Using the Motion Controller

There are many different animation-related tasks you can accomplish using the Motion Controller.

Starting an Animation

1. Select one or more objects you want to animate. The objects must be geometric objects or parameters.

2. Click the Animate button in the Motion Controller. Each selected object begins moving.

The only objects you can’t animate are captions, calculations, functions, action buttons, measurements, and pictures.

Selecting a Moving Object

If you want to modify the motion of a particular moving object, you must select that object to make it the target of the Motion Controller. If the object were not moving, you would simply click it with the Arrow tool to select it—but it’s not always so easy to click a moving object.

You may be able to select the desired moving object with a mouse click if it’s moving slowly or with a selection rectangle if there aren’t any other objects near it. If not, follow these steps.

1. Press and hold on the Target menu to show the list of target objects.

2. If the object you want appears on the list, choose it. The object is selected, and you’re done.

If the object is not an independent point, a point on path, or a parameter, the object is moved by moving its parents, and it doesn’t appear on the list. In this case, continue with steps 3 through 5.

3. Click the Pause button in the Motion Controller. Motion stops.

4. Select the object.

5. Click the Pause button again to release and restart the motion. The object remains selected and is listed as the target object.

Stopping a Moving Object

You can stop the motion of a single object while leaving other objects in motion.

1. Select the moving object as described in the previous section.

2. Click the Stop button in the Motion Controller. The selected object stops moving.

Clicking Stop with nothing selected stops all moving objects.

Reversing the Direction of a Moving Object

You can reverse the direction of any moving object as long as it’s not animating randomly.

1. Select the moving object as described in that section.

2. Click the Reverse button in the Motion Controller. The selected object reverses its direction.

Clicking Reverse with nothing selected reverses all moving objects’ directions.

Setting, Increasing, or Decreasing the Speed of a Moving Object

You can change the speed of any moving object.

1. Select the moving object as described in that section.

2. To set the speed, click in the Motion Controller’s speed control and type a new speed. The selected object moves at the new speed.

3. Alternatively, click on the up or down arrow in the Motion Controller’s speed control. The selected object speeds up or slows down.

When you have several objects moving at different speeds and you want to make all of them go faster or slower, use the speed arrows rather than typing a specific speed.