Animation Mode
On the main toolbar, next to the Settings button, you will find Animation Mode button. It reveals a simple timeline where you can create and edit keyframes of your Multilight animation. By default the total amount of frames are set to 100. You can see Max.Frames at the end of timeline where you can easily change this range. On the left hand, there are Rewind and Play buttons you are fairly familiar with. And in between, the timeline itself. Below the timeline you see keyframes as thumbnails in the beginning and at the end. Initially, the animation cursor (green box) is resting at frame 0.
In a Multilight Animation project, you will likely make changes in the intensity and color of scene lights along the timeline. So, all you need to do is to drag the cursor to the desired frame and play with the light controllers for the target look. Of course, you can play with more than one controller and when you are happy with the new settings for that frame, you nee to store it. We call it a new keyframe. In order to do that, right click on the timeline and find how to manage these keyframes.
Create Key Frame
Creates a new keyframe and stores the values of each controller to this keyframe.
Delete Key Frame
Removes only the selected keyframe.
Delete All Frames
Removes all keyframes from the timeline.
Auto Key
Switched to an automatic mode where your every single change automatically creates a new keyframe in the timeline.
Cut / Copy / Paste Keyframe
Sometimes it's useful copy / pasting keyframes than re-creating them by adjusting lots of controllers.
Maxwell Multilight internally interpolates the changes between keyframes. In addition, you can drag the created keyframes on timeline so, you can adjust the speed of animation. Finally, all these keyframes will be stored in a *.json (Java Script Object Noation) file next to the MXI when you save the project.
Exporting Multilight Animation
You have several options when exporting a multilight animation. You can either export a certain individual frame in PNG, JPG, BMP or export all frames individually in one of these image formats. You can also export video directly using one of the following video formats: H246 Video (avi), Flash Video (flv), W?ndows Media Video (wmv)
