New article is out

Hi everyone,

Just want to let you know that the new online article is out. This one is about using both pegs and animated elements in a project. It also contains some advanced information about pegs that some of you might not know yet, like the control point and the motion point tab.

Anyway here is the link:

http://www.toonboom.com/products/eLearning/articles/pegsElements.php

You can also play around with the scene for it is available for download.

Hope you enjoy it,

Ugo

Thanks Ugo, great article!!!
and thanks for the scene! :slight_smile:

Merci beaucoup.

Thierry



Yes, thank you guys!

nice article but i couldn’t understand that when and where we should use control points !

Hi Awais,

The nice thing about the control point is that they are not linked to a keyframe so you can easily deform a path with a control point without having any fixed position in time. This will give more flexibility to your animation since you can create path without necessarily having keyframes.

Also, make sure to go check the functions in the Motion Point tab, the sliders at the bottom will allow you to make clean cuts or change the curve around the point selected.

Best regards,

Ugo

A control point is not tied to a specific frame and therefore can be moved independently of specific frames along a function curve. Frames are locked in time based on the frame rate chosen, but control points are not.

So what does all this mean besides being nice technical information?

Curves are used to control how key framed values are interpolated, so modifying a function curve is how you can control the tweening of key framed parameters. In traditional animation we control transitional movements by adjusting the spacing and number of frames inbetween key drawings. This is the basis of animation timing.

Control points are an aid to doing this same thing when we are letting the software do some of the drawing through tweening. By reshaping a function curve you can effectively change and fine tune the spacing between drawings. Without changing the number of frames used to represent an action, a control point can be applied to let you “bend” or adjust a curve and that will re-space the frames and therefore change how the transition of movement is created. The goal is improved timing based on using speed and spacing to control animation; the tool being applied to accomplish this is the function curve and the controls for shaping that curve. But again its not the technical manipulation of the software that is important until you understand the underlying animation fundamentals you are trying to apply.