3D Animation for Beginners

Now, let's try to create a very simple animation.
I am sure most of you already made your own movie, so let's create the title to go with it.
Inspired? Follow me!

Here is an animation file (288 Kb).
You need to have a MPEG4 video codec installed (DivX for example).
And here is another animation file (450 Kb).
Try at least the first animation before you start.

What we want here is your logo to appear from the distance with the sun moving behind. Let's do it!

Open your last Vue scene with the 3D logo if it's not open yet.
Press the"File" menu, select "Save as" and save your scene as something like
3dlogo-animation.vue.
Ok, we are ready to start.
We need more haze for our animation. Press the Atmosphere Editor button and go to the Fog and Haze menu. Set the Haze density to 365.

Now go to the Display menu and select "Display Timeline" , or you can just press the "F11" button on your keyboard. You should see the Timeline window:

Ok, let's animate the sun.
Select the Sun Light, move it to the left in the top view and move it down in the side view.

Control the position of the sun in all camera views.
For better control performance, you can click, hold and drag a bit your right mouse button in any camera view. Also, don't forget about zooming , it helps visualize elements better.
Drag the Timeline Slider to frame number 2, right click on the slider and select "Add keyframe".

Move the Time Slider to frame 5 and add another keyframe.
Move the Sun Light to its original position.
Control the position of the sun in all camera views again.
Press the Generate Preview button and in just a few minutes you will see how the sun is rising  : )
Press the Stop button and pull the Timeline slider back to frame 0.

Note: If you don't like the sun animation, or if you want to create something else, you can kill the object animation anytime you want.
To do so, press the "Show/Hide Properties" button in the Timeline window , highlight the Sun in the Timeline window, right click and select "Destroy Object Animation".

Highlight your terrain (3D logo) and in the Top View move it away from the camera like on the picture below:

In the Side View, move the terrain up.

Again, move the Timeline Slider to frame 5 and move the terrain closer to the main camera in the Top View.
You can see a red line in all camera views. This is the terrain animation path, which of course you can modify by adding or deleting animation way points.
But now we just need a straight line and 2 waypoints.
We don't want to see the logo in the first frames, so control the position of your logo and watch it in the Main Camera View.

Press the Generate Preview Button again and enjoy the animation.
That's it, you're done! You just created a short animation, how easy was that?!

There is of course a lot more you could do with your animation, but I just tried to give you a simple idea of what's possible.
I hope you liked it. Good luck!