Curve Editor Overview

View these curve editor demos, starting with an overview and moving on to loading and saving animation, keyfames and curves, blocks, and tangents.

Load and Save Animation

Video captions: Open the Scene Graph with the aid of the Quick Access bar and pick a geometry. Call up the curve Editor, via the Quick Access bar. Create 2 keyframes for the parameter Y of the geometry. For more information on keyframes, please view the video, Keyframe and Curve. Select the animation curve and choose under tangents, Flat. Play back the animation with the help of the timeline. Created animations for geometry can be stored. Select your geometry in the Curve Editor and call up the sub menu with the help of the right mouse button. Pick Save and store your animation in any folder. A saved animation can be transferred to any geometry. For demonstration purposes, the recently created animation will be deleted. With the help of the Scene Graph, select the geometry to which you would like to transfer an animation. Call up the Scene Graph menu with the help of the right mouse button, and select in the sub item, Edit > Animation >

Load Animation to Nodes. Navigate to an already stored animation that you wish to transfer and confirm the step with Open. The animation for the passenger and the driver door was created in advance. Repeat this process for each, the Trunk_Lid and Passenger_Door of the car. Playback the transferred animations with the help of the timeline.

Keyframe and Curves

Video captions: Call up the Scene Graph and select the geometry you would like to animate. Choose on the right-hand side of the Curve Editor the design parameters that you want to assign to a point in time. In this case, select rotationY. Call up the Rotate tool via the shortcut key combination, Shift + E, and rotation the geometry along the Y-axis. Execute the command, Key Selected Channels, to assign the rotationY value to the frame 0. Select the set keyframe in the graph of the Curve Editor and change the value to -70. Move the timeslider on the timeline to frame 50 and set the value for rotationY to 0. Complete the process by running the command, Key Selected Channels. Through pressing the shortcut key, F for Frame All, you can center the curve to the size of the Curve Editor window. Play back the animation with the help of the timeline. Now, navigate with the aid of the timeline to frame 0 and, respectively, frame 50 and run the command, Key All Channels. All parameters have now been assigned to the frame, 0, and the frame, 50. By selecting the different parameters, you can view their related animation curves.

Blocks

Video captions: Open the Scene Graph and select the geometry you would like to animate. Open the Curve Editor with help from the Quick Access bar. For your geometry, set the keyframe for the parameter, rotationY, each as frame 0 and frame 70. For more information on the topic of keyframes, take a closer look at the tutorial, Keyframes and Curves, in the Animation section. On frame 0, set the rotationY value to 0. And at frame 70, to -70. Play the animation with the help of the timeline. Select the object in the library of the Curve Editor, and pick, under Curve, Create Block. In a block, animations can be stored, that at any point in time, can be edited and played back. In the Clip Editor, blocks can be utilized to organize complex animations. Now, under Curve, select Post Infinity Mode. Loop creates an endless loop of the animation. Pre Infinity Mode and, respectively, Post Infinity Mode describe how the curve of the animation should be interpreted before the first or after the last keyframe. Pick, under Curve, Post Infinity Mode > Loop with Offset. Loop with Offset creates an endless loop of the animation. The new curve begins with the last keyframe of the old curve. Select Constant to reset to the single playback of the curve. Select the block object and call up the sub menu with the help of the right mouse button. Execute the command, Duplicate, to duplicate the block object. Objects can contain an unlimited amount of blocks. When selecting a block, the keyed animation curves that can be edited are shown. Select the keyframes of the first curve and change the orientation of your tangents. Under Tangents, choose Flat. Play back both blocks with the help of the sub menu.

Tangents

Video captions: Open the Scene Graph via the Quick Access bar. Set, respectively, at frame 0 and frame 70, a keyframe with the selected rotationY parameter of your geometry. For more information on the setting of keyframes, please view the tutorial, Keyframes and Curves, in the Animation section. Alter the value of the rotation along the Y-axis at frame 70 to -70. Select the first keyframe at frame 0 and select the tangent. Via the tangent, you can control the progression of the curve. Tangents can be freely modified. Every point in the curve describes an assignment of a rotation value along the Y-axis and the point in time. Select both keyframes of the curve, and select, under Tangents, Constant. Constant creates a step-like animation curve. Tue curve segment is flat, horizontal, so value changes at the key without gradation. Repeat the process with the selection, Flat. Flat sets in and out tangents of the key horizontal with a slope of 0 degrees. For example, when a ball reaches its ascent, it hangs in the air for a brief time before starting its descent. You can create this effect by using a flat tangent. Last, please choose Following, Following specifies a flow tangent to create an animation curve that is smooth between the key before and the key after selected key. The tangents of the curve are co-linear, meaning they are both at the same angle.