Tutorial

1. Launch Carrara and select File|New.
2. Create a terrain 60" x 60" x 8" with light gray bits around the outside and a darker gray bit in the middle. Apply a blue/white shader. Create a plane and position it to cover most of the lower part of the terrain. Apply a mirror shader.
3. Purloin a couple of figures from your favorite figure source (Poser or the Carrara content CD are quite good), or construct a couple of crude figures from primitives. Note that with the figures' pose, things are easier if their arms are close to their sides as it reduces the chance of an accidental collision. You can download a snowman shown in Figure 1 for PC or for the Mac.
4. We want the figures to move once around the center of the mirror lake.

   While they go around we want them to turn away from each other, go all the way around and come back together.

   They can turn around each other once while they are doing this.

   The can also turn once about their own axis every 3 revolutions, so first they face each other, then they are to their sides, and then they face each other again at the other side of the circle.

   So:

   1 revolution = 6 small revolutions
   1 small revolution = 1 turn about each other
   		and  1/3 turn about themselves

5. Place the two figures in their starting position, facing each other and up close. Ensure there is enough room for them to turn without hitting each other.

   Ensure each figure is its own group and give them distinct names. My figures are called Snowy and Lucy.

   Ensure their own hotpoint is at the center of their being.

   Create a group around each figure and position its hotpoint about 1 unit behind each figure. My groups here are SnowyG and LucyG.

   Select both the groups and group them together. My group is called Pair. Ensure its hot point is in between the two figures.

   Create another group, called Motor, that contains the pair group. Ensure its hot point is in the middle of the lake.

6. Select Motor.
   1. Go to modifiers and apply the Cognito modifier.
   2. Hit the radio button for rotation about the z-axis.
   3. Got to data and find the Cognito data section.
   4. Check the motor check box and enter 1200 as the number of teeth.

   Select the Pair group.

   1. Go to modifiers and apply the Cognito modifier.
   2. Hit the radio button for rotation about the z-axis.
   3. Got to data and find the Cognito data section.
   4. Check the slave check box and specify Motor as the driver.
   5. Enter 200 as the number of teeth (giving a 6 to 1 ratio).

   Select the SnowyG group.

   1. Go to modifiers and apply the Cognito modifier.
   2. Hit the radio button for rotation about the z-axis.
   3. Got to data and find the Cognito data section.
   4. Check the slave check box and specify Motor as the driver.
   5. Change the linagke to Chain.
   6. Enter 400 as the number of teeth (giving a 3 to 1 ratio).

   Select the LucyG group.

   1. Go to modifiers and apply the Cognito modifier.
   2. Hit the radio button for rotation about the z-axis.
   3. Got to data and find the Cognito data section.
   4. Check the slave check box and specify Motor as the driver.
   5. Change the linagke to Chain.
   6. Enter 200 as the number of teeth (giving a 6 to 1 ratio).

   Select the Snowy group.

   1. Go to modifiers and apply the Cognito modifier.
   2. Hit the radio button for rotation about the z-axis.
   3. Got to data and find the Cognito data section.
   4. Check the slave check box and specify Motor as the driver.
   5. Enter 400 as the number of teeth (giving a 3 to 1 ratio).

   Select the Lucy group.

   1. Go to modifiers and apply the Cognito modifier.
   2. Hit the radio button for rotation about the z-axis.
   3. Got to data and find the Cognito data section.
   4. Check the slave check box and specify Motor as the driver.
   5. Enter 400 as the number of teeth (giving a 3 to 1 ratio).
7. We don't want this to be to fast, but we also don't want the render to take forever, so lets go for a total length of 12 seconds.

   Bring up the timeline and check the snap checkbox.

   Move the timeline to 12 seconds.

   Select the Motor group and find its Cognito data. Change it's rotation from 0 to 1.

   Return the timeline to frame 0. You should see the figures move as you do so.

8. Move the default light to be to the right of the cameras, and make it point in a more horizontal direction towards the scene. Change it to have a medium intensity and a slight bluish color. This is to simulate moonlight.

   Create a new spot light. Ensure it is in the object hierarchy AFTER the motor group. Drag the light way above the scene and a little to the left of the camera. Narrow it down and apply a 'point at' modifier with Pair as the target. The reason you need to put the spot light below the motor group in the object hierarchy is that object modifiers are applied in the sequence the objects appear in the hierarchy. Cognito needs to be applied to the objects to move them before the point at behavior can be applied.

   Do not animate the lighting or the sky (other than the spotlight) if you want to be able to loop the resulting animation.

9. I'd suggest a fairly small initial render (160x120) as there are a fair number of frames. You probably also want to drop to 12 fps.

   For a camera you can use the default camera. If you want to apply a 'Point At' behavior, remember to drag it down the object hierarchy so it is below the Motor group.

   If you want to loop the animation, render from frame 00:00:01 to 00:12:00, not from 00:00:00. If you do the latter you end up with a duplicate frame (frames 00:00:00 and 12:00:00 are the same as everything has returned to its start position). It is better to skip frame 00:00:00 as a bug in Carrara can cause Cognito to do some odd things in it.

10. Try giving one or both of the figures a light to hold and using lights on the side of the lake rather than the single spot light from above. You could add a few trees around the lake and maybe some other figures watching (which can also be animated to move in sync with the figures).

    If you want to change the length of the animation, simply drag the keyframe for the Motor group to another frame. You can also use tweeners to change the speed of the animation (say to simulate it slowing down towards the end).