Blender For Dummies, 4th Edition

Chapter 13

Animating Object Deformations

IN THIS CHAPTER

Becoming familiar with the Dope Sheet

Using armatures for animations

Animating quickly with the Non-Linear Animation Editor

Looking at the title of this chapter, you may find yourself wondering how this chapter is different from Chapter 11. Both chapters cover animation, but this chapter covers the cool things you can do in Blender if you’re animating with a fully rigged mesh. Chapter 11 covers what is often referred to as object animation — that is, animating the attributes of a single object.

With an animation rig, you have more bits and pieces to manage, keep track of, and control. Managing all that additional complexity can be daunting if you have only the Outliner and the Graph Editor to work with. Fortunately, Blender offers a few more features that help make rigged character animation easier to wrap your head around.

Working with the Dope Sheet

So you have a rigged character that you want to animate. Awesome! With your armature selected, change to the Animation workspace by clicking the Animation tab at the top of the Blender window (you can also press Ctrl+Page Up repeatedly until you land on the correct workspace ...