There are 12 types of Actors used in the Animation module. Each Actor is represented by an icon. The Camera, Light and Target have easily identifiable icons that appear in the Working-Volume view windows. The Model, Morph Cycle, and Robot Actors are represented as either bounding boxes, wireframes or outlines. The Sky, Image Effect and Director have no visual representation, CSG Actors are always draw with a bounding box and the Ground is represented with a dot, rectangle, or line. The Path Actor is represented by a segment of connected or unconnected lines with square nodes.
The first three, Model, Morph Cycle, and Robot will all be visible in a rendered animation if they are wearing a costume and are in front of the camera in the current frame. Their costumes are designed in the Design module and what Actor wears what costume is specified through the Actors costume timeline.
The next group of three, Sky, Ground and CSG will also be visible under the same conditions but their costumes are very simple to specify and this is done exclusively in the Animator module.
When an Actor's costume timeline is created, either explicitly in the keyframer or implicitly by the direct addition of an Actor, the animator presents an appropriate dialog to specify things like Sky color, Ground texture etc.
The Image Effect is a special type of Actor that applies an Image processor to the final rendered frames of an animation. The Image Effect is not visible in the Window boxes.
The remaining five Actor types, Camera, Light, Path, Director and Target will not be visible in any rendered images but they are very important in the production of an animation.
Model
This type of Actor wears a costume that is a Model designed in the Designer.
A Model Actor can wear more than one costume during an animation, which costume
it wears is specified in the costume timeline. Any change of costume takes place
at a keyframe. If an Actor changes costume, and those costumes are compatible,
the Actor can be instructed to morph (change shape) gradually from one shape
to another.
Morph Cycle
The Morph Cycle Actor also wears an costume designed in the Designer, but two
or more Models are brought together specifically for Morphing. A set of Model
costumes are manipulated as a single entity. They are very useful when it is
necessary to use a sequence of several "morphs" in an animation.
Camera
Camera Actors provide the eyes through which the action is viewed. There must
always be at least one Camera, there may be more but only one at a time can
act as the viewpoint.
Target
Targets are useful as a point to aim the camera at and for setting actions which
must occur at the same place but at different times.
Light
The Light Actor provides illumination for the animation, if multiple lights
are present then it is a good idea to dim each of the lights. Lights may cast
shadows without adding any illumination or cast no shadows at all. Spotlights
have a cone of extent and their shadows can be nearly photorealistic.
Path
A Path Actor is used by the other Actors when their movement is most conveniently
described by a smooth curve. The speed with which the Actors moves along a
path is specified by a Velocity curve. Path costumes may be open, closed
or loaded from previously saved PTH file.
Paths are not visible when the animation is rendered.
Sky
A Sky Actor forms the backdrop in front of which the animation is played out.
Only one Sky Actor is permitted in any animation.
Ground
A Ground plane is a horizontal solid surface that is flat and extend to infinity
in all directions. It may wear multiple costumes and have textures and image
maps applied but only one Actor of this type may be present. In the view windows
the horizon is drawn as a line in the Front and Side views. A rectangle represents
the ground in the Top view, it may be moved, rotated or scaled if the appropriate
timelines are added.
Image Postprocessing Effect
Image processes take a completed rendered image and modify it in
some way. Any topic that can be classified under the heading of Image Processing
can be incorporated into an Image processor. Examples are Lens Flares, Video Special Effects, Fog,
etc
Robot
The Robot Actor uses a model that has a skeleton. The skeleton can be manipulated
(in an analogous way to the way it is manipulated in the Designer) at the costume
timelines frames. In the intervening frames the position of the joints in the
skeleton are interpolated so that models appears to move smoothly between two
poses of the skeleton. When a Robot Actor is drawn in the Animator Working-Volume
it is represented by the skeleton itself. If the Actor is selected the Vertex
Selector Tool can be used to select joints and pivot the skeleton of the Actor.
CSG
CSG Actors represent some basic geometric shapes that have curved surfaces
which would require a large number of triangular faces to model accurately and
render smoothly. CSG Actors can have spheres, disks, cylinders, or tubes as
costumes. A first order subtractive intersection can be arranged between solid
CSG's. Note: CSG Actors do not cast shadows or appear in reflections.
Director
The director is used to specify which camera is active. In no director timeline
is present the default camera is active. Only one director may be present in
each OFX file. Each director timeline indicates one camera: the one that is
used to capture the scene on camera. To switch between cameras add several timelines
and in the Keyframer choose which camera to use.