The Traffic Light tool is a special type of Area that is used in conjunction with Walkways to stop and start walking or running characters. As the name suggests it is very useful for animations where you need characters to cross roads, but it can be used in any situation where you need to control the movement of actors. There’s no limit to the number of Traffic Light areas that can be created in a scene and with the ability to offset timing it’s possible to create some interesting and sophisticated effects.
The video was made for anima® 3.5, but the workflow is the same in anima® 5Anima 6.
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See the Area Tools for general information about changing the size, position, and shape of areas. Below you will find only the procedures that are unique for Traffic Light Areas.
Create a Traffic Light Area
Assuming you already have a walkway in your scene, follow these steps:
Click the Traffic Light tool found in the viewport toolbar.
Move the mouse over the walkway to position the Traffic Light and click to create the object in the scene.
To determine the placement of actors while they wait, the Traffic Light area uses a grid-based layout. To change the size of the cells, use the Cell Size Placement Grid property.
The Traffic Light has arrows to indicate the direction the characters will face while they wait. To change the direction either rotate the entire area using the Transform Gizmo or use the Rotate Placement Grid property to rotate the arrows without affecting the area itself.
To control the timing change the Cross Lamp Frequency value. This parameter controls how long in second the Traffic Light is in its Stop and Go state.
To decide if the light starts in aRedor aGreenstate, change theStart Greenproperty. If you create two Traffic Light areas with the same timing and change one to start green and the other to start red, you’ll end up with an offset on/off pattern that can be very useful for intersections.
Play the animation. While the Traffic Light is red, actors will now wait on the grid cells. When it turns green they’ll start walking again.
