Original subtitles

welcome to this first tutorial for

animation master in this first tutorial

we're going to start out with the

interface the first time that you open

animation master this is what you will

see this tip of the day window will show

up and you can tell it to show it on

startup or you can uncheck the box you

can go through the tips to look at those

or what you can do is close it and go up

to help tip of the day and it will show

those so I like to close it and turn it

off so that it doesn't show up on your

left this is the library windows where

you can store shortcuts to your models

actions materials images and other

things I don't like to use it I just

like to pull up what I need just because

I don't like to have to worry about

keeping these organized so I usually

close that down and then over here on

your right there is the community window

if you click here you can sign into hash

comm and have access to online content

chat rooms that kind of things but I

don't ever use that either so I turn it

off now this main window is a default

choreography or this is what where you

start the choreography is where you take

pieces that you have built and put them

all together in an animation and so

because we don't want to do there we

don't want to do this we want to start

with a model I close this window down

also and then we'll go into preferences

so go up to tools and go to options in

your options box in this global global

tab here you'll see all these things

here the first thing you want to do is

switch to at startup do nothing uncheck

reload last project unavailable and then

check these two boxes here we'll talk

about more of these skip frames if

behind when playing means that when you

play your animation down here it will

actually play at the frame rate that you

want it to whether that's 30 frames a

second 24 frames a second 12 frames a

second whatever you set it at it will

play that it will skip frames so that it

will reach that frame rate if you

uncheck that it will play every frame

and won't show the frame rate so I

usually keep that checked then show

advanced properties and show property

triangles these two are very much needed

when you are

working with objects so I keep those

checked user info you can change your

name organization website and email to

these will be embedded in in all the

files that you create go to units and I

leave it at centimeters I leave it at 30

frames a second but I'd switch it to

frames elapsed so that it's not under

timecode the other thing that I do is I

uncheck use CP spacing direction for

extrude and switch Y to zero that way

when you copy and paste or when you

extrude it will copy and paste it

directly on top of what you copied and

that way it won't offset it at all so

that's that's that tab in under modeling

I leave this one just the way it is

under lathe cross-sections this is where

when you create a profile curve and you

want to lathe something this is how many

sections it will divide it into these

things right here

you can also access up here on the

toolbar action I just leave it the way

it is but I uncheck smart for ski

choreography I leave this the way it is

folders just leave that the way it is

this is where your plugins are located

you can tell where your plugins here

your libraries motion-capture this is

this will store those for you motion

capture data you can use that if you

want to under the rendering tab I check

the advanced box and leave it the way it

is here except that I go under default

and then show back-facing Poly's I turn

that to off and that's so when you're

modeling you can see whether your

normals are flipped or not going to

OpenGL this is just your drivers for

your video card sound I leave it that

way so that when you're playing sound it

plays it in stereo and at 44 kilohertz

onion skin is also known as ghosting in

like Maya you can set this to be that

way in animations but it tends to slow

the program down quite a bit so I just

leave it off and that's all the options

that we've set so I hit OK

now we want to show certain views to set

up our workspace so go under view and

then you can go under excuse me you'll

view here the first one is project

workspace I click on that and you'll see

this window come up the project

workspace is where all the all your

objects are stored whether it is in a

choreography or whether it is under any

one of these file folders all your

images that you're using are here your

sounds are here materials post effects

all your objects if I open it right now

you'll see that when I started it up it

gave me a default choreography which has

a camera a key light a fill light a rim

light and the ground plane in it and if

I look under objects that has those

models these are just shortcuts now in a

choreography I can do one of two things

I can change things in the choreography

but it doesn't change the model itself

or I can change the model and it will

update in the choreography so we'll work

with choreographies a little more later

on but for right now you can see how it

stores here underground you can see that

there are splines and these are the

property triangles right here that we

were talking about and you'll want to be

able to see these things here when

you're working with objects so the

project workspace is the main window

that you'll use if you drag this out

you'll be able to see that there is your

frame numbers here and if I click this

right here and drag it you'll see that

my frame these are my frame numbers this

is a timeline but what we'll do instead

of using this will close it down and

we'll go up to view timeline this will

give me my timeline but what is nice

about this is whatever I check whatever

I click on here it will update it down

here and only give me the data for that

if I check on a choreography it will

give me all of these and the data for

all of these I can switch between graph

editor mode or it can go into dopesheet

mode which will show me where my keys

are and then I can use those to edit

animations I can switch to each

individual object in the choreography

and that way it's not cluttered if I use

this one I see everything for every

object at the same time so if I have

keys set on everything here I will see

them all and I can't differentiate

between them so I like just using the

time line so I'm going to close this

down are there the other window that I

like to have open is my properties

window and if you look under these in

the proper or in the Triangle your

properties triangle there's a separate

window called the properties window also

known in Maya as like the attribute

editor these will all show up in it so

I'm going to go to view properties and

now you'll see what it looks like here

let me shut this down this is the

properties window right here so now when

I click on an object if I go to my

objects and I click on the camera

you'll see that if I open up this

property triangle it has all this

information all that same information is

right here in the properties menu the

reason why I like the properties menu

open versus the property triangle is

when you have all these objects here you

don't want to have to open up the

properties triangle here every time you

want to change something you want to

just be able to click on it and have it

all available right here for you so

that's the properties box now this is

the way that I like to to set up my

interface so that I can navigate easily

in this window access my objects here

see my properties and animate at the

same time now in the rest of this you'll

see all your toolbars up here this is

your file toolbar your cut or your cut

and paste and delete undo redo this is

your render toolbar this is your

manipulator toolbar this is your

modeling mode distortion mode bones mode

grooming mode for hair and then muscle

mode skeletal mode dynamics choreography

mode then these are your other

manipulators standard then your

translate

mode this is your scale mode and this is

your rotate mode this is world space but

I usually never use that and this is

your showing for bias handles and we'll

talk about that in a little while this

is your manipulator properties box and

this is snap to the grid this is show

your rulers this is offset magnet mode

mirror mode and then a few other things

also I'll actually do this so you can

see it better and take this and drop it

down here so now you can see the other

part of this this is defined a

relationship button and this is animate

mode if I have this unchecked it won't

set it won't automatically set keys for

me but if I have a check that will set

keys for me when I'm animating so I'm

going to do those to put this back here

and then I'm going to go up to project

and say new now a project is kind of

like a Maya file in that everything that

you have inside here you can save within

a project they will be external files

but the project will save references to

those so you can open a project and it

will open multiple files at once I never

really use those mainly because in when

you save a project it automatically

saves everything within here so if I

have some objects that I've been working

on and I hit project save but I didn't

want to save the objects it will save

those objects over the top of themselves

and not a new iteration so I usually

just work in just saving objects and

never saving properties I mean projects

so now I've got this blank project which

doesn't have any objects actions

choreographies anything in it and this

is where we like to start the other

thing I want to do here is you go under

tools and to customize

here's your customize dialog box here

you can tell what what toolbars you want

to see if you if you see here I'm

checking modeling bones distortion

dynamics muscle skeletal and grooming

and these are all the toolbars that are

available now the nice thing about this

let me uncheck all of these the nice

thing about this is this is context

sensitive so depending on what I'm

working on

in the modeling window this will change

according to this so you actually don't

have to have those toolbars up so I just

leave it the way it is commands is where

you can replace commands and create tat

or create toolbars or swap out things

for toolbars so for example this is the

render lock mode where you can set a

region to render and while you're

working it will constantly update

rendering kind of like a the IPR render

in Maya except it's in your working

window so it's a lot like xsi in that in

that matter

but I don't want it to lock there I just

want to hit shift Q and have it be able

to do a progressive quick render so I

can check things so what I'm going to do

is go to render and then you can see

these buttons here this is the

progressive mode or inter progressive

render mode if I grab it I can go at it

to this toolbar and then this one I

don't need there anymore so I grabbed it

and just dragged it off and now my

toolbars are back to the way they were

and I can do that with any of these you

can see these are all the frame are all

the buttons that are down here

manipulator you can see all those up

here mode these are all right here

navigation tools all that kind of thing

you can customize these very very easily

so I just leave them at that tools I

leave it there keyboard this is where

you can set your hotkeys I like to go

and like I just did progressive render

let me find it here real quick I guess

it's not on this this list so I'm just

gonna hit okay and look actually it is

under shift Q that's what I wanted it to

be so the default is shift Q so I'm

going to go back to the customize window

this is where you can set up your your

hotkeys I usually leave all the hotkeys

the default and that's what we'll be

using in all of these appearance this is

where you can change the look of your

interface this is the default it's kind

of this dark green with a black grid and

white splines I like to actually change

it I'm going to change it to leave the

background and leave the grid but I'm

going to change objects to a medium gray

just so that they're not so bright a lot

of times when you're trying to work with

them on a surface that is very shiny

you'll lose them and you'll it'll be

hard to see him so I'm just going to hit

OK excuse me and then the last one is

agent you'll see this little guy show up

and he's kind of a helper or whatever

whenever you hit help he'll show up

I just don't worry about that because I

never use it you'll see this little hat

show up and that way if I double click

him he'll show up and then he can answer

questions for me I can right-click on

him and then say hide and he'll go away

so I've set up all my options I've set

up my tools and set up my interface all

the way that I want it to be this is the

the most effective way that I've found

of working and this is the way I'll be

working throughout these tutorials so

you can customize customize it however

you would like and and whatever feels

best to you one other thing is you can

drag these windows out or you can dock

them I like to dock them back along the

side oops

drag it out here look anyways

I like to drag it out so I can see where

it is so I'm just gonna kind of drag it

out here you can see kind of how you can

place them anywhere you want here and it

will show up wherever you'd like it to

be so in previous versions they've

you've been able to dock it a lot better

than then then this but this is pretty

good so I'm going to just do this I've

got my timeline my properties and my

project workspace now so we'll leave it

like that should do this close down that

and you can see how I'm just moving them

around however I would like them to be

it's pretty handy and it's a good

interface so with that we will start on

with the other tutorials