Visibility animations are used to fade DTS objects in or out over the course of an animation.  Any number of objects may have a separate visibility track assigned to them in a given visibility sequence.

Creating a visibility animation

1. On the exporter's Sequences->Visibility Animations panel, select an existing sequence using the pulldown on the top-right of the panel.  Then click the "Add Vis anim to existing sequence" button on the top-left of the panel.  The new visibility sequence should show up in the visibility sequences list.
2. Click the sequence name in the "Visibility Sequences" list on the left-hand side of the panel.  The sequence options on the right apply to the selected sequence in this list.
3. Click the "Enable" button next to the object name(s) in the Object Visibility Tracks list for the objects that you wish to be included in the visibility animation.
4. Select one of the enabled objects in the "Object Visibility Track" list, and choose either "object" or "material" in the "IPO Type" pulldown to the right of the track list.  The options to the right of the visibility track list apply to the selected object in that list.
5. Pick an IPO Channel from the "IPO Channel" pulldown to drive the object visibility track.  If you selected "Material" in the IPO Type pulldown, material type IPO channels will be available in the IPO Channel pulldown.  If you selected "Object" in the IPO Type pulldown, object type IPO channels will be avaliable in the IPO Channel pulldown.
6. Choose a specific object or material using the IPO Object pulldown that has the IPO curve that you want to use to drive the visibility animation for that object.

(Above: visibility animation example model in Showtool Pro)

Download the visibility example model pictured above: VisAnimExample1.zip

The example model pictured above contains working visibility animations that use the "LocZ" IPO curves of "empty" objects to drive the visibility animation tracks.  The empties are animated over the desired frame range (moved up and down on the z-axis between 0.0 and 1.0), and the LocZ channel of each empty is assigned to a specific object in the visibility animation settings.  Blender Material IPOs may also be used to drive the visibility track for an object.

See Also:

• User Interface Overview - Visibility Animations panel
• Tutorial 6 - Adding a visibility animation