need help with basic animation...
 

Hey Everyone,

I just finished modeling a cave tunnel. it has the cave opening and then a tunnel which ends in a cove. Basically, the animation i want to do is really simple. I just want to start at the mouth of the cave's opening and have it go through the tunnel (as if a person on a dolly is going through the cave) and then have it end at the dead end cove.

Pretty straightfoward animation..just a quick trip through the tunnel. Can anyone give me directions on how to do this? I'm a total newbie to maya so i don't have any idea how to do it.

After the animation gets done, i am also wanting to export the animation as an swf to import for flash. If anyone knows about this too..that would awesome.

ok..thanx for any help you can offer..

chal7ds

You could create a motion path and attach the camera to the motion path, set your timeline and voila....travelling through a cave.

Make sure you have 'look through selected' turned on while the camera is selected.

That should get you going in the right direction at least :beer:

Cool...hey, is there anyway you could reply with a post that outlines the actual steps in getting that done?

I'm kind've a newbie to this maya thing, so steps would be
really cool..

thanks, if you can...

Sure. The best thing to do if you get stuck is to do a search for "motion path animation" in your Maya help file.

1. Create -> CV Curve Tool. Just experiment with this a bit. Click to make a few points, then hit enter and you'll get a line.

2. Once you have your line, create a camera. Try a Camera and Aim. Create->Cameras->Camera and Aim.

3. Select the camera, then shift-select the curve.

4. Make sure you are in the animation menu set (Hit F2).
Animate->Motion Paths->Attach to Motion Path.

Good luck.
Drought