The graphical user interface allows you to design complex 3D scenes while working in multiple windows simultaneously. Just select an object and drag it with your mouse to move, scale, rotate or deform it in the corresponding work modes. Clearly arranged dialogs containing visual libraries make it easy to load prefabricated files and to modify them to your own needs. Big preview windows in the main dialogs provide a quick overview of the scene, so just play around and test everything. With the multiple Undo/Redo-functions almost everything can be undone or redone, respectively.
Create your own surfaces in the material editor or just load and adjust one out of the materials visual library. The material editor provides basic settings for the object's color, reflection, transparency, optical density, object glow and surface waves as well as an extensive choice of procedural textures. Procedural textures based on mathematical three dimensional structures can simulate simple patterns, for instance a checkerboard or brick structure, but also complex and intricate patterns to generate marble, wood, rock or even multi layered terrain textures. Then, of course, you can apply bitmaps to texture your object or to control particular object properties like reflection or trancparency. You can mix all types of materials, even bitmaps with procedural textures, and animate a smooth blending between different sets of materials.
The integrated animation module offers a wide range of possibilities combined with an intuitive interface that will allow even beginners to master their first steps into animation films. For instance, simple animations can be set up with a few mouse actions, moving or rotating objects on different time positions to their destinations, while the program automatically records the key positions and interpolates the steps between these keyframes. Almost all parameters can be animated, for instance the settings for lights, materials or the background, just by moving to the corresponding position in time and changing a parameter. With these simple parameter animations you can bring life to volumetric fires, running water, moving clouds and volumetric fog or add rain and snow to your animations. Then there are the possibilities for hierarchical object animation - child objects inherit movements from their parents and follow these movements automatically, while still retaining their freedom of movement, and therefore can still execute additional movements independent of their parent objects. Take for example a moving robot, that takes all his subordinated arms and joints along with its movement - while at the same time the joints still perform further rotations about their different joints, or gripping tongs open and close again. For the animation of the robot arms Inverse- or Forward Kinematics can be applied, a technique that allows you too pull at the joints of an object hierarchy in the same way, as if you would pull at the arms of a jointed doll. Hierarchical object animation is also the basis for the animation of characters .
Without skeletal deformation the production of modern animation films and especially the animation of characters would be impossible. The skin and bones technique uses a skeleton which is subordinated to a corresponding skin object enveloping the skeleton. Now, every time you move a bone of the skeleton, the particular part of the skin previously assigned to that bone will be deformed and move with the bone - the character awakes to life. What was usually left to expensive animation studios before, you can do now as well at home with the CyberMotion 3D-Designer.