Hello, I am a beginner and I have the following question:
I want to create an animation where a Cube changes its Z-Scale but the upper face remains still.
I create the first KeyFrame (LocScale), then I scale the object and I move it along the Z-axis into its final position and finally I create the second frame.
The problem here is that during the animation the upper face moves (as the cube starts scaling). I have tried to manipulate the IPO Curves trying to synchronize the ZScale with the ZLoc in order to make the upper face still but it seems impossible to do it manually.
I am sure there is a better and simple way to do it.
Can somebody help me?
In the picture the final frame and the initial frame. The upper face during the animation moves because the size change is not “synchronized” with the movement along the Z-axis
Lots of ways to do this. Here’s one way that should be pretty straightforward:
Place an empty at the exact location of the face that shouldn’t be moving at all.
A. You can do this easily by going into edit mode with your cube, selecting the face that shouldn’t move, then pressing Shift+S and selecting “Cursor to Selection”
B. After shifting the cursor location in step A, make an Empty. It will be made at the location of the cursor – that is, directly aligned with the non-moving face.
Make the cube a child of the empty by selecting the cube FIRST, then the empty SECOND, then pressing Ctrl+P to create a parent/child relationship.
Animate the scale of the EMPTY along the axis you want the cube to change (in the screenshot you provide, it would be the z-axis).
Hmmmm… I am wondering how you do the same when a rotation with fulcrum on the same face is needed.
Look at the picture… for the animation 1–>2–>3 a rotation and a scaling is needed but using the same technique is difficult because the opposite face should “slide” on the floor… how can you have the exact scaling for each frame?
