Creative Mac: Tutorial: Bezier Animation in Studio Artist

TUTORIAL • FEBRUARY 6 , 2001
Bezier Animation in Studio Artist
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Edit your paths
Now select the Bezier Edit palette from your toolbox. As soon as you do, you'll see all the Bezier paths that were recorded while you were drawing. You simply move these around to achieve your desired effect. For me, I'm going to have the mouth open completely, change my expression and move my eyes to the right by frame 20. So I make all my changes and Option click on the box in my Layer window corresponding to frame 20.

After you've placed your first keyframe, move your Bezier paths to their next key position. Option click on your keyframe timeline at the point where you want your changes to be completed. Studio Artist will figure out all of the frames in between for you. Note that I have what look like "handles" coming off some portions of my Bezier paths. These are there to help me access the paths that might be buried under a bunch of other paths. You can create these "handles" by simply starting your stroke off to the side using minimal pressure so that no stroke is actually drawn, though its path record still gets recorded. (You need a pressure table in order to do this.)

Now I'm going to have my teeth part and my frown become more severe. So I make these changes and Option click on the box in my Layer window corresponding to frame 40. (Note: When you edit your Bezier paths, you will not see the changes to your image until your final render or unless you manually tell Studio Artist to paint your Path Layer.)

Render it out
Pretty simple? Yep. So now you just have to render this thing out. Go up to your Movie menu and select "Start Movie to File." Call it whatever you want. Now from the Movie menu select Generate Frames > Run Time Animation. Instantly your picture will start redrawing itself, just as you drew it. Each frame will look slightly different until you reach the end. When it does end, make sure you select Movie > Stop Movie to File. (If you fail to stop the movie manually, the QuickTime file generated will become corrupt.)

After you've started your movie as a file, select Movie > Generate Frames > Run Time Animation. When it's finished render, select Movie > Stop Movie to File.

All you need do now is sit back and enjoy your work. You can view my final movie by clicking here.

This tutorial was intended as a primer on Studio Artist animation. In the coming months we'll take some more detailed looks at some techniques for more complex animations. For more information, be sure to check out our Synthetik Studio Artist user forum, or visit Synthetik at http://www.synthetik.com.