Now for Some Animation Fun.

This tutorial is based on the information provided in animation tutorials #1 and #2. It won't take long to go through those and it is recommended. The instructions below will use abilities covered in those tutorials. Once you finish this section you should have enough material to play for days. As mentioned previously do not assume that I have a clue about anything covered here...

OK let's get started.

Creating the Table

The first task is to create a "surface" that the dominos (or tiles or 3D meshes...) can fall onto. With a new animation default screen (Cube, Lamp, and Camera) select the front view and select the cube. Decrease the height to 0.05 or original (s z 0.05 ENTER). The flattened cube should be centered on the Z plane with 0.025 above and 0.025 below. We can move the surface to be even with the top of the Z plane. Move it 0.025 units down (g z -0.025 ENTER). The reason we adjust the surface this way is to ensure that the surfaace top will be exactly where we expect so that the dominos can be placed accurately on the surface.

Now we want to expand the landing surface in the X and Y directions. Expand the flattened cube 20 units in the X direction (s x 10 ENTER). Expand the table 20 units in the Y direction (s y 10 ENTER). We should now have a surface 20x20 with the top just at the Z plane. Probably be a good idea to save (save as...) the file with your choice of name.