Animation basics: THE MOTION PATH

Motion Paths are perhaps the simplest way to visualize animation. We will create a curve and attach our Plane to the curve. This will allow the plane to fly along the curve.
Setting Keys: Keyframes are used to establish extreme positions in animation, while tween-frames carry out the action between poses. We will create a spinning propller based on setting keys for the rotation of our blades.

1. For this demo, there is an already created scene (basic_env.ma) which all of my animation will take place in. I have my airplane in a separate file. To get the plane into this scene I need to import the file. Doing so will place the plane in the scene in the exact same space as it was in the previous file (hopefully at or near the origin).
   
   
   
   
2. In the Top Ortho view, I move the plane into it's starting positon for it's flight. I open up the Curves shelf and prepare to draw a curve which will be my motion path.
   
   
   
   
3. By using the EP curve tool (3rd option from the left in the Curves shelf), I can click... click...click... etc... ENTER until I have a curve. This will create the ground tracking-position of the plane.
   
   
   
   
4. In the perspective camera, I move the curve up to establish a base Altitude
   
   
   
   
5. My curve started off at a slightly different angle than my plane was oriented, so I grab the rotate tool and the group for my WHOLE plane (you don't want to leave the propellor behind), and I rotated the plane to orient flying straight down the curve
   
   
   
6. Problem is, by moving the plane, Maya is going to get freaked out when we attach it to the motion path in a minute. We need to make Maya forget that the plane was ever moved so it recognizes this current position as the TRUE starting point. To do that we select the group, then go to Modify-Freeze Transformations. You will notice that in the channel box, all your transformations will go back to 0's and 1's for Translate/Rotate and Scale.
   
   
   
7. Right now the plane will be flying at level elevation, and thats no fun! Lets get an elevation change by editing this curve:
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Once our curve is the way we like it, lets go to the Animation Menu Set (circled in the upper left of the image shown below).
   Select the Curve First, then hold down shift and select the group node for the plane.
   Make sure your timeslider is at frame 1 of the animation (arrow showin it in lower left of the image below).
   From there, Go to Animate-Motion Paths-Attach to Motion Path and CLICK ON THE OPTIONS BOX
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. In the options box, make sure the time range is set to the full duration of the time slider. In this demo, that is 300 frames (or 10 seconds)
   
   
   
   
   
10. We can select the curve and go to the attirbute editor.
    Select the motion path tab.
    Below are some values that you may need to edit. Everyone's plane will probably have different settings.
    Importantly though, Front Twist will control the "roll" of the plane. If we want to animate the plane rolling/banking, we can key this value by right clicking and choosing set key. We can move to a different frame and set a key with a different value to establish a change in the degree of banking.
    
    
    
    
11. Now its time to make the propellor spin. Previously we have moved the pivot point of the propellor into the exact center by "v"-snapping it to a vertex at the tip of the nose-cone. That is crucial to make sure the propellor does not wobble.
    
    Once that is done however, animating a spining propeller is easy. We go to frame 1, the initial frame of this animation and....
    
    
    
    
    
12. Then, we jump ahead to frame 300 (the last frame of this animation):
    
    
    THATS IT! your plane will now animate along the motion path!
    
    Now head over to the Cameras Module to see how to set up our framing....