Animation is probably one of the more important features of Blender, so let's take a look at animation, and we're going to start with the Timeline which is the core of the animation process in Blender. Now I have a simple scene here, and you may have seen the scene before. It's billiard balls on a pool table. And we have our Timeline at the bottom of the screen. It's this window, from here down, and it's basically where we can scrub our animation as well as set keyframes and step through our animation.
Now the easiest way to use the Timeline is to simply left-click in this window and we can scrub through the animation. So as you see, the frames are numbered along the bottom, and we basically just jump from frame to frame as we move from left to right. Now we also can go from frame to frame here, using this box, where we can just step through the frame number. Or if we want, we can type in a frame number if we want to jump to a specific frame.
Now if you want to play back your animation, we have animation controls here. The forward-facing triangle plays forward. And when you activate that, notice how it turns into a pause button. If I hit the pause button, I can then reselect the backwards-facing triangle to play backwards. Now we have a couple of other options here. This goes to the very end or the very beginning, and this steps forward and back a keyframe at a time.
So you have to have keyframes enabled in your scene. Now when you're playing back, do you want to sync--and that's this option here-- do you want to sync, do you want to sync to AV? If we're using audio, that's what we might need. Or do you want to drop frames to maintain sync? So if we have this at 24 frames a second, do we want to play it at 24 frames a second? If it can't make that frame rate, it will drop frames. No Sync means it will play as fast as it can up to the maximum rate.
So if it's at 24 frames a second, it will never go over, but it might play slower. Now, we also have start and end frames here, and this basically shows you how much time we have for animation. So our start frame can be at 1, it can be at 0, we can certainly just bring these up and down by clicking the arrows, or we can type in a number. So if I want this to be a longer animation, I could type in, say, 60, and you could see how when I do that, it goes beyond the end of the window here.
But we have the ability to zoom in and out in our window, and this operates just like any other viewport. All I have to do is either roll the middle mouse button or hit Ctrl and the middle mouse button and I can zoom in and out. Now if I hit Shift and the middle mouse button, I can pan this left or right. Now another thing you'll notice is that along the bottom we have our frame numbers, but if you notice on each side of these, we have a little dot.
So if you click on that dot, you can also zoom. So if I click on this dot and then move it right or left, you can also zoom your Timeline. Now we also have options for keyframing, which we'll get into in the next lesson. And we also have some View options here. Do we want to view the selected channels, in other words, the object that we have selected? Do we want to view all the keyframes? And then also, do we want to see this in frames or in seconds? So if I change this, you can see how it's actually showing me seconds plus frames or just frames by themselves.
So those are some of the basics of Blender's Timeline, and we're going to get into animation in the next lesson.
Author
Updated
8/16/2017Released
2/24/2012- Navigating in 3D space
- Selecting, rotating, and scaling objects
- Using Snap to move objects precisely
- Creating mesh primitives and extrusions
- Subdividing meshes
- Creating a simple creature
- Joining mesh objects and stitching vertices
- Organizing a scene with layers, groups, and hierarchies
- Assigning glossy and reflective materials to objects
- Creating bump maps
- Creating sky and ambient light
- Understanding ambient occlusion
- Adding motion blur and depth of field
- Editing animation in the Graph Editor
- Building and animating a simple character
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
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Q: This course was updated on 8/12/2014. What changed?
A: We added a single movie on unwrapping objects, a technique that works differently in Blender 2.7. The rest of the instructions in the course work equally well with Blender 2.6 and Blender 2.7.
Q: This course was updated on 06/20/2017. What changed?
A: The following topic was updated: using the Node Editor.
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Introduction
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Welcome1m 8s
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Download Blender26s
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1. The Blender Interface
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Navigating in 3D space4m 59s
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Configuring user preferences6m 27s
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2. Selecting and Translating Objects
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Selecting objects6m 12s
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Moving objects4m 35s
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Rotating objects2m 48s
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Scaling objects2m 16s
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Changing an object's origin5m 27s
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Selecting pivot points3m 22s
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3. Modeling
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Creating mesh primitives6m 36s
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Editing mesh objects7m 39s
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Proportional editing3m 52s
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Sculpt mode5m 3s
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Extrusions5m 18s
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Smooth shading objects2m 23s
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Subdividing meshes5m 12s
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4. Advanced Modeling
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Working with modifiers5m 52s
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Creating a simple creature7m 54s
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Joining mesh objects3m 37s
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Stitching vertices4m 52s
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Finalizing a simple creature4m 48s
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Creating text3m 29s
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Boolean tools2m 59s
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Vertex groups4m 51s
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5. Staying Organized
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Using the Outliner8m 22s
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Using layers4m 30s
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Creating groups2m 48s
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Working with scenes4m 2s
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Creating hierarchies2m 54s
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6. Applying Materials
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Diffuse shaders6m 47s
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Working with specularity5m 56s
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Additional shading options2m 37s
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Creating reflections8m 29s
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Subsurface scattering5m 59s
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7. Adding Textures
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Adding a simple texture6m 11s
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Using bitmaps6m 53s
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Using UV projections5m 56s
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UV mapping a character6m 35s
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Fine-tuning UV mapping6m 7s
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Displacement mapping3m 48s
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Using the node editor5m 58s
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8. Working with Light
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Adding lamps to a scene8m 44s
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Using spot lamps4m 20s
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Fine-tuning buffer shadows6m 19s
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Using Hemi lamps2m 32s
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Working with Area lamps5m 17s
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Adding background images3m 19s
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Creating sunlight6m 6s
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Ambient occlusion7m 11s
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9. Cameras and Rendering
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Working with cameras4m 47s
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Render properties5m 7s
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Rendering animation5m 13s
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Adding motion blur4m 10s
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Creating depth of field7m 8s
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10. Basic Animation
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Animating objects6m 26s
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Using the Dope Sheet4m 53s
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Path animation4m 32s
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11. Character Rigging
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Understanding armatures6m 2s
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Animating in Pose mode2m 47s
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Creating a test animation9m 24s
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12. Rendering in Cycles
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Working with image maps2m 26s
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Create lights in cycles9m 1s
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Lighting a scene in cycles9m 19s
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Conclusion
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Next steps15s
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Video: Understanding the Timeline