Blender 3D Animation Tutorial

Creating an Animation

in Blender 3D

This tutorial uses the globe created in the Creating a Globe in Blender 3D tutorial.

Select Rotate Manipulator mode. Change the Transform Orientation from Global to Local. This allows you to rotate the globe along the "local" Z axis, which if you remember, has been shifted -23.5 degrees to reflect the earth's actual tilt.

You should see the spherical shaped Red/Green/Blue manipulator. Make sure that the sphere is selected.

Hit Num Pad 1 to go into Front View, then drag MMB down slightly to get a view similar to the left. This will make it easier to drag and rotate along the Blue Z axis.

Select F10 to go into Render Settings mode.

Select the Anim Tab and change the number of frames in the animation to 60, ( End: 60 ), as shown. I am going to have the sphere rotate through 360 degrees over 60 frames.

Select  Do Composite  as well.

With the main 3D window selected hit the I key. In the window that appears choose LocRot. This will insert a keyframe into the current frame, with the sphere in it's present position and rotation.

Advance the Current Frame button to 15.  If one complete 360 degree  revolution of the sphere is going to happen in 90 frames, Frame 15 will be one-quarter rotation, or 90 degrees.

Click and drag the Blue axis manipulator to the right until you get to -90 degrees. The Blue ring will turn white as you select it.

Hold down the Ctrl Key to constrain the amount of rotation.  You should be able to snap the rotation in 5 degree increments. The amount of rotation will appear in the lower left area of the 3D window.

Hit I Key to insert another keyframe, (LocRot).

Advance the Current Frame to 30. Click and drag the Blue axis manipulator to the right again, until you get to -90 degrees. Remember to hold down the Ctrl Key to constrain the amount of rotation.  Hit I Key to insert another keyframe, (LocRot). Repeat these steps two more times - at 45 frames and at 60 frames, rotating -90 degrees each time. The sphere should now have rotated one complete revolution.

Before rendering the animation choose a destination directory. Click the  Animation  button in the  Output Tab .

Choose the file format and codec.  Codec is short for compressor/decompressor, or coder/decoder, and refers to the method of compressing the audio and video data in a file. I selected Quicktime as Filetype, and the Animation codec. You can experiment with various settings until you get the desired balance between file size and video quality.

Go to  Render  -->  Render Animation  or hit Ctrl F12 to render. The completed animation file should appear in the destination directory that you chose.

Welcome to Planet Earth!

Home