Describes: creating and texturing a planet, animating with keyframes, adding particle objects, flaring lights.
Open a new project and make sure to have enough disk space to hold the rendered frames, as we'll now explore animation. Before proceeding make sure the Workspace> Show> Lights and Camera menuitems are checked. If not, activate them.
Add a Sphere with Objects> Polygonal> Sphere and select it. The default sphere has a low polygonal count that makes its silhouette noticeable, so use Modify> Detail> Metamesh to make it rounder. If the Metamesh Panel's values are not set to 0.5, 0.5 make sure they are before clicking Accept.
The Sphere will now look much rounder. Open Images Panel and load "Space/VenusSmall.24". Then enter Materials Panel and apply this brushmap to the Sphere. Select Sphere as Wrapping method and change the map ping attribute to Bump. This will activate the Bump slider, change its value to 65%.
The bumpmapped sphere used as planet
To create a realistic looking dead planet lower Diffuse reflection from 100% to 65 % and turn off Polish setting it to 0%. Then change the surface color, for example setting it at RGB 208, 209, 211 - a slightly blue tinted grey. Exit Materi als panel and do a preview rendering.
The sphere looks like a gray orange because the lights are not set properly. Enter World Panel and change Ambi ent light to RGB 4, 12, 36. This will produce an evenly spread bluish tint. Then, use Transformation Panel to move the Sphere along Z axis, so that it is positioned at 0,0,750.
Deselect all with the space bar and open the object finder with Amiga-F. From the list, select "OmniLight". Reopen Transformation Panel, and set the light's position to 525.0, 256.0, 194.0. This will provide the scene with a more dramatic illumination.
Now load the spaceship object created and textured in the previous chapters. It should reload positioned at 0,0,0. If not, move it to that position.
The spaceship and the planet
Click 'e' to switch to Camera mode. The view will change slightly. Deselect all, select the camera either clicking on it or using the object finder. Change its position and alignment with Transformation Panel so that it is positioned at 380.0, 50.0, 160.0 and aligned to 0,-90,0.
Now the stage is set up and you can start set things in motion. Save the project with Project> Write As... and after this press TAB to enter Animation Mode. The lower button bar will activate. Select Sel from the cycle gadget that reads All/Sel so that using the REC button will only create keyframes for selected objects.
Deselect all, and select the spaceship with a single click. Press REC button to create a keyframe. This will be the starting position of the ship. Press 'f' to activate Time code gadget, delete its contents and enter 50 to go to frame 50. The spaceship will still be selected, so press REC again to create another keyframe.
The newly created path is shown in black
Now any modification will be remembered. So set the spaceship position to 0,0,650 with Transformation Panel. A black line will now appear on the editor to graphically show the path the object will follow during animation.
Now Shift-click on the Prev Keyframe gadget to return immediately to frame 1. Deselect the spaceship and select the Camera instead. We don't want to change position to the Camera, only to orient it so that it follows the spaceship's flight. This is called Tracking, or Looking At.
Keeping shift depressed, click on the spaceship to select it. Now both the Camera and Spaceship are selected. Press Left Shift + Right Amiga + @ to create a LookAt key for the camera, then click on REC again. The preview should now have changed to show the front of the space ship since the Camera reoriented itself.
Go to frame 50 as above, leaving both the Camera and the spaceship selected. Use the same key combination used before to realign again the camera and click REC. Now return to frame 1 using the Shift click on Prev Keyframe and switch to preview mode '2' and to full perspective view display with F2. If your machine is fast enough, you can even preview the scene in Photorealistic mode. Click on the Play Forward VCR gadget and enjoy the animation you have just created. Then, save the project to disk with another name.
The animation is already quite nice, but we can improve its look a lot with little work. First, add some stars to the scene with Objects> Particle> Stars. Deselect all objects and select only Starfield with the object finder. Set its size to 1500 in all three axes with Transformation Panel so that the stars encompass the entire scene. Then, enter Materials Panel and make the stars 100% Bright to avoid having them illuminated by the scene's lights.
Preview the scene again. The stars make it look much better, but there is still room for improvement. Return to Modeling mode, deselect all, use Objects> Lightsource> Point to add a new light and select it with the finder. Open Lights Panel with F9, click on Flare Active, set Flare Inten sity to 95.0 and activate all the checkbox gadgets in the Lens Flare area except Red Ring and Lens Reflections. Activate Distance Dim and close the panel accepting the changes.
Four frames from the animation
Now move the light to 80, 80, 875 using Transforma tion Panel, save the project to disk with another name and preview the scene in Realistic or Photorealistic mode so that the Lens Flare is shown. You have just added a sun!
Now render the animation to disk with Render Panel and have fun modifying it.