Using Video Post to Animate Lightning - Part 4 of a Free 3DS Max Tutorial

In this lesson you learn how to animate the glow effect. Note that when you create keys for Video Post effects, they do not show up in the Track View editor. They can only be animated and edited from within Video Post. Also, Video Post animation information is saved when you save the entire .max file. If you save from within Video Post, using the Save Sequence icon, the animation information is not saved within the .vpx file.

1. From the Rendering menu, choose Video Post.
2. Double-click the Coil and Sphere Sparks entry in the queue.
3. Select the Setup button.
4. Select the AutoKey button, located in the lower right corner of the MAX screen, to turn it on.
5. Drag the Frame Slider to 0/45. This is the first frame of the animation. Note that you don't have to close or minimize Video Post to do this.
6. In the Lens Effects Glow window, select the Preferences tab.
7. Type 0 in the Size spinner. This make the effect invisible on frame 0.

   

8. Drag the frame slider to frame 5/45.
9. Type 0 again in the Size spinner. Do this even though the value is already set to 0. You need to create a key on this frame to keep the effect off between frames 0 and 5.

   

10. Drag the frame slider to frame 27/45.
11. Type 20 in the Size spinner. Note that red marks appear around the arrows associated with this spinner. This indicates that you have created a key for this value on this frame.

    

12. Drag the frame slider to frame 45/45.
13. Type 0 in the Size spinner. This returns the effect to its invisible state.

    

14. Drag the frame slider to frame 27/45.
15. Select the Inferno tab.
16. Type 20 in the Size spinner. This will make the sparks climbing the coil farther apart.
17. Type 55 in the Base spinner. This will make the sparks brighter over the course of the animation.

    

18. Drag the frame slider to frame 45/45.
19. Type 10 in the Size spinner. This will make the sparks
20. Type 50 in the Direction spinner. This will make the sparks appear to climb down the coil.
21. Choose OK to exit this window.
22. Drag the frame slider to frame 27/45.
23. Double-Click the Particle Sparks entry in the queue.
24. Choose the Setup button.
25. Select the Preferences tab.
26. Type 12 in the Size spinner.
27. Drag the frame slider to frame 37/45.
28. Type 0 in the Size spinner. This will make the effect fade away at this frame.

    

29. Choose OK to exit this window.
30. Select the Auto Key button to turn it off.
31. Click in a blank area of the Video Post queue.
32. Select the Add Image Output Event icon.

    

33. Select the Files button.
34. Type 0606.avi, or the name of the animation file you want to create.
35. Choose Save.
36. Choose OK.

    

37. Select the Execute Sequence icon.

    

38. Select the Range radio button to indicate you want to render all the frames.
39. Choose Render to render the scene.
40. From the File menu, choose View Image File.
41. Double-click 0606.avi. or the name of the animation you rendered, from the list of files.
42. Select the Play icon to play the animation.

    

You will find our version of the finished scene in 0706d.max. Both files were unpacked from the m0706a.exe self-extracting executable.

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