SU Style Animation

[grain]

I want to prepare an animation of a collection of buildings where the camera goes from composed view to composed view. Is this done with the animation assistant? I was hoping I could do it as in SU where you prepare a selection of carefully composed views and leave the rest to the computer.

Help gratefully received

[Cad64]

I don't know what you mean when you say "the camera goes from composed view to composed view"? Can you explain? Is there an example of this somewhere that you can post a link to? :unsure:

[grain]

my first attempt at the animation was simply to have a camera rotate about a circular path giving a helicopter style view of the collection of buildings. THe trouble is this doesnt show them off to their best so what I want to do is compose a key frame of the first house move 150 frames to the next house and key frame the best view and rest there for two or three seconds and so on. I would rather not use the follow a path method as the camera seems a bit unsmooth. HOpe this makes sense. WHat I really want to know is how to set up the animation. (I also need to work out how to relink all the billboards to a new camera - as they are currently linked to the circular path camera.)

[Cad64]

Sorry, but I think you're getting a little out of my area of expertise. I don't do animations, just still renders.

You might want to check out the DVD training material here: http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=108

There's also lots of free tutorials at these sites:
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/3DS-MAX/Animation/1
http://tutorialoutpost.com/tutorials/3d-studio-max/animation
http://www.tutorialsphere.com/tutorials/3ds-max/animation

Or just Google "3ds max animation tutorial". There's loads of free tutorials out there.