Creating Animations

There are two ways to create animations in JetStream. You can either simply record your real time walk through, or you can assemble specific viewpoints for JetStream to interpolate into an animation later for a more controlled animation.

All animation is controlled through the Tools, Animation menu, the Viewpoints control bar and the Animation toolbar, which is shown below.

Creating an animation in real time

1. Click on the Record button on the Animation toolbar.

2. Navigate around in the main navigation window while JetStream records your movement. You can even move the section plane(s) through the model during your navigation and this will be recorded into the animation too.

3. At any point during the navigation, you can click on the Pause button . This will pause the recording while you maneuver into a new position. Click on the Pause button again to continue recording the animation. The resulting animation will contain a cut for the duration of the pause.

4. When finished, click on the Stop button

5. A new animation called "AnimationX", where 'X' is the latest available number, will be added to the Viewpoints control bar. The name will be editable at this point if you want to name it yourself. This animation will also become the current active animation in the Animation toolbar's drop down.

While the above method is useful for creating quick animations on the fly, sometimes you need more control over the animation camera. To do this in JetStream, you need to set up several viewpoints and add them to an empty animation. When playing back the animation, JetStream will then interpolate between these viewpoints.

Creating an animation frame by frame

1. Right click on the Viewpoints control bar and select Add Empty Animation from the context menu.

2. A new animation called "AnimationX", where 'X' is the latest available number, will be added to the Viewpoints control bar. The name will be editable at this point if you want to name it yourself. There will be no plus sign next to the animation, showing that the animation is indeed empty.

3. Create the viewpoints where you want the camera to move through during the animation and save these into the Viewpoints control bar. These will become the frames for the animation. The more frames you have, the smoother and more predictable the animation will be. See for more information on creating viewpoints.

4. When you have all the viewpoints, simply drag them onto the empty animation you just created. You can drag them on one by one, or select multiple viewpoints using the Control and Shift keys and drag several on at once. If you drop them onto the animation icon itself, then the viewpoints will become frames at the end of the animation, but you can drop the viewpoints anywhere on the expanded animation to put them where you wish.

5. At this point, you can use the slider bar on the Animation toolbar to move backward and forward through the animation to see how it looks.

6. You can edit any of the viewpoints inside the animation (see for details on this), or you can add more viewpoints, delete them, move them around, add cuts and edit the animation itself (see ) until you are happy with the animation.

7. Once you have several animations, you can drag and drop them onto a master animation to compose more complex combinations of animations, just like dragging and dropping viewpoints onto an animation as a frame.