- [Instructor] The very first release of 3ds Max
introduced a revolutionary new feature called Auto Key mode.
Nowadays, this is something that we see in almost
every digital animation application,
but 3ds Max pioneered the concept.
And that is in Auto Key Mode, whenever you change something,
you automatically create key frames for an animation.
Let's test this out.
I've got a camera here
and I wanted to truck across the room.
To make that happen, I'll enable Auto Key Mode.
It's down here in the lower right.
Got a button Auto Key.
And when that's on,
we see the current view port outlined in red.
And we also see the time slider here highlighted in red.
And all we need to do is move something
to create key frames.
But, however, there's a little bit of a gotcha here.
The important thing to realize about Auto Key
is that when you create the very first key frame
on a particular transform or parameter,
such as the position of the camera,
when you create that very first key frame,
you need to be on some frame of the timeline
other than the first frame.
If you're parked on the first frame of the animation,
which is frame zero by default, even if Auto Key is on,
if you move something or change a parameter,
you're not going to create a key frame.
You need to be on some other frame that very first time.
For example, I'll go down to the end of my timeline.
I can scroll down there, scrub down there,
or I can just click on the button to go to the end.
Now, my time is frame 149.
And I can just go ahead and select my camera,
select the move tool, and move it in the world X axis
in the top view, just drag it over.
Release the mouse, and now I've got two key frames.
I've got one at frame zero, one at frame 149,
indicated by these red boxes.
And if I rewind, click on Go To Start,
and press the Play Animation button,
we'll see we've got some animation.
And because I have active viewport only disabled
in my time configuration,
I can see that animation in all of view ports
regardless of which one is currently selected.
Okay, I'll stop that.
And go ahead and rewind it, click on Go To Start once again.
So remember this, the very first time you invoke Auto Key
on a particular parameter or transform,
the current time needs to be some other frame
than the first frame of the active time segment.
If you're on the first frame,
but you have no key frames yet,
Auto Key will not create key frames.
Okay, from then on,
you can just position the time anywhere you want.
I can go down to, let's say frame 75
and make another change.
Auto Key is still on, my move tool is still active,
and I can move that camera in the negative wide direction
pulling it back a bit, release the mouse.
And now I have another key frame at frame 75.
And I can Go To Start, play that back,
and now I've got a little bit of an arc to the movement.
All right.
Very cool.
So that's how easy Auto Key is.
It's very simple.
We just need to be mindful if Auto Key is on or off.
You don't want to accidentally leave it on.
That would be a problem because then you might be working
in some other aspect of your scene
and unknowingly create key frames.
That's a classic rookie mistake.
I've done it, everyone's done it.
You absent mindedly leave Auto Key on,
and then go into some other part of the program
like the material editor.
And all of a sudden you're animating colors
when you didn't even realize it.
Just remember, when you finish creating animation keys,
always reflexively turn Auto Key off.
Cool, so that's an introduction to Auto Key.