Animations

Estimated reading: 3 minutes

Character animations

Character animations control how characters move in a scene.
You can use an existing animation or create a new one with Wonder Tools.

To create an animation:

Open the Animations panel from the Asset Toolbar.
Select My Assets.
Select Create an Animation.
Choose one of the available workflows:
- AI Motion Capture: Extract character motion from a reference video.
- Animation / Video to 3D Scene: Generate an aligned 3D scene containing character animation and camera motion extracted from a video.

Before starting the final processing step, enable AI MoCap under Export individual elements. This ensures that the extracted character animation is exported and becomes available in the 3D Editor.

After processing is complete, the animation appears under My Assets in the Animations panel.

To apply a camera animation:

Open the Cameras panel from the Asset Toolbar.
Select the My Assets tab.
Select the camera animation you want to use.
Choose a camera behavior:
- Global: Applies the extracted camera trajectory directly to the 3D scene.
- Relative: Prompts you to select a character. The camera then moves relative to that character.
Use the Timeline to preview the camera motion.

Learn more:

Camera animations

Camera animations control how a camera moves through a scene. You can create camera motion in four ways: three workflows in Wonder Tools, or manually with keyframes in the 3D Editor.

Create Camera Motion with Wonder Tools

Open the Cameras panel from the Asset Toolbar.
Select My Assets.
Select Create a Camera Animation.
Choose a workflow:

Live Action Easy: Compose CG characters into a live-action scene and extract animation, cameras, and scene assets.
Live Action Advanced: Use the advanced live-action workflow to extract animation, cameras, and scene assets.
Animation: Generate a 3D scene with character animation and camera motion extracted from a video.

Before starting the final processing step, enable the following options under Export individual elements:

AI MoCap — exports the extracted character animation.
Camera Track — exports the extracted camera motion.

Both options must be enabled for the animation and camera motion to become available in the 3D Editor.

Select Start Processing. When processing is complete, the extracted camera motion appears under My Assets in the Cameras panel.

When you add a camera from Wonder Tools, you are prompted to choose between a Global Camera and a Relative Camera behavior.

Global Camera: Uses the camera trajectory extracted from the source video and places it directly into the 3D scene.
Relative Camera: Prompts you to select a character. The camera motion is then applied relative to that character’s movement and position.

Animate a Camera with Keyframes

Use Camera View together with the Timeline to create camera movement.

Move the playhead to the point where you want to set the camera position.
Move and aim the camera.
Select Add Keyframe or press F.
Move the playhead to another point in time.
Adjust the camera and add another keyframe.

The camera moves between the keyframes during playback.

To remove a keyframe, place the playhead over it and press C, or select Remove Keyframe.

If you move the camera away from its animated trajectory, a message appears to indicate that the current framing is off trajectory. You can:

Press F to save the new position as a keyframe.
Press Shift+Z, or select Return to Trajectory, to return to the existing camera path.