Hello and welcome to this Animation Master tutorial about how
to start up with Animation Master.
I will cover for example, a little bit of interface
changing.
I will cover a little bit of spline and patch
modeling and how to start with that and what to
do and what not to do.
And I will show you a little bit about.
Yeah, I think I will model a little spoon or
something like that.
Okay, so let’s start up.
The first time you open up Animation Master, it will
look like that.
And I will change the interface for the proposed to
model instead of animate.
And for that I will, for example, close the tooltip
here.
The tip of the day, I will close the community
window, the property info window.
I will close the geography window, which is open here.
And I will close the libraries.
And all of these windows can be re accessed by
going to one of these few properties here.
And for instance, I will activate the project workspace here.
And after activating the project workspace, I am done with
opening a fuse.
But what I want to do is I will open
another toolbar here.
I will go to one of the empty spaces in
my toolbar sections and I will go to view and
activate Views and I will activate the Draw toolbar.
These two toolbars can be put anywhere.
I will put them here because there’s just the space
for that.
And yeah, that’s it, more or less.
One thing I will do is also to use the
tools options.
And what I will do is I will activate show
advanced properties, show property triangles and I will open mp.
You don’t have to know what that is all about.
All you have to know is that you have now
the possibility to click on this little arrow here and
that you will get all the properties for the object
that is given at the point above that.
And like that, you can access all of that in
the project workspace.
And there is another possibility to access the properties, which
is a view properties panel at this point.
But what I don’t like about that is that I
just lose a little bit of screen space here.
And I like my screen space to to be used
for modeling or whatever I’m doing at the time there.
Okay, so close down that.
Another advantage over using the properties window is that you
can for example, compare two properties of two objects here.
And that’s not possible with a property window.
2 There is of course a reason why there is
a property window and the reason will be there if
you are using expressions with Animation Master.
But that’s something that is really far, far in the
future.
And I Don’t think that we will cover that in
the nearer future here because it’s just a more advanced
technique.
Okay, so let’s start.
All I want to do is I want to create
a new object.
And for that I go to this objects folder here.
Right click on it.
Go to New model.
Okay, so I got my first modeling window open here.
And what you can see is that Animation Master is
using a one window approach here.
You can of course go and create, for example, more
windows to use Animation Master with, for example, a four
window approach.
I will just show you how to do that.
Go to window, new window, and you just repeat that
four times.
You can see that there is a number here which
indicates how many windows there are.
And now I go to window and use vertical or
horizontally tile.
This, which you use isn’t important if you have four
windows.
Because of that, I’m just using one of them.
And as you can see, we have four windows now.
And if you want to set them up, you can
use this toolbar down here.
And this toolbar will help you to set different views
in the different windows here.
So let’s say we want this view to be the
top view.
So we use the top view at this point, and
this is top.
Now let’s say we want this one to be the
left view, for example, and this one to be the
top.
Let’s use front view.
That’s better.
And often it is in other programs like that that
you have a bird’s view here.
And because of that, we will do that here too.
Okay.
This would be the possibility to use several windows, actually
as many as you want.
You can even create more windows now and use them
altogether, like this for example.
But I don’t like it that way.
And because of that, I will just close down all
of these windows and I will use the one window
approach here.
Okay, so let’s start with drawing a simple spline.
A simple spline can be drawn by just clicking on
this icon here, which is the Add mode.
You can access the Add mode by clicking or pressing
the A key on your keyboard too.
I will do that in this tutorial.
And I will just draw a line now.
And the line is a spline in Animation Master.
Because of that, I just have to click once and
I just move around my mouse and click again in
another position.
Okay, and as you can see, we have now a
little spline here.
A spline is a curve which is always rounded.
And a spline has another thing about it.
It doesn’t render.
So a spline is not a geometry object at this
point.
The object that can be created with splines is a
patch, and the patch will be rendered.
So there are different patch types and I will show
you a few of them and what to do with
them.
Okay, so to create a patch, for example, you have
to create a few more splines and connect them with
each other.
For that I will just use the A key now
and I will create another spline looking like that, for
example.
And now I will just connect them.
And this is the perfect patch or the best patch
you can create, because it contains of four different splines
here, which will create a nice little patch in the
middle.
Okay, so to see something, I will go to the
shaded view and I will increase the subdivision level.
Don’t confuse this with a subdivision level in any Polygon
model or in a subdivision surface model, because this is
only a real time thing going on here.
Because if I’m rendering this, it always will be rounded.
And it’s not like you can manipulate the real curve
with this setting here.
It’s only for real time views.
Okay, so as you can see, we have a patch
now.
And to see something a little bit better, I will
switch again the viewport or the view mode to shaded
wireframe by clicking on this button here.
And like that, we can see the splines and the
patches we create here.
Okay, so you see, we have our first patch.
It’s a very valid patch, and it’s the patch you
should aim for.
And I will just create another patch by adding another
spline here.
And you may have noticed that I am not just
clicking like that and clicking again and trying to connect
it that way.
That is because if I would click on this point
for now, Animation Master would assume that I want to
extend the spline and create a nice continued spline here.
But that’s not what I want to do.
I want to create a nice little patch and for
that I need another spline line here.
Okay? And to get that going, I’m just clicking on
my cp, which is created differently in a different spline
here.
I click on that drag and drop it around and
bring it near another CP point.
And if I’m there, I’m holding the left mouse key
and clicking the right mouse key at the same time.
And like that, it’s connected now and I can, for
example, move it around and it stays connected.
And the same thing I will do at this point.
And if I now connect this, I will create another
four point patch at this point.
Okay, so let’s Create just another line here.
And I will try to cover something that is.
It’s very often asked.
It’s one of the more interesting things and one of
the things that is not common in the Polygon world,
for example, and that is how to connect.
How to connect a round shape to, for example a
surface.
This is for example, necessary if you want to create
a character and you want to attach an arm to
his body or something like that, or for example, a
leg to his body.
And because of that, I will create a certain structure
here to show you what I’m doing here.
And while I’m doing that, I will show you how
to extrude in Animation Master.
Extrusion in Animation Master is a little bit different from
most Polygon models or Polygon Modeler because extrusion is not
based on a surface as for example, in Polygon modelers
you are extruding Polygon in that way, but you are
extruding cps or better to say splines here in Animation
Master World.
And for that I will just go to the front
view again.
I can switch the front view and stuff like that
by using my keypad and going like that to the
different.
To the different viewports.
Or you can see this at this point in which
viewport I am in.
Okay, so one of the little tricks here, I will.
To align these CP’s, I will just scale them down.
For example, in this case, I need to scale it
to the null at this point and I will use
this one and scale it again too.
This is of course not the usual way you would
create a grid or something.
It would be quite hard to do that.
But there is a grid wizard that can do that.
We will cover that in a later tutorial or maybe
you just have a look at the right menu.
Going to Plugins wizard and using the Grid wizard at
this point.
But it’s not necessary for now.
Okay.
And so I’m extruding, for example, this part, for extruding
you have this little button.
It will be available after you selected a spline.
And if you do that, you create a new here,
a new part here.
And I will do that again.
And now we have the basic structure to create a
nice little transition between round shape and more or less
square shape here.
And to show you something more, because I see that
it’s hard to see where I’m putting my SCPs here.
And that’s the piece.
I will use another appearance here because you can customize
your interface.
And for that I go to Tools Customize.
I will Go to appearance.
And now I have several different, several different presets.
And one of my own presets is this professional 1,
2, 3 thingy.
And I will use a professional one.
I think I will provide that in the forums for
you.
And as you can see, we can see a little
bit better now what is going on here.
Okay? And for now, this is our structure.
And I will tell you what you need to connect,
for example, an arm to a body or something like
that.
And what you need is more or less this part
of our model at this point.
And for that you can connect something to that, because
all the splines here are already taken or already in
the way they should be, because a spline cannot be
run or CP cannot be run through by more than
two splines.
Otherwise you will receive at least a very hard edge
or maybe even some kind of other wiredness.
And because of that I will just use.
I’m just scaling that down.
Okay, I will just use this part here.
And what we will use is a five pointer, because
patches can not only be created from four pointers, four
points here, but also from three points and from five
points.
And the best thing to use is a four point
patch, of course, but in some situations it’s very common
and very easily and very well suited to use five
points, for example.
And one of the situations is this one.
Okay, so to create a small little round surface, I
will just create a lace object.
A lathe object is an object that is created by
a basic spline which is rotated around an axis.
And this axis will be the middle of our rotation
object.
And as you can see, this will be our shape
to define the rotation object.
This would be the button for that.
And one thing you may want to know about Animation
Master is that you can always hit the control key
and click on one of the buttons.
If there are options available for that button.
You can set them after that because it will open
up a setting box and show you what sections or
what possibilities there are.
And for now I will just go with a lace
cross section value of 4 instead of 8.
You can of course do the same thing with an
8 point or 12 point or something like that cross
section for a spline ring.
But for now I will leave it like that.
And if I now just click one of the buttons
here and click on lace, it will create a nice
little shape here which is an object, and it is
more or less something that could be used to attach
it, for example, to this part.
And for that I will just move this now so
just select it, grab it and move it wherever you
want.
I go to one of the other views, which is
left view in this part.
As you can see, here is our object I created
earlier.
And this is our lathe created object.
And I’m just rotating that by using this manipulator here.
And now I want to connect the the two objects
here.
And to do that I will have to break this
part of my model here, because as I told you,
I cannot connect this point and this point without a
hard edge.
But I don’t want a hard edge.
And because of that, I will do it this way.
Okay, so I will break that.
Breaking can be done by just clicking on this button
or hitting the key, the key K on your keyboard.
And for that I’m just breaking it now with that.
And this one is the same.
And you may notice that the break key is now
no longer available.
That is because this is the end of a spline,
and the end of a spline can always be deleted
by just hitting delete.
So we have this structure now openly here.
And what I want to do is I’m just connecting
the different parts here.
I will go to wireframe to see more the different
parts here with my object I created.
And like that, I can create a five pointer.
Now.
So a five pointer has own behavior, which is the
following.
A five pointer will not be created automatically.
A five pointer has to be created by you by
just selecting all these points.
And then you have to define that this should be
a five pointer.
Okay? One very, very important thing to define a five
pointer is that if you are selecting this CP’s you
should press the shift key before you do anything and
then hold the shift key and select all the CP’s
that should be in the selection to create a five
pointer.
And like that I am creating my little bridge or
connection here that I talked about earlier.
This is a very good part to create or to
use five pointers.
This little indication here is that there is a normal
problem.
In general, you don’t see normal problems very well in
Animation Master or in renderings of Animation Master because you
can often ignore that.
But if you have to flip one of the normals,
you can always use your patch tool, which is at
this point it will select a whole patch.
And if you then hit the F key or right
click on your selection and use Flip Normals, it will
flip the normals.
As I said before, it’s often not necessary to do
that.
But in this case I just wanted to show you
how it is Done in the best way here.
Okay.
And as you can see, we have now a transition
between our objects at this point.
Okay? So if you think that’s it, there is more
to it, of course.
I will show you something that is called a hook.
A hook is called or a hook is used to
increase the resolution in a certain area of your model
and to decrease it again.
So let’s have a look.
I will just extrude this.
I think I will do that a couple of times
now.
And let’s say we want to decrease the resolution of
this model here at this point so that these CP’s
here are no longer present.
Why do we decrease at all in Animation Master as
well in Polygon World or something somewhere else, it is
always very wise to use only the CP’s you really
need and an as low amount as you can.
Ok, so for now I am just going to delete
for example these two cps here.
And what you will notice is that there is no
longer a patch at this point.
Because here is a patch that would be defined by
five CP’s at this point.
And this is not the way Animation Master works.
You could for example go and create a 5cp point
at this point or a 5 point patch at this
point.
But in this case it is very wise to use
a hook for that.
And a hook can be created by just going to
the add mode, clicking on the button or on the
CP you want to create a new hook or a
new spline, whatever you want here to.
And now just if you are ready for that, just
right click again to leave the spline mode without deleting
the spline you already created here.
And now just drag and drop it to one of
the splines at this point.
It shouldn’t be too near to one of the CP’s
here, but in this case it should be.
Okay, and now you just merge them together as you
would with a CP you wanted to merge with another
cp.
Okay.
And you can do that by just again select the
cp, hold the left mouse button and if you are
near another spline here, just hit the right mouse button
too.
Okay? And like that we created a hook.
And same thing can be done at this point.
And as you can see, you won’t see any difference
here.
Okay, so this is a hook.
We have talked about the hook.
We have talked about a four pointer patch, we have
talked about this five pointer patch and we have talked
a little bit about spline continuity.
Spline continuity is just something that occurs in Animation Master
by default.
If you Are if you are going to use it
in the right way.
One thing we can see at this point, for example,
is that we can’t really predict where the spline continuity
will be running along.
Or better to say, we can’t really predict if, for
example, if you create a new CP here, if it
will be connected to this spline or to this spline,
it can be manipulated by clicking for example, a little
bit next to the cp, for example, like that.
And it is very likely that the cp, the new
created CP will now be attached to this spline instead
of this spline.
But to be sure about that, just try it out
a little bit by for example, just clicking on it
and moving this new CP around.
And like that, you can see that there is a
difference here at this point.
And because of that, the CP is manipulating the curve
not only at this point of the of the on
this side of the cp but also on the other
side of the cp.
So what about creating for example, scp and you need
it to be there, but you want this to be
straight, for example, for that we have the bias handlers.
Bias handlers are used to control more or less the
running of a spline at this point.
And with the bias handlers you can for example, just
move them down or up, something like that.
And you would create a nice little follow through which
is quite straight.
And you can for example, now create another patch.
I’ll do that quickly here.
And you see we have a nice little follow up
here.
Let’s increase it a little bit.
Okay.
You see, this is the way bias handlers work.
Bias handlers can be manipulated in different ways.
One way of manipulating this is for example, pressing the
shift key using the manipulator icon here.
And what you can see is that the, the bias
handlers are still connected with each other, but you can
by shift clicking on one of them and dragging it
around, you can manipulate the length of one of the
handlers at a time.
And there is a different behavior for splines too, because
you may want to create for example, mechanical objects too.
For that I will just leave this object as it
is now and I will create another one again.
Right click on Objects View model and activate the grid
here to see where I am at.
I am in the front view.
And now let’s have a look at when to use
straight splines.
Because splines can be curves, but splines can also be
manipulated to be peaked.
So this is a peaked button here and you can
switch these two behaviors of splines to each other.
So when to use when in general terms spoken, you
can say that in most situations, if you are for
example creating a character or something like that, you will
want to use the smooth version of a spline.
So the default version here, which can be for example,
if it’s peaked, you can force it to be smooth
again like that.
And in some situations, if you want to create, for
example mechanical model or models, it can be wise to
use the peak version of the splines.
And for that I will just go to this button,
which is a snap to grid button.
And like that, all the new created CP’s I’m creating
here will snap to a grid point.
And I will just create a little shape here.
And as you can see, this shape is now just
a spline wing for now.
And what you can see here is that this shape
is not straight, for example at this point or at
this line.
And that’s because it’s currently used with the non peaked
mode, so the smooth mode.
But if I peak them, for example, at this point
I will get a straight line.
So why can’t I just go and use the bias
handlers at this point, for example, like that and like
that to create a straight line at this point.
This is very fine and it can be used in
a very useful way.
But there is one drawback to do it in this
way.
And the drawback is if you afterwards manipulate for example
the length of the shape, you will get a curve
again in this part here.
And I will show you that as you can see,
there is a curve.
Now even so, we manipulated the CPS to look straight
before, okay? And like that it is very hard or
it’s sometimes very hard to use Animation Master in that
way.
And because of that there is a peak mode.
Okay, So I will set these bias handlers or bias
modes here to the default again.
For that you just have to click on this little
icon which will open up this, this toolbox here whenever
you select something.
And I will just import alpha to null, gamma to
null, and magnitude to 100.
And now we have the standard values again imported here.
Okay? So let’s peak that.
And as you can see we have now a very
straight edge here.
And it can be okay to look like that, but
in many cases you don’t want it to look like
that.
And for that I will just use the bias handlers
again, which can be used in the peaked mode exactly
in the same way as in the smooth mode, with
one exception.
I can manipulate the bias handles of a point separately
from each other.
That means I can for example, use this totally independent
from the other side here.
And I will just create a little nice corner here,
doing it that way.
And this indicates one of the many things that are
very well in Animation Master and that should be done
before doing anything else.
Animation Master will create very nice and smooth bevels, but
only if you think about them before you are modeling
something.
So as you can see, I created a nice beveled
edge here and you should start with the right shape
for that and bevel it whenever you create it and
not try to afterwards create a bevel.
Because afterwards creating a bevel is much more work to
do than doing it at the beginning.
Okay, so let’s just extrude this to show you what
we created here.
Okay, I go to the shaded view and as you
can see, we have a quite nice little edge here
which is now easy to be manipulated.
We can for example, increase the height here and it
should still work very well.
And that is the basic advantage of peaked Farwell versus
smooth versions here.
Okay, so I think I’m going to go to the
last part of my tutorial here now.
And the last part will be I will be creating
a very basic object and for that I will just
create a new model here.
I will call this model to, for example, Spoon, because
we are just creating a spoon here.
And as you can see, it is very wise to
give names to your models and just to keep it
tidy here because it just helps you to identify everything
nice and smoothly.
Ok, so I will go to the top view, which
is a 5 on the keypad of your keyboard.
And now I don’t have any kind of reference material.
You can, you can of course import a reference material
by just for example, going to Images.
Import image.
And if you then select an image and put it
into your screen space here, you are asked whether you
want it to be used as a decal or as
a rotoscope.
And like that you could just get an image reference
into Animation Master to draw on it and to just
try to copy it from the image there.
But I don’t have one right now.
So I will just assume I know how Spoon should
more or less look like.
And for that I’m just placing some points here.
Remember, I’m just trying to show you how to use
Animation Master to create objects.
And what I can see here is I have Snattogrid
still activated because of that, I will deactivate that and
start creating a little spoon here.
Okay? And as you can see, I am not Using
some kind of box modeling method as in some of
the Polygon model world or programs.
But I am using a drawing method here.
And this is the way Animation Master will create objects
and the way you should create objects in Animation Master.
Okay, so let’s say this is more or less what
we were looking for as a spoon here, maybe a
little bit smaller at this point.
You can always use as I am doing that yet
the arrow keys on your keyboard to move around CP’s
and just change the curves you are creating.
And for now I will just use another technique that
is implemented in Animation Master.
The technique is called Copy Flip Attached.
Copyflipattach is just doing exactly what it’s named like it
will copy this structure I created here, flip it to
the other side of one of the axes.
In this case it will be the z axis and
then it will attach both of these geometries here with
each other.
For that just select everything you want to Copy Flip
Attach.
Right click and go to Copy Flip Attach.
And as you can see, we created a nice little,
nice little counterpart of that here.
Has something happened? I will correct it by hand.
It’s because this point is very near to the, to
the axis.
And because of that you sometimes have to rework a
little bit at this point.
But in general this should work.
Okay, so I think that a nice little spoon should
be a little bit longer at this point.
I will do that.
And yeah, I think that’s more or less the shape
of a spoon.
And the first thing I will do is I will
just Try to connect two CP’s here and start by
that to create my object.
And what I’m doing here is just, I’m going, you
see, I was too near to my other CP here
by clicking there.
And because of that I’m using the Y key now
to add another CP in where I want it.
And what you can see is that I’m trying to
create patches here.
And patches are for example at this point just the
four point patches I created here.
And this is the way you should go about that.
And like that I’m creating geometry.
I can of course go to the shaded wireframe for
example, and you can see we have a basic structure
at this point already.
Ok, so go on, use again the tools you already
know like that.
And here is another thing I like to do.
If for example, you have a structure where two four
point patches would form some kind of a curve here,
I don’t think that that is a good patch.
And because of that I will add Another CP here
and do it in this way.
We have a three pointer now instead of a four
pointer.
But if you for example, manipulate or move the CP’s
around later on you will see that this is the
better structure than the other one we had before.
Okay, and so to have a little bit more control
I will just add another spline ring here.
And as you can see you can always attach a
new spline into wherever you want.
And just for example increase the details of this object
here.
And I will just go on like that.
You can see it’s quite fast.
I’m using the middle mouse button for panning here and
the scroll wheel for yes, zooming in and out.
That’s why I navigate here.
And let’s say this is the structure we want to
achieve here.
Now the spoon would be very flat and there is
no thickness to it.
And because of that we have to create a thickness
now.
And for that I’m just selecting one of the CP’s
around the base here and I will hit the comma
key.
And with the comma key every CP on the spline
I just selected will be selected.
And like that I can for example extrude that as
we did it many times before now and we get
our first little thickness to this model I will just
move that a little so I can see it better.
And now I will attach.
Yeah, I will use copy, flip, attach again to just
get this object to look nice.
And as you can see we have now closed shape.
And what I don’t need now is this middle CP
ring here.
And because of that I will just go to one
of the views where I can see it very nicely
and I will just delete it.
Okay, Deletion or deleting is just done by selecting something
and pressing your delete key of course.
Okay, so let’s scale it a little bit down.
And like that we have our first little spoony looking
item here.
And now there’s another technique in Animation Master which can
help you with more complex objects where many CP’s have
to be manipulated to create a certain object.
And this one is called the distortion box mode.
And for now I will go to the left view
here and select everything.
Go to the distortion mode or distortion box mode.
And for this mode there is also a setting you
can set which can be accessed by hitting the control
key, clicking on the button for the control mode there.
And now you can increase the distort grid resolution.
And I will do that.
For example, I will just input 5 here and if
I now hit this distortion box mode, I will have
five different control points for each of my axes here.
And as you can see, I can now manipulate the
control points of this box instead of the control points
of my own, of my own creation here, or my
own object here.
And like that, we can give this spoon a nice
little rounding.
And for that, for example, like this is the back
part of the model here.
And because of that I will, for example, just put
that up a little bit, maybe something like that.
As I said, I’m doing this out of thin air.
So if it’s not looking like your average spoon you’re
having at home, bear with me.
It’s just an example here.
Okay, and what we want to do is very likely
you want to put this part down a little bit.
Okay.
And what I want to do, of course, is that
the spoon has some kind of a hole, so it
can hold, for example, some kind of fluid in it.
And because of that, I will go to these CPUs
in the middle at this point, let’s go to the
wireframe to see what we are doing here.
I want, for example, this piece at this point and
I want to drag them down a little.
Okay, maybe like that.
And as you can see, we have some kind of
a spoon here for now.
I will now manipulate my object again without using the
distortion box here, because it’s just better to have a
higher resolution work here.
And for that I’m just selecting, for example, these two
CP’s and bringing them up a little.
And maybe we want to decrease, decrease the width here
or the thickness of the spoon just a little bit,
something like that.
And what I see here is that we have to
do it for the back side in another way.
By clicking on 1, 2 or by hitting or pressing
1, 2 and 3.
You can limitate your movement of your mouse or the
CP’s you are dragging with your mouse to one of
the axes because of that.
Now let’s have a look.
I want to only move it on the Y axis.
And because of that I’m hitting the two key and
I’m bringing that up a little bit here.
And of course this has to be done with the
other side too.
And now we have a basic spoon at this point.
And maybe you want to bring this little fella up
too, maybe this one a little bit down again.
And we have a basic spoon right at your hand.
There’s of course, much more you can do.
For example, you can use the bias handlers.
Now at this situation again, I go to the wireframe
mode and as you can see, this is a bias
handler and we can manipulate it per hand at this
point.
But I want to manipulate it by a numeric value
for that I’m just clicking this button here and that
will create this little menu item.
And as soon as I, for example, select one of
the CP’s now I can manipulate its bias handlers by
values.
And what I’m doing here is I will increase that
to give it a nicer shape.
You may want to do it at this point too.
Let’s see if it’s right.
Okay.
And as you can see, we have a quite nice
little spoon at this point.
Here is a little part that we may want to
correct again if I just, for example, bringing this up,
that should be.
Okay, maybe a little bit down again.
Now let’s go to the left view and have a
look at the bias handlers here too.
Because we don’t get a very nice object here because
the bias handlers are manipulating, of course the shape is
a way that it’s smooth and that it will come
up here.
And in this case I will just use the bias
handlers to correct that.
Ok, so now we have a quite nice little spoon
modeled and ready to be used.
So I hope you have learned a little bit and
that it is helping you with getting started with Animation
Master.
There are a few tutorials to come and I will,
for example, cover a little bit of texturing.
I will cover a little bit of rigging, maybe animating,
of course, and some kind of UV mapping and something
like that.
And just have a look again at this thread or
at my website at www.patchwork3d.de for more information, tutorials and
cool stuff about Animation Master.
So have a nice day and see you soon.