274 chapter 8 ■ ZBrush Movies and Photoshop Composites
- To make it easier to illustrate ease-in and ease-out, we will delete the keyframes we
have so far. Make sure you are zoomed out of the timeline by clicking the selected key-
frame. Shift-click-select all keys and drag them off the timeline. - Set two new keyframes: one at the start of the timeline and one a few seconds later. Try
not to make the two keys too far apart or the ease-in and ease-out will be hard to see. - Move the time slider between the two dots and create a new key. This will mark the posi-
tion we will want to use as a target for our ease in and out frame. Now Ctrl-click the
keyframe and it will look half shaded. This is an ease in and out frame. If we move this
closer to the frame ahead, it will slowly approach the position we keyed. If we move the
frame farther away, it will more quickly animate toward that position. In Figure 8.13 I
have the frame set to a slow ease-in to the keyframe position. - We will now add another keyframe between the first and last keys. Convert this to an
ease in and out frame and move it just slightly toward the right. Because there is more
distance between this and the last frame, the speed will increase. The effect of these
frames will only be visible when the animation is rendered. Ctrl+Shift-click under the
timeline to render to the Movie palette to see the effect.
The process of setting ease in and out frames may be confusing if you have any experi-
ence with animation timelines in other software packages since it would seem that the closer
the frame is, the faster it will move. This is not how ZBrush is treating this frame; once it is con-
verted to an ease in and out frame, it acts like an accel-
erator pedal, not a keyframe—the closer it is to the left,
the slower the transition; the closer to the right, the
faster the transition.
Adding Audio
You can add an audio track directly inside ZBrush. To do this, follow these steps:- Make sure the Movie menu is docked to the side of the screen. Open the timeline
submenu. - Click the Load Audio button (Figure 8.14)and browse to any suitable audio file on
your system. A WAV or MP3 file will work fine. - Notice that when the file is loaded, the Duration slider changes to the duration of the
audio file. Play back your animation now by Shift-clicking the timeline. The anima-
tion will play back with the audio track. You can remove the audio at any time by
clicking the Remove Audio button under the Timeline menu.
Create and Export Movies
Just like we did earlier in this chapter using ZMovie, we can render movies from the time-
line animations. To do so, simply follow these steps:- Make sure you have added all the keyframes you want and that the animation plays
back correctly. If you want audio, load the track into ZBrush as shown earlier. - Rendering will start from the point you are on the timeline. Drag the slider back to
the start of the animation. Ctrl+Shift-click under the timeline to render the animation.
The frames will be loaded into the Movie palette. - When the frames are complete, export the movie as a QuickTime file, as explained
earlier in this chapter.
Figure 8.13 Frame set to a slow ease-in
Figure 8.14 Click
Load Audio to
import a sound
file into your
animation.