By: David Spake

Assigning Paths for Flying Fonts

• Select sphere individually by pressing the ALT button and selecting the sphere.   This technique allows you to select an object from a group, without ungrouping them.
• Press the motions button (the arrow pointing at the letter "M"), Ctrl-M, or from the Animations menu select "Assign Motion."

SPIN (Y AXIS) -- CONSTANT -- OK

• Select the entire group.
• Again bring up the motions dialog box.

SIDE -- FLY-IN (from left) -- TO CENTER -- SHORT

Your resulting screen shot will be the same as the previous screen, but with two lines indicating animation.

Now just press the render movie/frames button to get see something similar to this.

From here you can begin combining motion paths to get the results you want.   Remember that the motion paths change size if you increase or decrease the size of the object they are assigned to.  Also the paths react with each other.  If you have a group orbiting an object, then one piece of that group orbiting another in the group.  The group path will be a circle, but the individual object won't. You get to see what the actual paths will be to achieve the affect you are desiring.

If you get concerned about the paths you can always do a quick rendering (rather than full) of a movie and see how the animation is coming along.

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The Rendering Times: Design and Copyright & © 1997 -- David Chandler Spake. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without the express written permission of DCS is prohibited.