3D Drawing with AutoCAD - Section 8

35.4.4 Video recording

We can navigate in a model with the Orbit command and the different options of its contextual menu at the time we record a video, which we can use in some presentation independently of Autocad. In these cases, before recording the animation, it is preferable to make a careful planning of how you are going to move closer to the model, so that the resulting video is satisfactory for your interests. That is, you can present a 3D piece using simply 3D orbit, or you can record a careful presentation of it by navigating through a combination of Walk, Flight, Orbit and Zoom, for example. It is even possible to draw lines that will serve as camera paths to make our video as we will see shortly.
In turn, Autocad's animation recording tools allow you to generate video files in different formats, so you can decide which media player to use in your presentation or if you are going to do some later processing to export it to other media, such as a disc DVD video, for example.
When we start any of the above navigation methods 3D, in the section Animations activates the button that serves to start recording. The next thing is to move around the model as you wish. If we want to change, for example, from Orbit to Walk, we can use the context menu with the confidence that it will not appear in the video. Finally, we will use the Play button to see how the animation was. If the result is satisfactory, then you can record it.

To set the parameters of the animation, instead of indicating them when recording the video, we use the old well-known Options dialog box. On the 3D Modeling tab you will find a button called Animation that opens another dialog box where you can select the visual style of the model when recording the animation, the video resolution, the number of frames per second of the video and the output format.

In order to record an animation in which the camera and / or the point of view are moved according to a certain path, we use the Animation movement path button in the Animation section of the Render tab, which presents a frame To configure all the necessary parameters. The objects that serve as trajectories (lines, arcs, splines and 3D polylines) must be elaborated before and do not appear in the animation. We have 3 possible combinations: that the camera moves around a fixed point of view, that the point of view is moved but the camera remains fixed, or that both parameters, camera and point of view, simultaneously travel their own path . Let's look at an example.