Tutorials
This page contains a list of tutorials which all give simple step by step instructions with corresponding screenshots. A wide range of design and animation techniques will build up in this section which should culminate in a comprehensive 'manual of excellence' :) These tutorials are now available in more languages than just english - a list of available languages is displayed at the top of each tutorial.
Developer Documentation
Details of how to write plugins are described here
Contributing
If you feel you can explain a method of using OpenFX to create a building block technique that will be useful to others, please submit screenshots and brief step by step instructions of your tutorial to Stuart.
Animator tutorials
| Title | Description | Author | Support files |
|---|---|---|---|
| Path Follow | This shows how to setup an actor to move round a path in the Animator. | Andrew Heyworth | path-follow-tutorial.zip |
| Arm Skeleton | This shows how to create a skeletal arm structure and animate it. | Andrew Heyworth | skeleton-tutorial.zip |
| Robot Export | This tutorial show how to export a robot object so that it can be used to generate robot sequences (There are two types of robot export!). | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
| Insert Skeleton | This tutorial show how to us an exported robot sequence. | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
| Robot Path | This tutorial show how to move a robot sequence so that a robot can be made to follow a path, to give the appearance of walking, running etc. | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
| Particles | This tutorial demonstrates how to set up animator particle effects and the great flexibility that can be achieved with the particle actor . | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
Designer tutorials
| Title | Description | Author | Support files |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boolean | This is a tutorial aimed at beginners to OpenFX and 3D modelling in general. It explains how to cut one object out using the boolean action in the OpenFX designer. | Andrew Heyworth | None |
| Simple Skeleton | This tutorial is for beginners who want to make a model that can be posed easily using the skeletal structure. Updated: Revised version available (02.03.2001) |
Keith Kelly | quicktank.mfx |
| Shampoo Bottle | This demonstrates the use of the Lathe tool in the designer and texture mapping. It also shows how to use the animator to create a simple static scene. | Andrew Heyworth | tutorial.zip |
| Rubber Bones in Designer | This shows how to use the rubber bones mechanism to distort objects in the designer. | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
| Shrink Wrap | This tutorial shows how to use the shrink wrap feature (based on the marching cubes concept) to build models with a regular mesh arond any arbitrary shapes. | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
| Paint Map | This tutorial shows how to use the enhanced map painting dialog (also called the Texture Coordinates Edition) to fine tune image maps to achive a good match between the image map and the way it covers the painted facets. | Stuart | tutorial.zip |
Renderer tutorials
| Title | Description | Author | Support files |
|---|---|---|---|
| Renderer Settings | How to use the renderer settings - especially the Ray Tracing settings. | Stuart | None |