2026-06 Verge 3D

A Pawn in a Hurry

Making it Move

The basic idea behind keyframe animation is to define objects properties like position and rotation for given moments in time. These definitions are called keyframes or keys. If you have defined at least two keyframes, Blender can interpolate their values (calculate the transition between the keyframes) and create a smooth animation for you.

I will now define five keyframes for the pawn in different positions, rotations and sizes. The end result will be the pawn making a hop.

The first thing you need to know is how to navigate to other frames in your animation. Take a look at the header of the Buttons Window. The current frame number is always displayed here. There are a number of ways to go to another frame number:

To change the current frame:

  • LeftClick and drag in the frame number indicator. This will change the frame number.
  • Hold [SHIFT]and LeftClickin the frame number indicator. You can now enter a new value for the frame number.
  • Use the keyboard:
    [CURSOR RIGHT] – frame +1
    [CURSOR LEFT] – frame -1
    [CURSOR UP] – frame + 10
    [CURSUR RIGHT] – frame – 10
    [SHIFT][CURSOR RIGHT] – start of animation (default=1)
    [SHIFT][CURSOR LEFT] – end of animation (default=250)

I will now set up the first keyframe of the pawn. Go to frame 11 (the easiest way is to press [CURSOR UP] once). Start the rotation mode [R], hold down [CTRL] to constrain the rotation to multiples of five degrees and give the pawn a rotation of -30 degrees.

Next, move it ([G]) so that the bottom is on the height z=0 the brightly colored horizontal line). This height will later be used for the floor:

Now you have to set a keyframe to make Blender ‘remember’ the objects position and rotation at frame 11. To set a keyframe, press [I]. This will bring up a requester with a lot of options – these are the different key types that you can set. In this tutorial, I will only use the types (or channels) ‘Loc’ (Location), ‘Rot’ (Rotation) and ‘Size’. You can select one of the first three options to set only a Loc, Rot or Size key. If you wish to define multiple keys at once, select LocRot or LocRotSize.

For this frame, I want to set the location (make sure Blender remembers that I want the pawn exactly at z=0) and the rotation (the -30 degrees I just defined).

Later, I will also define a Size key on another frame. Because of this, I have to make sure Blender keeps the pawn’s size on my current frame intact. For this reason, insert a key for Size too.

Take a look at the pivot menu at the bottom of the 3D Window. There are five options that define the behavior of the scaling and rotation tools. By default, the ‘bounding box center’ is selected as the center of all scaling and rotation operations.

We want to have more control over the exact center of rotation though, so select ‘3D Cursor’ as the pivot point.

Go to frame number 16. Because the base of the pawn is already resting on the ‘floor’, I want to rotate the entire object around this point, and not around the object center.

Move the 3D cursor to the base of pawn, start the rotation mode [R], and rotate the pawn +30 degrees. It should be perfectly vertical now.

Insert a new locRotSize key to define this position.

For the next key, go to frame number 21, move the 3d cursor to the right base point. This is the new center of rotation. Rotate the pawn +30 degrees and insert a new LocRotSize key.

Go back to frame 1. Translate the pawn up and to the left a bit. This will be the position in which in comes flying into the animation. Insert a new LocRotSize key.

And for the final key, go to frame number 31. Like in the previous step, translate the pawn upward and to the right a bit. Insert a new key.

If you want to see all the keys that you have defined for your animation, select the pawn and press [K]. You can now select a different key with [PAGE UP]and [PAGE DOWN]. Selected keys are drawn in yellow. The selected key can be edited directly and the new key values are stored in the animation system immediately. If you want to change the entire animation at once, simply select all the keys with [A] and move, rotate or scale them.If you want to see all the keys that you have defined for your animation, select the pawn and press [K].

(An alternative for editing key values is to go to a frame for which you have defined a key, change the object properties and then re-insert the necessary keys).

To hide of the keys, press [K]again.

If you want the object on frame 1 and 31 to have the exact same height, press [N]. This brings up the object properties screen in which you can enter numeric values for position, rotation and size. LocZ controls the object’s height.

You are now set to play back the first frames of your animation with [ALT][A]. Press [ESC]to stop playing. (In the image below I have composed several frames of the animation together.).

Continued on page 3…