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Animating a sphere.....A little help

MajorPayneMajorPayne0 Posts: 0Member
edited September 2011 in Technical Questions and Answers #1
Firstly appologies if this is in the wrong section but I'm at the end of my tether. All I'm attempting to do is animate a sphere to rotate is horizontally 360 degrees. Now I did this a few weeks ago and now the dam things not rotating as I expect it to. I'm using 3d max 5 (yes its an old version I know but its the only version I've got for the game I'm working with). I've set the time configuration to 360 frames as I want it and used both auto-key and set-key functions at the start and end points. When I rotate the model 360 degrees and try the animation I get nothing. However, if I rotate the model to say, 200 degrees it rotates to that point as expected.

So my question is. Is there something I'm missing or forgetting to do as animation is something I do very infrequently??

I've looked over a couple of tutorials online and followed them exactly to the letter but still nothing and this is my last stop so any help is highly appreciated.
Post edited by MajorPayne on

Posts

  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    #2
    somethimes max confuses itself...
    so hand do it yourself.
    open the trackview, take your Z rotation track (or whatever one you need), double click on the end key, and enter the value yourself
  • MelakMelak332 Posts: 0Member
    #3
    it might not pick up a 360A° rotation, since essentially nothing changed. Try 359.9, that should get it to where you want. And afterwards you should be able to change it to 360 no problem.
  • Chris2005Chris2005678 Posts: 3,097Member
    #4
    I've had the same issue on occasion, and L2K and Melak have it right, with both ways.
    AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
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  • MajorPayneMajorPayne0 Posts: 0Member
    #5
    Hmmmm. Well I tried the 359.9 and no go with that. I opened the trackview and the rotation is completely missing. Theres no line to alter so I'm stumped.


    ** Quick edit **

    Well it seems the second method works much better so many thanks but in the end I've had to use 0-180 degrees and then 181-360 degrees. I feel like I'm cheating but still. At least it works.

    This thread can be closed if necessary but at least the informations there for other newbies if they need it.

    Thanks again.
  • Chris2005Chris2005678 Posts: 3,097Member
    #6
    MajorPayne wrote: »
    Hmmmm. Well I tried the 359.9 and no go with that. I opened the trackview and the rotation is completely missing. Theres no line to alter so I'm stumped.


    ** Quick edit **

    Well it seems the second method works much better so many thanks but in the end I've had to use 0-180 degrees and then 181-360 degrees. I feel like I'm cheating but still. At least it works.

    This thread can be closed if necessary but at least the informations there for other newbies if they need it.

    Thanks again.

    You won't usually see a tangent unless their are key frames already present...

    Screen2.png

    If you see no key frames you can always select the Add Keys button, and add them...

    Screen3.png
    AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
    Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB
    1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD
    32 GB RAM
    Windows 11 Pro
  • MajorPayneMajorPayne0 Posts: 0Member
    #7
    Ah. Never new that. I don't usually use 3d max for anything other than model rendering, conversions and very minor animations. Thats why I have limited experience with the program. Anyway. In adding in the 180 midway key it seems to have also smoothed out the animation so the model rotates without any slowdown. That one I'm not sure how its happened but thats the exact effect I was looking to achieve.
  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    #8
    for the slowdown, in the very same track editor, you need to select all your keys, and change the mode to linear (the butons with the curves. next, theres a straight line. that one.)


    edit : and it happens because max, by default, always does ease curves, with a slow start, a casi constant speed, then a slow down. animators love ease curves, so max does them by default
  • Chris2005Chris2005678 Posts: 3,097Member
    #9
    L2K wrote: »
    for the slowdown, in the very same track editor, you need to select all your keys, and change the mode to linear (the butons with the curves. next, theres a straight line. that one.)

    edit : and it happens because max, by default, always does ease curves, with a slow start, a casi constant speed, then a slow down. animators love ease curves, so max does them by default

    Yea, I died when I discovered how to set them to linear, lol.

    I always cut the first and last few seconds off a video, so it didn't just come to a stop, now I can utilize the entire animation.

    I had the same revelation when a friend of mine referred me to use the Linked Xform modifier, I used it on a spline, and create a perfect phaser beam, in Max, as far as the object goes... the textures, etc. are another story.
    AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
    Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB
    1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD
    32 GB RAM
    Windows 11 Pro
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