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There's
no point rendering our animation just yet, as our
project is only 30 frames long, which is basically one bounce.
By
taking advantage of the fact that Max automatically loops the whole project when
you play it, we have been able to see the ball bouncing. However, if we rendered
now, our video would be just over 1 second long and wouldn't really give us much
of a feel for the project.
So,
the first thing we need to do is make the project longer.
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Click
on the Time Configuration button: 
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Change
the Animation Length to 120.
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Click
OK
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Now
we have more time, but our ball only bounces once. However, we only need one
bounce, as we have the option to loop it!
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Open
Track View by right clicking on the Ball and
choosing Track View Selected.
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Expand
the Sphere's Tracks and select the Z Position
Track.
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Click
on Parameter Curve Out-of-Range Types :
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What
this rather long name means is that we can decide what we want our animation
to do outside of the actual range
we have specified. We have only created animation for frames 0 to 30, so
what do we want our ball to do outside of this range?
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At
the moment, it is set to Constant, which means
no looping.
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We
can change it to any of the following:
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Constant |
This
is the default out-of-range type. It holds the value of the last key of
the range for all the following frames. Use constant when you want
no animated effect before the first key of the range or after the last
key. In other words, no looping at all! |
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Cycle |
Repeats
the animation as it is specified within the range. If the first and last
keys in the range have different values, the animation will show an abrupt
"jump" from the last key to the first. Use Cycle when you want
an animation to repeat, but do not need the ends to match. |
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Loop |
Interpolates
between the last and first keys of the range. This only works if you leave
some space between the last key and the end of the range (or the first key
and the beginning of the range). |
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Ping
Pong |
Alternates
between playing the animation forwards and then backwards. |
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Linear |
"Projects
the animation value along a line tangent to the function curve at the end
of the range. Use Linear when you want the animation to enter and leave
the range at a constant velocity" - Max Online Reference. (I'm not
entirely sure how to use this one, but you don't need it, so don't worry
about it!) |
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Relative
Repeat |
This
repeats the animation, offsetting each repeat by the value reached at the
last key of the range. This is useful for animations that need to build,
like the hands of a clock (animate one second rotation, then relative
repeat). |
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So,
our first and last keyframes are identical, so we can use Cycle.
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Choose
Cycle and click OK.
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Now
play your animation.
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Pretty
cool eh?
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Now
do the same with the Scale Track. This will
make sure our squash effect also loops.
So,
now we can Render.
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