The aim of this tutorial is to show how to use the Animation Record command in the Driven plugin to rough out a quick animation that you can tweak afterwards to make a smooth and more natural movement.
To begin, you can download the Carrara file here.
When you open the file you should see an animation setup that has 2 cones and a sphere like in the image below.
The aim is to simulate the sphere bouncing over
both cones as in the image path on the right. Try to move the sphere as
smoothly as possible. To help with the mouse movements you should set
the active grid to the Left Grid.
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| After you have the Left Grid made the active grid, select the sphere. You might try practicing the movement before recording. When you are ready, select the Animation Record command from the Edit menu. A dialog box will open. Make Sensitivity to 1.00 frame. This does not mean that it will create a keyframe for every frame. It means that it will attempt to capture transform changes as close to 1 fps as possible and not faster than that. The top speed for recording is 1/60th sec. It will not record unless there is a change in transform. Leave the Max Record time to 4 secs. |
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When you are ready, click the Record button. Recording
will begin from the moment you begin changing an object. That first
changed object will be what is recorded. So if you move the camera
first, then recording will begin for the camera instead. So it is best
not to move the camera after you begin.
Try to move the mouse smoothly and quickly within a single mouse
movement and within the 4 seconds allowed. Allow some ease in and ease
out during the bounce to make it more realistic.
| When you have finished, immediately go to the Edit menu and click on the Animation Record command to end the capture. A dialog box will appear telling you of the End of the Capture. |
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| If you do not end the capture before the max record time, the plugin will end it automatically while you are moving the object. This may create an unwanted keyframe at the end so you should end the capture before the time allotted. |
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The plugin will add the keyframes to the timeline when
you click Close. Replay the animation to see that it is smooth.
Animation Record will not capture keyframes unless there is a change in
motion so you may notice "gaps." This is natural.
