Make 3D Animations Using 3D Studio Max
These instructions will guide you through the process of creating a simple animation using the 3D Studio software by Autodesk. Included in these steps are how to create and modify shapes, create lights, and fully render a scene.
Steps
- Navigating the basic user interface. The first step is learning what and where everything is. For now, all you will use are the noted sections of (Figure 1). The toolbar contains the Move, Rotate, and Scale buttons. These allow control over the position, angle, and scale of objects. The control panel on the right is used to create and modify shapes, as you will do in step 2. The viewports in the center show the user different angles of the scene. Think of them as cameras pointing from different places to the center of the scene. A few helpful buttons to control how the views display are located on the bottom toolbar, on the right. These allow you to move, rotate, or zoom the focus of the cameras. The last section on (Figure 1) covers the lower toolbar’s animation controls. These will be used much later.
- Creating a cube. To create a cube, go to the control panel on the right, and find the button labeled Box. When you click this button, the control panel will change. You now have an option of Creation Method. You want to make a cube, so select the Cube option. After you select Cube, click and drag with the mouse inside any viewport (See Note 1). It should look something like Figure 2 (Figure 2 is a rendering, which will be discussed later). In preparation for the next step, change the segments fields under parameters to 5 for length, width and height. These will make your modifiers apply more smoothly.
- Using Object Modifiers. After creating a cube, it can be modified in different ways. To add modifiers, open the Modify tab at the top of the control panel, and use the drop-down Modifier List. Under Object-Space Modifiers, find and select Twist. Notice that in the object list, the box you created now has modifier Twist attached to it. The control panel should now be working with the Twist modifier. Increase the angle, and watch what happens. The cube will twist around itself. Compare your cube to (figure 3). When you are finished with Twist, remove it by pressing the small trash can button in the control panel, under the object list.
- Adding Materials. The Material Editor (Figure 4) allows the user to customize, and apply different materials to objects. By default, all the materials are gray. To make things a little more interesting, lets decrease the Opacity under Blinn Basic Parameters to 50. This will decrease the solidity of the material. This is only a very basic example of materials, as they can become much more complex. For now, you will assign this simple 'ghostly' material to the cube using the Assign Material to selection button (Third from the left, just below material spheres). To see how this material has affected the cube, create another small shape inside the cube.
- Rendering the Scene. This step is very simple. To render a scene, you can use the Quick Render button located on the right of the upper toolbar. You may have to slide the toolbar to the left to find this button. A render allows you to view the final product of the scene, including materials and effects (See Note 2). Later, you use the full render function to create a video output file. You will notice here, that the cube you created earlier is partially invisible, and the shape you created inside is showing through (see Figure 5). You can delete this extra shape now, as it was only to provide a better visual example.
- Manipulating Objects. In this step you will use 3 buttons: Move, Rotate, and Scale (See Figure 1). These allow the user to change the position, angle, and proportional size of the shape along the X, Y, and Z axis’. The axis’ will change depending on which viewport you are working in. It is not possible to move along the Z axis in most standard views, because it would involve moving along the line of sight, which is parallel to the view. To use these tools, hover over the cube with your mouse to display the axis' indicator. Now click the axis you want to use, and drag in the direction you want to move.
- Creating a simple animation. Here comes the fun part - beginning to animate the scene! For this instruction you will use Auto-key. On the bottom toolbar, make sure the animation bar is at 0/100. Press auto-key, and the large key button to the left of it. This will initialize the starting key (where everything is at the beginning of the scene). Drag the animation bar to 10/100. Now move the cube around, using the buttons from Step 6. After you have changed the position of the cube in frame 10, drag the bar back to 0/100, notice that it will regress back to the original position. This process allows the user to specify exactly how the object will change at a certain frame, and auto-animate the steps in between. These points are called key frames.
- Adding Modifiers to animation. Now that you can animate movement, try adding modifiers to the cube. Begin at frame 0/100, and add the Twist modifier – use an angle of 0. Now go to frame 10 and increase the angle. The arrows beside angle will show red corners around them. This means the angle has been changed since the last key frame. Scroll back to frame 0/100 and notice the change.
- Adding Lights. Adding lights is as simple as creating shapes. Under the Create tab in the control panel, look beneath the tabs. The small buttons here allow the creation of different types of objects (Geometry, Lights, etc..). Select Lights here and choose Omni. An omni light creates light at all angles (think of it as a mini sun). Click once anywhere in the view ports to create an omni light. Arrange the light however you like, to add shadow or contrast to objects (see Figure 6). You can animate this light to move through the scene as well.
- Saving to AVI. The final step is to save the animation into a file to view it later. From the top menu bar, find Rendering > Render, or press F10 from the main interface. This will bring up the Rendering Options window (See Figure 7). Setting Time Output to Active Time Segment or Range allow an output of the full scene, or a range of frames. Choose Range, and specify 0-10 to make this go more quickly. Scroll down further to find Render Output, and click Files. Specify a name for your animation ending in .avi (Cube.avi). This will send the file in avi format to the specified path. Choose Render in the lower right corner of the window to finish.
Tips
- Materials are not shown in the viewports as how they appear after rendering. A simpler form is applied to improve performance.
- Depending which viewport you create in will affect which sides are labeled as Length, Width and Height. The base of the cube is created on the surface facing the user. Creating in ‘Left’ will result in a cube that has a base facing the right side of the scene.
Things You'll Need
- Autodesk: 3D Studio software, version 8 or higher.
