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A turntable animation

Make Suzanne spin once around in four seconds with two keyframes, then render the animation straight to an MP4 video. About 20 minutes.

beginnerBlenderanimationkeyframesvideo

A turntable shows a model from every side: it turns once around. Studios use turntables to present models. You need the scene from Your first 3D render (or download first-render.blend).

This is the result (4 seconds, 24 frames per second):

The finished file: turntable.blend.

Keyframes, in one sentence#

You tell Blender where an object is at a few moments (keyframes), and Blender calculates every frame in between.

1. Set the length#

At the bottom, in the Timeline, set Start to 1 and End to 96. At 24 frames per second that is 4 seconds.

2. First keyframe: frame 1#

  1. Make sure the current frame (the blue number in the timeline) is 1.
  2. Select Suzanne. In the Object tab of Properties (orange square), look at Rotation Z.
  3. Hover the mouse over the Rotation Z field and press I. The field turns yellow: it has a keyframe on this frame. A diamond appears in the timeline.

3. Second keyframe: one turn later#

  1. Type 97 in the current-frame box of the timeline (one frame after the end, so the loop has no repeated frame).
  2. In Rotation Z, add 360 to the number that is there (for example 40 becomes 400) and press Enter.
  3. Hover over the field and press I again.
The timeline with keyframes; Rotation Z is yellow because it is animated.
The timeline with keyframes; Rotation Z is yellow because it is animated.

Press Space to play. Suzanne turns, but she starts slowly, speeds up and slows down again ("ease in, ease out"). For a turntable the speed must be even:

  1. Move the mouse over the timeline, press A (select all keyframes), then T and choose Linear.

Play again with Space: an even, endless spin. Press Space to stop.

4. Render to a video file#

  1. Open the Output tab (the printer icon).
  2. Under Output, set the path to //turntable (// means "in the same folder as the .blend file").
  3. Set the File Format to FFmpeg Video (in Blender 5 first choose the media type Video).
  4. Under Encoding: Container MPEG-4, Video Codec H.264, Output Quality Medium quality.
The Output tab: resolution, frame range 1–96 and the output path "//turntable". File Format and Encoding are further down; scroll the panel.
The Output tab: resolution, frame range 1–96 and the output path "//turntable". File Format and Encoding are further down; scroll the panel.
  1. Lower the Max Samples in the Render tab to 16 to make it faster. 96 frames take a while.
  2. Render → Render Animation (Ctrl+F12). Blender renders frame after frame. When it is finished, the file turntable0001-0096.mp4 is next to your .blend file.
  3. Watch it: double-click it in the file manager (it opens in VLC), or Render → View Animation in Blender.

Image sequences are safer

For real projects, render to PNG images instead of a video (File Format PNG, path //frames/turntable_). If Blender stops at frame 60, you keep frames 1–59 and continue from 60. Join the images into a video with FFmpeg or Kdenlive afterwards (how).

Render without opening Blender#

Close Blender and render from a terminal; it is faster and you can keep working:

blender -b ~/Projects/turntable.blend -a

See Command-line rendering.

Next#

  • Animate other properties the same way: location (a jumping ball), scale, colour (hover over any field and press I).
  • A character with MakeHuman.