The motion points you’ve created have resulted in a motion path that consists of perfectly straight lines. This results in your bird flying in a perfectly straight path from the back of the room to then make a pin point 90 degree right turn to fly another perfectly straight across the front of the room. This is a pretty unnatural way for a bird to fly. To give the bird a more natural flight, you can implement curves along your motion path by adjusting the Motion Type from the default Linear setting to Curve.
- Change the Motion type to Curve
You now see a natural curve is created that seems much more realistic for a bird’s flight path.
New motion points that are added will automatically use the curve setting. - Right Click the left-front point and choose Insert Point After and move the new motion point to the right-rear corner (4, -4, 4).
Now the bird has a nice arc to its flight path as it sweeps from the left rear of the room the space, across the front, ending in the right rear of the space. Add another point to have the bird swoop down and then up again when moving across the front of the room. To do this, you can add motion points in between existing motion points. - Right-click the second motion point and choose Insert Point After.
A new motion point appears between motion points 2 and 3. - Double-click the new point and use the Object Manipulation tool to lower it one meter off the ground.
You see the speeds automatically adjust. You also see that the curves on the left and right sides adjust for a more natural path.
TIP: If you want to flatten or exaggerate the curves, add additional points in between the two points of a curve and adjust the new points position.
TIP: Hold command and drag a motion point to move it on the Z Axis.