the following examples the Pre Frame Alpha and Post Frame Alpha is set to 1 and 0.5.

   

To toggle the visibility of ghosts

1. Select the object.
2. Select Visualize > Show/Hide ghosts in the Animation menu set.

   Toggling the visibility of ghosts lets you quickly show or hide ghosts without losing any of the existing ghosting parameters.

To unghost an object

1. Select the object.
2. Select Visualize > Unghost Selected > in the Animation menu set.
3. Set the unghost options you want.

   You have the option of unghosting only the selected object, or the selected object and all its children.

To unghost all objects in your scene

1. Select Visualize > Unghost All in the Animation menu set.

To turn off the ghost display during object transform

1. Go to the Display category in the Preferences window.
2. In the Performance section, turn on Fast Interaction.