Learn how animation is defined and used in Alias.

Animating an object means that one or more characteristics or attribute of the object change over time. For example, if you have designed a car and want to see it drive down a road, you must animate its position over time. At time 1, the car may be in front of a house, and at time 50, at a street corner, 10 blocks down the street. In the animation system, you might say that at time 1 the car has an X translation of 0 units, and at time 50 it has an X translation of 10 units (that is, it has moved to a position of 10 units in the X direction). The X translation, in this example, is an attribute of the car that can be animated: we call it an animation parameter.

There are a number of ways to animate in Alias. Many of our users use the animation tools to present final concept models. For example, you can show the assembly of your model or you can display your new model moving though a scene. The animation and photorealistic rendering capabilities create images convincing enough to be reproduced directly into print, video or interactive media.

The animation process is to model, animate, fine tune, and to finally render your animated scene.