hey guys and welcome to another very
exciting blender tutorial we have
already covered the basic workflow of
blender we talked about how to model 3d
objects and apply simple materials to
them now let's talk about animation
adding animation to your 3d objects can
really breathe some life into your scene
I mean this just look at the little guy
go
fortunately that is really easy to do it
so this is going to be another absolute
beginner level tutorial however I will
assume that you have watched the
previous parts in this beginner series
on how to use blender if you haven't yet
if you haven't yet the information in
this video may simply flatten you so I
highly recommend go and check them out
first but now with no more cube to look
after let's jump right into the tutorial
[Music]
welcome to blender here I have a brand
new project set up and you can actually
follow along with this tutorial just
using the default cube that blender will
give you out of the box but to make
things a little bit more exciting let's
come up into file and hit open and if
you go to service studio comm /downloads
you'll be able to download this creeper
dot blend file so let's open that one up
and what this is this is again just a
really simple blender scene but instead
of a cube you've got a little texturized
creeper here i've also ready set the
scene up with some lights and the camera
and if you hit f12 new keyboard this
will render out the scene with a creeper
on the right hand side let's hit escape
to return to the 3d view and let's go
about animating this creeper now in this
basic animation tutorial we will not
concern ourselves with animating the
actual character model and having like
the legs move and everything else kind
of jiggle we're really just going to
move this entire model around our scene
and animate that just to get a basic
feel for how animation works in blender
character animation is usually done via
rigging which adds virtual skeletons to
your meshes and they can animate the
bones and to joins and it's a whole lot
more complicated probably not going to
be part of my beginner series so for
this tutorial we're really just going to
concern ourselves with the movement of
this creeper as a whole in order to add
animation to any object in your scene
we're going to use the timeline
you should find the time now panel
directly under your 3d view let me just
make this a little bit bigger so you can
see this a little bit more clearly if
you do not have this panel available
just split one of the other views and
then change the view over to the
Timeline view that should give you this
little timeline here the timeline is
pretty much exactly what it says it's
essentially a sequence of frames in
which you can capture and define
animation it's got this little green
marker here and you can click and drag
that around so you're kind of scrubbing
through your timeline so you scrubbing
through your animation and you can
actually see a little indicator in the
bottom left of your 3d view it's telling
me right now I'm on frame 140 and the
object I have selected is called creeper
obviously right now absolutely nothing
is happening because we haven't added
any animation just yet
just want to cover the basics of the
timeline first you can play back your
animation well once you've animated
something by pressing alt and a so
they'll start playing back your project
and alt an a again to stop the playback
personally I always prefer all the
shortcut keys but if that's not your ish
at the bottom of the time and you also
find your basic playback controls so you
can play back forwards you can also play
it back backwards you can rewind and
kind of scrub through it down here then
over to the left you will find a start
and an end frame and this defines the
range of frames for your current project
so right now the start frame is 1 if the
end frame is 250 now that's actually
quite a long animation at 24 frames per
second that'll just be over 10 seconds
let's just drop this down to maybe we'll
just go with 100 so immediately you can
see the highlighted gray area on my
timeline shrunk because this is now my
active area only goes from frame 0 to
100 and on this timeline you can
actually middle mouse button click and
drag around to navigate and you can
scroll on the mouse wheel in or out to
zoom in and out of your Timeline view
this is going to be quite useful once we
start working with key frames another
way to actually zoom in on the active
area in your timeline is in this
timeline scale down here on the left
you'll find this little gray circle you
can click on that and drag right you
kind of scroll the left side of your
timeline in and I can also come over to
the right hand side and again there's
little greys
circle you can click on that and drag in
towards the left so you're framing up
just the active area of your timeline
another very important thing you need to
do is to define your actual frame rate
this determines how fast your clip will
playback and if you are trying to
integrate some 3d with real-life footage
you should make sure that the frame rate
of what you're rendering out from
blender matches the frame rate of the
footage that you want to use those 3d
elements with and in order to do that in
the properties panel under the scene tab
you can actually expand this dimensions
tab by default it's already expanded and
in here you'll find an option for your
frame rate right now this is set to 24
frames per second but you can obviously
change this to anything else like 30 if
you're making something for TV
personally I like to leave this on 24
frames per second because that's what's
typically used in film and now that
we've covered all the boring bits let's
add some actual animation to The Creeper
let's start out just doing something
really simple because again it's meant
to be an absolute beginner to trial on
animation let's take this creeper and
just move it back a little bit so if you
were looking through the camera you can
press 0 on your numpad to look through
that camera so the creepers just out of
you maybe I'll drag it in just a little
bit so it's count just at the edge of
the screen or the edge of the frame
right there let's say that over the
course of this animation which is 100
frames so just over 4 seconds at 24
frames per second and what this creeper
dudes kind of free up to the camera so
that we essentially end up with this
view of the creeper right in our face
now the way we can achieve this is by
using keyframes if you position this
creeper anywhere in your 3d scene and
scrub through your timeline the creeper
will just be stuck there because blender
has no concept of where you want
movement to start or to end or why do
you want the creeper to be at any time
in between so let's move the creeper
back to where we want the actual
movement to start let's come down into
our timeline and rewinds make sure that
this little green indicators at the very
beginning of our timeline and we now
want to lock down the position of this
creeper at frame 1 to be at this
position in order to do that we need to
create a keyframe in order to add a
keyframe to any object in your 3
make sure you have the object selected
so let's select our creeper then come
down into the timeline view and all on
the right hand side in the timeline
panel you will find this key icon which
is to insert a keyframe let's click this
icon and all you going to get is an
error the error says no active keying
set and what that means is that we
haven't yet defined to blender what we
want to set a keyframe on imagine the
keyframe being a snapshot of certain
properties like the position or the
rotation or the scale or any other
property of your 3d objects because we
haven't told blender yet that we want to
essentially take a snapshot of the
position and the rotation of this
creeper blender to says well I don't
actually know what you mean I can't set
the keyframe because you haven't told me
what you want to set a keyframe for in
order to do that you need to first
select a keying set and you can do that
just left off the keyframe button you'll
find this little pop-up or drop down
small pop-up than anything and in here
you'll find a whole bunch of different
keying sets these ones are essentially
just groups of properties that you can
highlight to say hey that's what I want
to set a keyframe for for now let's
simply select lock rot which is location
and rotation we don't need to include
scale because I'm not planning on
scaling up or down my creeper for the
purpose of the animation so let's select
lock rot and now let's click onto this
insert keyframe button and at the very
top you'll see successfully added six
keyframes for keying set lock rot also
if you now scrub through your timeline
while we still don't have any animation
but on the timeline itself you'll find
this little yellow marker here and this
indicates that there's an actual
keyframe on our currently selected
object
however since we've only created a
keyframe at the beginning of our
animation blender doesn't know that we
want to change it or animate anything at
all so let's come to the end of the
animation again just scroll all the way
to the end or just use this button at
the bottom here let's set another
keyframe but before we do that let's
actually move the creeper to where we
want it to move so let's kind of drag it
fairly close to this camera press 0 on
your numpad to enter that camera and
just yeah maybe right about
there doesn't have to be perfect really
just gonna cover the basics and just
some of the basic principles in this
tutorial so I'm actually quite happy
with that location for my creeper at the
end of my time line and again let's set
another key frame using the key button
blender again will tell you that it
successfully created six keyframes and
again it created a little yellow marker
right underneath our timeline indicator
the cool thing is that if you now scrub
through your timeline
the creeper will animate blender will
essentially interpolate or blend from
the first snapshot from this position
and rotation for the creeper all the way
through to the second keyframe that
we've defined thus creating animation
let's rewind the timeline and play this
back by pressing alt and a and we can
see our creeper
crawling up to the camera let's press
alt and a again to stop the animation
and let's scrub to maybe about the
middle to around fifty frames and let's
say I want this creeper to kind of move
out and then come in towards the camera
so it's not as moving in a straight line
in order to do that let's simply change
the position of this creeper just push
it out a little bit along the y-axis
let's press R for rotation mode and
let's press Z to lock the rotation down
to the z axis let's rotate the creeper
so it's facing the camera at this point
in time let's come down to the timeline
and again let's place another keyframe
and now if you scrub through well the
creeper doesn't look in the right
direction but it doesn't actually look
too bad although I think I'd want the
rotation the facing of the creeper to be
in the direction it's moving so maybe
I'll come to the beginning of my
animation press R with the creeper
selected and Z just kind of rotate it a
little bit because I know the creepers
go to move out in that direction first
now before you do anything else do make
sure that you press this keyframe button
once again otherwise this change in
rotation will not actually be remembered
so let's update the keyframe at the
current position and now if you scrub
through the creeper will start moving
it'll rotate around to face the camera
let's scrub forward and again it's
starting to look away from the camera so
let's go to the last keyframe here make
sure the timeline indicator is right
over this yellow mark press R again and
see and isis voted this creeper to be
facing the camera once again and now
well there you can see what happened
blender didn't actually remember the
change because i didn't press the add
keyframe button so press R again and Z
rotate the creeper towards the camera
and this time let's press the keyframe
button to remember that change and now
if you run and play this back the
creeper will move out and then in
towards the camera that's looking pretty
good now one of the things that you may
have noticed is that every time we made
a change to the position or rotation of
this creeper we had to press this insert
or update keyframe button every single
time now you can also enable something
called Auto keyframe mode in blender
this will cause blender to automatically
insert or update keyframes as you make
changes to your objects in order to
enable automatic keyframe mode at the
bottom of the timeline you find this
little record button which says
automatic keyframe insertion for objects
and bones let's just press that to
enable it and you'll find another button
appear right next to it and what this
button does is essentially limits the
automatically generated keyframes to
only the properties of your current
heating set which is my location and
rotation if I don't enable this button
then any change to any property of my 3d
object will create a keyframe but
because I know I only want those
keyframes to be created for any changes
to the location or rotation of my
creeper I want to lock this down to my
current keying set which is my location
and rotation so now with automatic key
framing enabled I can go back a little
bit so let's say here I want the creeper
to still be looking a little bit more in
the direction it's moving so make sure
the creeper selected press R and Z to
lock down the rotation to the z axis
let's just rotate this creeper a little
bit and let's click and blender has
automatically created a new keyframe so
now my animation is updated the creeper
keeps looking forward and then it turns
around and is facing the camera now it
is very important that you don't forget
to disable automatic keyframe emote when
you no longer need it it's a great tool
it's really useful to whipping up some
really quick animation but don't
accidentally leave it on otherwise you
may override and change all of the
animation
you've just created now the next thing
to consider is that every time we
created a new keyframe be that manually
or via the automatic keyframe assertion
all of the properties for location and
rotation of this creeper got a keyframe
assigned to it if you want to go more
granular maybe I only wanted to change
the Z rotation of this creeper because
that's really the only value that are
actually changed or maybe I only change
the X&Y location changed like I'm not
actually moving my creeper up or down
however on the timeline with these
controls I don't have fine-grained
control over that
however with your mouse cursor over the
3d view let's press n to bring up the
transform panel and in here you'll find
all of the properties for your currently
selected objects so you'll find the
location the rotation the scale
dimensions all bunch of other things and
you will notice that all of the values
for the location and rotation are
currently green indicating that
somewhere along the time man there's a
keyframe set for these properties if you
move your timeline indicator over an
actual keyframe like a yellow marker on
your timeline you'll notice that these
properties turn yellow indicating that
right now you are on a keyframe for
these properties so we can actually move
forward a little bit and you can set
keyframes for these properties
specifically either as a set or
individually and in order to do that
what you can do let's come to maybe
about frame 75 and let's say I want to
change the Z rotation again just a
little bit so again I can just click and
drag this here to rotate my creeper in
the 3d view it's going to face it
towards the camera just a little bit
more it's not going to be much of a
change I just want to show how this
works and now I want to add an actual
keyframe now I can simply right-click on
the Z value for the rotation and I can
select to insert keyframes or I can
select to insert a single keyframe if I
select to insert keyframes
let's press that you note that blender
has now added a keyframe for all the
rotation values for the X Y and C that's
why they all turned yellow
let's press ctrl Z or command Z on the
Mac to undo that let's select the Z
property in the rotation right-click and
select to insert a single keyframe
you will notice that only the Z property
of the rotation has turned yellow
because blender has only created a
keyframe for that specific property
we're going to see this a little bit
clearer in just a minute when we dive
into the dope sheet just note that in
this transform panel you can have a
whole lot more control over what exactly
you setting all of your keyframes on by
the way if you want to delete keyframes
you can simply right-click a property in
your transform panel that currently has
a keyframe on it you can right click
that and select delete key frames or
again delete single keyframe if you just
want to delete that one specific
property or again if you don't need that
fine-grained control let's press M to
hide the transform panel again just make
sure that your timeline indicator is
over an actual keyframe and then you can
simply come to the bottom of the
timeline over on the far right side
you'll find this little button to delete
a keyframe just press that and blend I
will wipe out the keyframe at the
current cursor location finally before
we get to the dope sheet one really
useful thing that you can do in your
timeline in blender is to create markers
these are super useful if you have a
really long timeline and there's lots of
things happening or maybe you've got one
object that has lots of different
animation stages and you want to
highlight them all in your timeline in
order to do that simply place your
indicator where you want to create a
marker maybe let's place this at the
very beginning and then from the header
in your timeline you select marker and
then you can simply select to add a
marker again you can press M on your
keyboard to do that a whole lot quicker
let's just add a marker and now we have
a little marker created here called F
underscore or 1 and you'll also notice
this name appear in the bottom of the 3d
view so you know exactly what you're on
if you scrub forward obviously there's
nothing there but at frame 0 we have
this little marker called
F 1 if you want to rename this marker
again make sure you're right on top of
it then come into marker and select to
rename marker again I prefer using ctrl
M but let's just click this for now and
let's call this one to Creeper start
let's it okay let's scrub to the middle
of the timeline and let's place another
marker here right when the creeper is
facing the camera so this time let's use
the shortcut key M however do make sure
that your cursor is actually over the
timeline itself because if you press em
while you cursors over your 3d view
you're actually bringing up
move to layer options let's press escape
to get out of that make sure the cursors
over the timeline view because again
it's only the panel that is under your
current cursor that will receive all of
your shortcut keys press em to create a
new marker and not to press ctrl + M to
rename this let's call this one creeper
turn hit OK and finally let's go to the
very end again with the cursor over the
timeline you press M to create a marker
ctrl M to rename this one and call this
whatever you want to I'm going to call
it in your face hit OK and now we've
created three markers on our timeline
that just make it a little bit easier to
see what exactly is going on now one
thing to consider is that the timeline
view will only show you the keyframes
for the currently selected object if you
click into the 3d view and then press
shift & a to add a new object and maybe
we'll just add a little cube if you
select the cube you'll notice that there
are no keyframes on your timeline
however
I still have the markers visible the
moment I select the creeper however you
can see all of the keyframes because
again the keyframes are only visible for
your currently selected object so just
keep that in mind let's select the cube
press X and let's just delete it again
don't really want to see it and let's
reselect the creeper and finally let's
have a quick look at the dope sheet
which will allow you to stretch and
speed up animations and give you a whole
lot more control but what is going on in
your scene in order to bring up the dope
sheet let's come to the top right hand
corner of our 3d view to these three
diagonal lines click and drag downwards
to split that panel and let's change
this top view here over from the current
3d view over to the dope sheet the dope
sheet will show you all of the keyframes
for all of the animated objects in your
scene just like the timeline view you
can easily navigate around by middle
mouse clicking and dragging
you can also mouse wheel scroll out and
in to zoom in and outs is quite easy to
navigate around and all of these little
diamonds here that you see all these
yellow little diamonds are representing
keyframes on certain properties and they
will line up with your timeline the dope
sheet itself acts like a giant timeline
you can actually click and drag this
cursor around and you'll notice that
this updates your timeline as well as
your 3d view
so you're really just scrubbing through
time but it is much easier to see which
properties exactly are the ones with the
keyframes and to make changes to all of
those rather than trying to use the
Timeline view which is very much just a
high-level view let me make this
timeline a little bit smaller we don't
really need to see too much of it and
let's return to the dope sheet on the
left hand side of the dope sheet you'll
find something that kind of looks a
little bit like the outliner you have in
the top right-hand side of the interface
it's got just a hierarchy that shows you
the creeper then this creeper action and
in there you have this lock rot which is
actually just a grouping of the location
and rotation properties for this creeper
so let's expand that and now you can
actually see the x y&z location as well
as the x y&z rotation and these are the
properties of the creeper which we have
currently selected and over on the
right-hand side
each of these diamonds represent a
keyframe on that property these big
orange bars actually indicate that from
the first to the second keyframe from
the second to the third and from the
third to the fourth keyframe in this
case this property doesn't actually
change
let's press a twice to select all of
those keyframes so I can immediately see
that from a Z location as well as the X
rotation and the Y rotation they don't
actually change they're not actually
animate it that means that I can
technically just delete them let's press
a to unselect all keyframes so they all
go gray press B for the Box select let's
just click and drag around these
keyframes here that have these bars
between them so let's select all of
those and you'll note that this also
selected some at the top but these ones
here at the top are only orange because
they're just indicating that something
within the location rotation has been
selected which is the Z location and
therefore it just kind of propagates up
so we really just have selected the Z
location X rotation and vyro tation
which again are all the ones that don't
actually animate so let's press X and we
can actually just delete those keyframes
moon actually make a change to our
animation at all and if you scrub
through you can see the creeper still
animates exactly the way it did before
the other great thing you can do with
your dopesheet and this is probably the
most powerful thing is you can actually
duplicate or move keyframes around ad
will focus on but let's say I'm finding
that this rotation happens a little bit
too quickly
I kind of want to slow this down so
let's select this keyframe right here
where the rotation of the creeper facing
the camera just starts and I can now
simply right click and drag this over to
the left hand side let's left-click to
confirm and so now stretched out this
rotation animation but I haven't
actually affected the location so it's
just the rotation happens just a little
bit slower and maybe I want this to move
a little bit quicker along the y-axis so
I can just right click on to this final
Y location keyframe here and start
dragging and once you are dragging you
can actually let go of your right mouse
button and I will just keep dragging and
just click left to confirm it and it's
going to bring this in just a little bit
so now I'm kind of getting can you see
how the creep is kind of sliding on the
x axis only at the end because that's
the only thing that animates here and
again you can kind of move things around
you can also very easily copy keyframes
to replicate parts of your animations
for that let's press a to unselect all
keyframes press B for the box select not
to select these keyframes here at the
beginning let's press ctrl C to copy
them let's come to the end of our
animation somewhere around here just
press ctrl + V to paste all of those
keyframes back in and now if I scroll
out a little bit obviously our timeline
kind of ends at frame 100 so I have to
extend that if I really wanted to
capture this but I've just copied parts
of my animation in towards the end you
can also very easily select everything
by pressing a twice press s and now to
scale this animation up or down so you
can make it faster or slower so the top
sheet really gives you full control over
all the keyframes in your animation
tweaking them scaling them duplicating
them offsetting everything a little bit
because in terms of animation it's
usually fairly clunky if all of your
properties animate it exactly the same
time so you usually want to shift off
some of these keyframes to make it a
little bit more organic and natural
feeling but hopefully you get an idea
for all of the cool stuff that you can
do in the dopesheet
finally and yes I'm aware that I've
probably said finally about five times
by now the dope sheet will actually show
you all of the animated properties for
all of the objects in your scene so if
we still had our cube lets us recreate a
cube so cursor over the 3d view
a mash let's add a cube let's move this
back a little bit and again let's just
come down to the bottom with the keep
selected press this key button just to
set a keyframe move forward a little bit
let's move this cube over Sona add a
little bit of animation to it let's set
another keyframe that's totally random
but the important thing is that now
because I have two animated objects in
my 3d scene in the dope sheet itself
I've now also have the cube so I've got
to the location rotation and all of the
keyframes for that for the cube as well
as all of the location rotation changes
that we've already added to the creeper
now this is great because it shows me
everything that animates at the same
time however if you have 50 objects
animated in your 3d scene that can get
really really messy and really hard to
manage so there's two ways to make your
life easy again in the head of your dope
sheet next to this little ghost icon on
the left hand side you'll find this
little arrow and this actually says to
only include channels relating to
selected objects and data if you select
this option the only keyframes and the
only properties that you will see in
your dope sheet are the ones for your
currently selected object right now I
have the creeper selected so I can see
the location rotation for the creeper
and all of its keyframes if I now right
click on my cube to select it my dope
sheet will only show me the keyframes
for the cube so this makes it really
easy to kind of switch between different
objects and filled out all of the noise
if you have a lot of animated things in
your scene
let's unselect this option again and
again both the creeper and the cube are
back in our dope sheet another way to do
this is also to just change the view of
the dope sheet from the dope sheet over
to the action editor this works very
similar and will only show you the
properties for the object that you
actually have currently selected so
again another way to just make it simple
to cut through the noise and focus on
the animation and the keyframes that you
really need to work with let's collapse
the dope sheet again and for that let's
simply click on this diagonal lines on
the 3d view drag app onto the dope sheet
if you just collapse in those panels I'm
also going to select my cube press X and
say yes please delete and let's just
rewind and press alt and a to play back
our final animation now I know it's not
a masterpiece but I really just want
to cover the very basics of how to
create animations in blender just add
some life into your scene there's also a
large number of topics relating to
animation that we haven't even touched
on yet like the graph editor and then
obviously the huge topics of rigging and
skinning and using poses to actually
animate the models and your actual 3d
characters themselves but hopefully you
found this tutorial useful
there'll be more tutorials from a
beginner series soon and I do hope to
get to all of the more advanced topics
further down the line and that's all
this to it if you enjoyed this video
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comments questions or suggestions just
leave them down in the section below
thank you very much for watching and
until next time I will see you later