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Using 3d Choreographer Templates - A Tutorial

In this tutorial the original animation has an ostrich who hides his head in the sand as he is confronted by attacking dinosaurs. For the new animation the ostrich represents a member of the office staff who is afraid of telephones.

Step One:

Open *.3dc file which has an action or scene you'd like to use. For this tutorial I am using ost.3dc. View the current animation associated with this file by playing the *.avi file ost.avi.

Step Two:

Select the ostrich and click on Actor/Copy. This command will copy the ostrich and all his script of actions.

Step Three:

	Open up a new file. Click on Actor/Paste. Cut the first four commands in which the ostrich walks on stage. In the new animation he'll just react to the phones near him. The length of the animation should be 10 seconds. Give the new animation a black background.

Step Four:

	Put in two telephones to animate. Click on Actor/Cast/Bitmap Transparent Actor. Attach a .bmp picture of a telephone. Place the first phone on the left side of the screen where the T-rex had been. Repeat the above steps for the second phone and place it on the right side of the screen where the raptor had been.

Step Five:

Give the first telephone commands - Bounce three times for 4 seconds, Wobble four times for 4 seconds. Copy and paste those commands from 4-8 seconds. Add one final bounce from 8-9 seconds.

Step Six:

Hide the second phone for 4 seconds since the ostrich won't react to it at first. Then show it for the remainder of the time. Copy the last three of the first telephone's commands and paste them in the second phone's script.. To stagger the movement of the second phone, start its actions from 5 seconds to 10.

Step Seven:

Save the new file as phone.3dc and animate it as an AVI file (577K).