CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

The topics covered in this chapter include:

• Animation with keyframes

• Creating simple keyframes

• Simple animation scripts

• Creating animation actors

• Keyframing actors

• Previewing scripts

• 3D content in Adobe PDF

• Graphics acceleration

• Recording animation script

• Using the movie player

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter you will be creating a simple animation based on a technique called keyframing. The basic principle of keyframe animation is simple: you specify the location of geometry at certain key positions (keyframes) and the animation software automatically calculates the in-between frames. You can think of a keyframe as a key moment in time that includes where an object s position, scale or rotation is at that moment.

The Animation Producer automatically computes in-between frames that involve translation, rotation, and scale. It can also interpolate the changes between two versions of an element that has been modified to create simple morphing, such as a flag waving.

SIMPLE KEYFRAME ANIMATION

In this next exercise you will be putting some simple objects in motion by creating keyframes of the simple objects at their initial positions. Then by moving, rotating, scaling, and modifying the geometry you will create some additional keyframes. After creating the keyframes, all that is required to animate the objects is to create the animation script, preview it and record the script to sequential frames on disk.

If you are new to animation and are using MicroStation V8 XM Edition you can skip this exercise and move to the exercises specifically for MicroStation V8 XM Edition. The section on...