Use the Animation workspace to create exploded views and to animate parts and assemblies. Animations can be used to evaluate and communicate design functionality and to illustrate assembly or repair operations.
A storyboard is a collection of views and actions along a timeline. A single storyboard represents one animation. Use multiple storyboards to create a collection of animations. You can edit the default storyboard names to display meaningful titles. The storyboard duration is the total running time of the actions on that storyboard.
An action is a visual representation of a component transforming during a point in time. Add actions to the timeline on a storyboard to create an animation. You can adjust the duration and placement of each action on the timeline.
When the playhead is on the timeline at a positive point in time, actions are captured and can be edited. The timeline displays all actions included in the storyboard. When the playhead is at Time 0 or in the Scratch Zone (the empty zone to the left of the timeline), actions are not being recorded, but the transforms performed are honored. This is especially useful for setting up a scene in preparation for the animation.
Use the action context menu to edit the duration of an action, the start and end time of an action, or to delete an action. When editing an action, Start/End and Duration override each other. A change to the duration adds or removes time from the end of the action. The start time of the action is not affected. Select multiple actions to set the same duration for more than one action at a time. The duration of the selected actions are changed and each action retains its original starting time.