Using your Mouse for 3D Animation

This tutorial is about using your mouse to quickly create IPO curve data that, otherwise, would be tedious to do by hand. Using this technique, we'll look at how to easily add a more "organic" feel to certain types of motions, create a handheld camera effect, and more!

This topic will be covered in three parts:

Part One covers just the basics of the Mouse Recording feature.
(SWF streaming)
Or, Download it to view offline (load the HTML file in your browser).

Part Two shows how you might apply it in a more "real-world" scenario by adding animation to a spherical probe.
(SWF streaming)
Or, Download it to view offline (load the HTML file in your browser).

Part Three shows how to easily create a handheld camera effect.
(SWF streaming)
Or, Download it to view offline (load the HTML file in your browser).

Get the Free Flash Player: Windows version or Linux version

Extra Files and Examples

Blend Files:

• A Simple Text Animation
• A Handheld Camera Effect
• Controlling Particles with the Mouse

Short Video Clips:

• Candle Flame (from Nathan Dunlap's non-particle flame example*) with subtle vertical turbulence added.
• Particle "Storm" with mouse-animated colors, halo size, alpha, scaling, rotations, and vortex.

*Nathan Dunlap's website and Nathan's original .blend file

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, animation, IPO Curves, record mouse