# Animation Panel

## Overview

The Animation Panel allows you to animate models. You can change frame counts and frame rates as well as set skeletal keyframes or frame vertex positions. You can also play animations from this window. For performance reasons animation playback is only rendered in perspective viewports.

While the Animation Panel is open you can use the view window's toolbar to manipulate the model in animation mode. Most selection and manipulation tools work the same as they do in model edit mode, though some (such as the rotate tool in skeletal animation mode) will behave differently. Geometry creation tools have no effect in animation mode.

The behavior of various tools in animation mode is described in the Tools documentation.

The Animation Panel has a drop down box that lists all the animations that are defined for the model. It lists all Skeletal animations first, then all Frame (mesh deformation) animations. All operations operate on the animation that is named in the drop down box.

You can use the frame slider to select the animation frame that you want to view or edit. All viewports on the view window will display the frame of the model you have selected.

You can use the selection tools to select vertices for Frame animations or bone joints for Skeletal animations. You can use the move or rotate tool to change the position or orientation of selected primitives.

In Skeletal animation mode the rotate tool works differently than it does in standard edit mode. The rotation only applies to bone joints, and the rotation is always centered on a joint. In other words, you are rotating the bone joint itself, not the position of the bone joint. In Skeletal animation mode, the delete command also behaves differently. The delete command will delete any translation or rotation keyframes for all the selected joints in the current frame. Keyframes in other animation frames will not be affected.

You can use Undo and Redo from the Animation Panel just as you would in the standard model edit mode. You can select Undo and Redo from the menu on the Main Window, or use Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y.

For more information about creating animations with Maverick Model 3D, see the Animations section of the introduction.

## Animation Operations

### New Animation

To create a new animation, select <New Animation> in the animation name drop down box. It will prompt you for an animation name. The prompt will also allow you specify if the animation is a skeletal animation or a frame animation.

### Delete

The X button will delete the current animation (there is a confirmation prompt).

### Frames Spin Box

The Frames Spin Box will change the frame count of the current animation. You can use the up and down arrows, or type the number directly in the box.

### Frame Slider

The Frame Slider will change the current frame of the current animation. You can use this to edit the model position for any frame in the animation. The Copy Frame, Paste Frame, and Clear Frame commands also operate on the current frame.

### FPS Text Box

The FPS Text Box will change the frame rate of the current animation.

### Loop Checkbox

The Loop Checkbox will change whether the current animation loops when it completes or not. If the animation completes and the Loop Checkbox is checked, the animation will restart from the first frame. If the animation completes and the Loop Checkbox is not checked, the animation will stop.

If you have loop checked, skeletal animation keyframe interpolation will wrap to the first frame. This interpolation begins on the last keyframe set for a given joint and ends on the first keyframe for that joint. If you have an animation with 10 frames and a rotation keyframe on Joint A for frames 1 and 10, then the animation will interpolate from 1 to 10, and then from 10 to 1. If Joint B has keyframes in frames 3 and 7, it will interpolate from 3 to 7, and then again from 7 to 3.

### Copy/Paste/Clear Frame

You can copy one keyframe to another using the Animation menu.

### Play / Pause

The Play button runs the current animation at its specified frame rate. The Play button becomes a Pause during playback so that you can pause an animation and resume it later. Paused animations resume from the time at which they were paused.

Use the Stop button to stop an animation completely. Use the Loop Checkbox to control whether the animation should start from the beginning again when it completes.

Animation playback is only rendered in perspective viewports. Orthographic viewports will not animate. This is for performance reasons, and may become a configurable option at a later time.

### Stop

The Stop button will stop a running animation. An animation that is stoped and then played again will play starting from the first frame.

### Close

To close the Animation Panel and return to model edit mode, select "Animation | Stop Animation Mode" or click on the panel's close button.

## See Also

- Bone Joints
- Animations
- Influences Menu