Setting up blueprints in Anim8or

by Tanzim Islam

Run Anim8or.

You will be in Front view, you can either setup the reference images by going through individual views, (numpad 2-Bottom, 4- Left, 5- Front, 6-Right, 7-Back, 8-Top) or hit the " . " key on the numpad to turn on "ALL" views mode, which ever you prefer.
When performing a task on "All" view mode, make sure you have the correct view on, i.e. when a reference image is added, it'll face forward on the view that's currently on, on "ALL" view mode, the view that's currently on will have a white border.



Go to Build (near the top of the screen, 5th from the right), in the drop down menu, and click on "Reference Image ...".



A dialogue box will pop-up with the fields; Name, Location, Size, File Image and the buttons; OK, Cancel, Reset, and Load. Name is the name of the reference image, usually that's not important, Location is where you want to place the reference image on the X, Y and Z axis, Size is the scaling of the image which is automatically set when an image is loaded but can be manually set, although will cause image distortion, File Image displays the images directory and name.
OK and Cancel are obvious, Reset will reset all the data enter into the dialogue box only, and Load will open another dialogue box through which you can select your reference image, you can choose between BMP, GIF, and JPEG, .
Click on load, search and select you preferred image, either double-click on the image or select it and click "Open".



Now do the same for the other views, usually you will only need to do this for the Front, side (Left/Right), and Top view.
At this point you aren't completely finished as all the images are on the origin (0, 0) unless you changed them from the dialogue box, use the "Select" tool to select an image and use the "Move" tool to move them; alternately you can change the values on the Location field of the reference images properties (the image is now loaded into Anim8or so you can just double-click on the image to open up the properties dialogue box).