Step 1 Select the Airplane Hat object in the Object Manager, and in the Attri-butes Manager choose Mode>Object and click the Coordinates tab.
Step 2 At frame 0, click the Y in S.Y and set a starting key frame.
Step 3 Scrub though the Timeline. Choose the Object tool from the left pal-ette. Use the green handle of the Scale tool to make the hat elongate slightly when it leaves the ground (to give the illusion that the hat is springing and stretching up toward its destination) and squash down every time it hits the floor, setting key frames as you go.
You won’t want the value to interpolate between the scale of 1 (the un-squashed state) and the lower scale value, causing the hat to squash before it hits the ground. To prevent this, set a key for the unsquashed state right before the hat hits the ground. Scrub through the example C4D file in a close-up Front Editor view and zoom in on the keys in the F-Curves to study the setup.
Step 4 For even more realism, go back and keyframe the X and Z scale values to work along with the Y squashes you just keyframed. In order to
maintain its volume, an object squashed on the Y axis would stretch (increase in scale) slightly on the X and Z at the same time.
Figure 7-12 Squash and Stretch.
Adjusting the Working Views When working on fine-tuning like with the hops and squashes above, it is criti-cal that you adjust your views so you can see what you’re doing. For example, use a close-up Front view so you can clearly see the relationship of the object to the floor.
For a close view of keys in the Timeline and F-Curve windows, you can use the Move and Scale icons on the top right of the windows, or better yet, make the habit of using the 1 and 2 keys (just like you use them in the Editor window to move and scale).
In the View menu for the Timeline and F-Curves, choose Frame>Frame All (or press the H key) when you need to see all keys for a selected object. In the fine-tuning stage, however, that view is nothing but mass confusion (Figure 7-13). Drag a selection rectangle over only the keys in the area you are working on. The fewer keys, the better. Choose Frame>Frame Selection (or press the S key). Then click on only the tracks necessary for comparing events in time, and you’ll have a clearer picture of the keys and tangents (Figure 7-14). If you need to move on to the next section, use the 1 key to slide over as you work.
Figure 7-15 Close In.
Figure 7-13 Mass Confusion.
Figure 7-14 Simple and Focused.
7 Animation ABCs 145
The project was set up with lots of slow “float” time from frames 120 to 700 to give you plenty of room to experiment with flips. What if you wanted that time to be condensed, so that the hat would land faster?
From the Timeline menu, choose Edit>Selection>Select All Objects. Press R for the Region tool, and drag a selection box over all the frames from 120 to 700.
Use the special handles on the box to manipulate all those keys together as a group.
If, for instance, you scrunched all those keys so they ended at frame 250, you now have a wasteland of empty time from 250 to 700. Go back to the top menu, choose Edit>Project Settings, and change the Maximum value back to 250.
Figure 7-16 Using the Region Tool.
Make further adjustments to the animation as you work toward smooth and believable motion. Command-click (right-click) on keys and work with the tan-gent handles to make the object behave like you want it to. Add some flips, as if the hat were suddenly hit by a gust of wind, by adding Rotation keys. Study the example movie to see the tangent handles and other adjustments. Save several copies of this file so you can practice all kinds of maneuvers.
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Springboard! Control-drag two copies of the Airplane Hat in the Object Manager. All animation comes along with each copy so everything happens identically for the three objects. (If you played the animation, you would only see one hat, because they would occupy the same space.) However, by tweaking keys in the F-Curve window, you can quickly send the copies on individual paths and their propellers spinning at different rates. Try it.Rename the copies AIRPLANE HAT II and AIRPLANE HAT III.
Select AIRPLANE HAT II. From the Top menu, choose Tools>Animation and use the Move tool to reposition the entire animation path over to the right. Do the same for AIRPLANE HAT III. Now you should have three hats moving in exact synch, but starting from different positions. Working with AIRPLANE HAT II and AIRPLANE HAT III, use the Region tool or work with individual keys to adjust the animation so that all three hats are traveling to the beat of different drummers. Give the three propel-ler rotations some attention, too.Figure 7-17 Hats Cavorting.
On the DVD: CINEMA 4D’s animation system has made breathtaking improve-ments in the evolution from Version 8 to Version 10. Don’t miss projects introducing features such as Ripple Editing, Layers, Filtering, and Snapshot Functionality in the Chapter 07>EXTRA!EXTRA!>InDepth folder. See Chapter 07> EXAMPLES>Airplane Hat for the C4D file and Chapter 07>MOVIES_STILLS>Airplane Hat for a finished movie.