21. Morphing Objects and Using Actions

• Accessing the Actions palette

• Creating morph targets

• Blending morphs

• Creating animation clips

• Editing an existing clip

• Reusing clips

Objects outside of the working area are not exported with the project. This area provides a place where you can place objects that you aren’t ready to use just yet. But Anime Studio includes another place where you can keep animation and object states in limbo.

The Actions palette provides a simple interface for defining different object states and for holding animation clips called actions. Once an action is created within the Actions palette, you can select and edit it without changing the current project. With several actions created, you can also morph between the different defined states to create new results. The Actions palette also allows animated objects to be saved.

As you create small animation clips that you want to reuse, you can use the Actions palette to insert these animation clips into the current project. New clips can be edited in the Timeline palette and inserted into the main animation.

The Actions palette is used to keep track of all the reusable animation clips. Each layer can have its own set of action clips, and these clips can be inserted easily throughout the animation as a reference or as a copy. Using referenced actions has the advantage of being updated automatically when the action clip changes.