Animated Still Life

Animated Still Life

Creating an Orange

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Introduction > Animated Still Life > 

Navigating a Scene

In this lesson, you'll open an existing scene of a still life and learn to adjust the view and navigate the viewports.

Navigating the scene

1. Choose File menu > Open.

   All the files necessary for this tutorial are provided on the program disc in the \tutorials\still_life directory. Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder from the disc to your local program installation.

   Find the \tutorials\still_life directory on your hard drive and highlight still_life_start.max, then click Open.

   

   Perspective viewport

   The Perspective viewport should be active, indicated by a yellow border. If it's not, right-click to activate this viewport.

2. Click the Zoom button in the viewport navigation controls at the lower-right corner of the screen.

   To show that this control is now active, the button appears pressed in, with a yellow background.

3. With the mouse, drag downward in the viewport.

   Your view zooms out so you can see the corner in the scene.

   

   Zooming out reveals the corner.

4. Click Arc Rotate in the viewport navigation controls at the lower-right corner of the screen. The button highlights when active.

   A yellow navigation circle appears in the viewport.

5. Position the cursor inside the yellow circle. Press and hold the left mouse button and move the mouse.

   The point of view orbits around the scene.

   

   Orbiting the scene

   TipAvoid dragging outside the yellow navigation circle, unless you want to roll the entire viewport.
6. Spin your view so you can see the scene from every angle.

   You'll notice that the back side of the corner is dark. This is because there are already hidden lights in this scene prepared to cast shadows in your rendering.

7. Right-click in the viewport to dismiss the yellow circle.
8. Click Pan in the viewport navigation controls and move the mouse in the viewport.

   The viewport pans with your movement.

   NoteYou can also start a pan operation by holding down the middle mouse button or wheel as you pan. If the middle mouse button doesn't pan the viewport, check your mouse driver settings.
9. To return the viewport to its original orientation, press Shift+Z repeatedly to undo the viewport changes all the way back to the beginning.
   NoteIn this instruction, “ Shift+Z ” is outlined with a rectangle to indicate that you're to press this key combination on the computer keyboard. We use this style consistently in the help and tutorials for both single keypresses and key combinations, so that it's always clear when an instruction involves using the physical keyboard as opposed to the mouse with the software interface on the screen.
   TipYou can undo other types of changes with Ctrl+Z.

Next you'll create a camera and a Camera viewport. The Camera viewport is similar to the Perspective viewport, but with different functionality. It can be animated, and effects can be added to it.

Creating a camera

1. Right-click the Top viewport to activate it.

   The Top viewport is outlined in yellow.

2. Right-click the Top viewport label (the word Top at the upper left corner of the viewport). On the menu that appears, choose Smooth + Highlights.

   The viewport display changes from wireframe to shaded.

   TipYou can also press F3 to switch a wireframe viewport to a shaded display.
3. On the Create panel, click the Cameras tab, and then click Target.
4. In the Top Viewport, starting at the lower left-hand corner of the wooden shelf, drag out a camera pointing toward the knife (see the following illustration).

   

   Camera created in Top viewport

   Press Ctrl+D to make sure the new camera is not selected.

   To see what the camera sees, you need to change one of the viewports into a Camera viewport. You'll replace the Front viewport with a Camera viewport.

5. Right-click the Front viewport to activate it, and then press C.

   The Select Camera dialog opens.

   Click Camera02, then OK.

   The camera you created is Camera02. There was already a Camera01 hidden in this file.

   TipWhen a scene contains more than one camera and none of the cameras is selected, or more than one are selected, pressing C causes the Select Camera dialog to open. If there is just one camera in the scene, or if a single camera is selected, pressing C automatically sets the active viewport to the camera view.
6. Press F3 to switch the wireframe display to Smooth + Highlights shading.

   

   The view from Camera02 (yours might differ)

   The navigation controls have changed. Because tools and controls are context-sensitive, activating a Camera viewport switches to camera-specific navigation controls.

7. Experiment with the various camera navigation controls, to zoom, pan, arc-rotate, and so on in the Camera viewport.
   Tip To undo Camera viewport changes, press Ctrl+Z, or click the Undo button at the left end of the main toolbar. Unlike the Perspective viewport, Camera viewport changes are based on the movement of the camera.

Next you'll render the scene.

Rendering the scene

You've looked at the scene from many different angles, but the viewport tells only part of the story. To see the full effect of the scene settings, such as reflections and shadows, you need to render the viewport to an image.

1. On the toolbar, click the Render Scene button.

   The Render dialog appears.

2. Look at the very bottom of the dialog. Make sure the Viewport field says Camera02, and then click Render.

   The rendered frame window appears, and the rendering takes place line-by-line from the top to the bottom of the image.

   

   Rendering from Camera02 zoomed in

3. Change the Camera viewport to Camera01. Make sure the Camera viewport is active and no cameras are selected, then press C and chooseCamera01 from the list.
4. Render again.

   Observe the rendering. You'll see shadows on the wall, reflections in the knife blade and bottle, and transparency on the leaf objects. None of these were visible in the viewport display.

   

   Rendering from Camera01

5. Right-click the Camera viewport label, and choose Views > Front to change the Camera viewport back to a Front viewport.

Next, you'll create an orange to add to the scene. Then you'll animate the objects so they fly into place.