Animated Background

The other day I was working on a project and discovered this simple trick on how to make an animated background and even how to create lightning. So let's get started:

Programs:
3D Studio Max

Steps:

1. The Default setting for the Environment background is Black which is noticeable when rendering. Changing the default Environment is easy by selecting Render->Environment-> and changing the color, BUT since we are making an animated background lets select the AutoKey first, and then change the color. This will change the background for the first frame.



2. Now move the timeline to a later frame on the timeline and change color by one more time selecting Render->Environment-> and selecting a new color.



Notice, that every time you change a color on a frame, there will be four red ticks around the color bocks on the Environment panel. This informs you when the frame contains a set background color.

3. Another way to tell which frame contains color or not is by opening up the timeline panel. Select the button on the left part of the timeline with one arrow going up and one arrow going down.


Scroll down until you reach Environment and click the plus sign next to Environment and select background. If you did the previous steps correctly you should have something like this.


Each line represents either Red, Green, and Blue on the RGB color wheel and a collection of squares on a frame number, means that there is a particular color combination for that frame background. If you do not want that color to be on that frame anymore, just drag your arrow cursor over all of the square boxes on the frame and hit delete on your keyboard. Deleting just one square would not work since the squares make a combination. To change the color of the frame, I think it is easier to just delete the squares and click close on the panel, and change the background using the previous steps.

3. Now lets Render a movie so that you can see the change in background color. Select Render->Render-> and then select render for a particular range and enter the frame numbers that you want the movie to render across.




Now save the file to a particular location. Select Render and then open the movie and you will see that the background gradients between color locations. To make less of a gradient and more of an instanesous change, add more frames with different color. Also, there are many other things you can do with this little trick, like adding lightning by changing the map on a particular frame. That we'll save for later, have fun with this.