hey people,
I am a veteran bryce user, newbie bryce animator.
OK all I want to do is rotate an object 360 degrees over 4 seconds (around the Y axis). This is what I do, but doesn't work:

--at zero seconds, i set all rotation attributes of the object to zero
--scrub to 4 seconds
--set the Y axis rotation of the object to 360

now when i preview it, it should work right? nope! it just sits there and does nothing because the 360 I put in at 4 seconds gets reset to zero. HELP. all i wanna do is rotate an object 360 degrees, why is this so difficult.
Thanks in advance,
-- bz

Try doing it in quarter turns. With 360 the computer is seeing that the rotation really hasn't changed( it doesn't track your rotation, it simply takes sarting point and ending point). So set a key frame every second for the above animation rotating 90 degrees at a time.

Ok I just tried it with only 2 keyframes, 1 at 2 seconds 180 degree rotaion and 1 at 4 second to complete the circle and it worked. I'd be careful with just 2 keyframes though, I've heard of people having problems with it rotating wrong. To be safe and reduce keyframes you could use 3 and rotate it by thirds.

I've had trouble with poor (read: no) rotation with 2 key frames. I've had a lot of trouble with the "auto key" feature in the past. I'd manually key in 4 frames (one for each second, that's logical). If you manually key them, it's much easier to work with your animation later, because you know exactly where they are, how many there are, and how far apart they are. Autokeying doesn't seem to be very thorough. It misses a lot.

thanks for the help guys, but it still doesn't work. Aldaron, I am using Bryce 5, are you using 4? Because I did the same thing and it didn't work.

The best I can get it to do is to rotate 180 degrees in the first 2 seconds, and then instead of completing the rotation it turns back the opposite way for the last 2 seconds.

I have tried animating it with 4 keyframes, 3 keyframes, 2 keyframes. But it always does something wacky, bouncing back and forth and changing rotation rates, very strange.

Here is something interesting -- when I do 3 keyframes:
-- 1 at 0 seconds, 0 degrees rotation
-- 1 at 2 seconds, 180 degree rotation
-- 1 at 4 seconds, 360 degrees rotation
I go back to the 2 second mark and check the rotation, and instead of it being 180 degrees on the Y axis, it has 180 degrees on the Z and X axes. I don't understand!

If anyone can help me with this it would be much appreciated. Otherwise I'll have to waste Clay Hagebusch's time by asking him.
Thanks,
--bz

Try not setting that first keyframe at 0 seconds. I use 5 with the patch and with 2 keyframes (first at 2 seconds 180 degree, 2nd at 4 seconds at another 180 degrees). Just had a thought, how are you entering the rotations? Are you doing it in the object attributes or using the edit at the top of the screen? If you are entering the numbers manually that may be your problem, try using the edit up top. If I think of anything I'll post later.

I'd go with Aldaran's idea about dividing it into thirds. Set keyframes at 0,120,240,and 360. Then there's no confusion over which way it should turn. Rubycon

you would think it should be that easy, but here's what bryce does: i set all the keyframes, then i go to play back the animation. it turns the first 240 degrees OK, but then instead of continuing to 360, it quickly rotates back to 0 right after it hits 240.

ok i got it. frame 0. key at 0 degrees frame middle + 1 frame. key at 180 degrees frame middle. observe difference from frame middle +1. frame end. key at 0 degrees minus difference observed above. make sure auto is off and animation is enabled(RDS.) if rotates wrong way use -180 and 0 degrees + difference. i tried the above and it works. durn avi seems to delight in delaying between loops. anyone know how to correct this?

NICE. i think it worked bikermouse, thanks.

about the slow avi, it could be that your computer is slow and the avi is really hi-rez. try using one of bryce's built in compressions for avi, like the DIVX ones. they make the file size much smaller and it runs way faster, but still looks the same.

no compression got me a 7.4 meg avi, and with compression got me a 220KB avi. and they look exactly the same but the smaller file runs faster.

glad i could help. as to the avi loop problem : i doubt its the computer itself im running a 1.6ghz p4 with 512mb memory hp pavillion 750N on xp(xp by the way is great . once you figure out how to do dos and use borland 3.1 to make new a new choice.exe ). my anims are 32 bit color my monitor wont do 24 bit or 15 bit. it could be the conversion from 24 to 32 bit bryce 3.1 says my compression choices are: cinepack intel indeo 3.2 video 4.5 video YUV codec microsoft video 1 i feel that it is probably a preformance setting in xp that is wrong but that doesnt seem right either. but the DIVX. can i download it somewhere or will i have to upgrade to b5 to get and use it?

oops the line "video" should read "video 5.10"

Attached Link: http://www.divx.com/divx/

hey thanks i'll try it out.