@fredo6 said: Again, you have to place a camera / layer state at the beginning of the clip. Otherwise at 7.2s, Animator tries to re-establish the previous layer state, but there is none. Fredo OH KRAP - I sure forgot about that. There is no forest fire in north Texas. It is just my embarrassing glow show across the globe.

Very cool! Only thing: the window is resizable but the bottom line Save Change Purge etc... stay at the bottom and don't follow the resize! [image: glitch.jpg] Not resize shown on this follow animation! [image: GIF_manage.gif]

@pilou said: A visual effect by example can be a Blue face at the beginning becomes a Red face at the end of the Animation? Pilou brings up an interesting question. Is there/will there be a way to change the color/texture of an object? Once again, I have an interesting thought related to my car wash (isn't it always about my darn car wash). As the car goes through some of the equipment, like the spray or foam equipment, I would like to be able to apply a different texture to the car (like a foam added to the car or changed the color just a little to get the effect of the water, foam, or chemical) and then change it back after the car goes through the dryers/blowers. Or maybe the car comes in with a bunch of mud/dirt on it and gets "cleaned". Just a thought Careful hear beta team, we are headed toward a full move/gaming engine.

Sorry fluid, maybe I wasn't clear on that, but I don't own a copy of it though I think it's very cool! I will definetelly consider it when I need something of the sorts though...

Yes, I have Auto-Save checked (I began to translate the plugin to Spanish language). [image: Autosave.jpg] @unknownuser said: When you start Animator, does it pop up a dialog box about a backup file? No, it appears a message "There is not clip defined, do you want to create one?"

@rich o brien said: Why does the Sequence Editor duration always list 2.0s if the Unit translation is less or more? Sequences have a nominal duration when created most of them get 2 s by default view camera and visual effects get 0 second by default However, when you insert a sequence in the timeline, that is a clip element, it becomes an instanceof the sequence and you can freely change its duration (and some other parameters). Keep in mind that a Sequence is nothing else than a reusable Definition. If you remove a clip element, the Sequence (i.e. Definition) remains. You can delete a sequence indeed, but via the Maintenance dialog box. This is similar to Sketchup Component. You create it at a given scale and in a given position, but most often, you would instantiate it somewhere else, with a different scale, and you may reuse the Component Definition as several instances, each with different scales and positions. The nominal duration of a sequence is the duration of its instances unless you change it. Animator uses the same hierarchical recursive framework as Sketchup Components. Not always obvious in Sketchup for newbies, so not always obvious in Animator! Fredo

Currently, a new movement or camera gets the proper name by default, unless you change it. When you open the Movement Editor, the sequence is named "Movement_X". But as soon as you select which type of transformation, say a Translation, the name becomes "Translation_X". However, if you exit the editor with the saved sequence, the name remains "translation_X", even if you later change it to be a rotation. The issue I raised is about that and the inclusion of parameters in the name. That's why it's a good habit to give your own name to sequences. Similar to what we should all do with the naming of Groups and Components in Sketchup. What I can do anyway is to have a consistent numbering, so that the second translation created is named "Translation_2" by default. Fredo

I assume this what you are meaning and "it works for me". [image: Turning layers visibility off and on] I started the sequence with the spray layer off, then added a capture with it turned on and the finished with another capture where the layer is off again. This achieves what I was wanting. Still think it would be kind of cool if you could use the duration to turn it off and on but I can sure use it this way. I think this makes more sense and gives us a lot more flexibility than tying it to a view or camera because I can use the two independently. Here is still another version that shows how changing the views during the sequence adds some flexibility as opposed to tying the layer visibility to views (again MHO). [image: Controlling layer visibility and adding views] I also saw that I can group the movement sequence along with the layer visibility captures and views as a group. Again, IMO, this could be very valuable for the future. Thanks for this feature and being patient enough to help me understand how to use this capability a little better. Now if you just come up with some miracle way to animate the spray texture I would be more excited than you want to imagine .

Eric, There is no good solution for this problem because the Ruby API does not have control over the character size and pixel definition. Unless you did it already, I would advise you have a look at this thread where the problem is discussed, with some generic solutions. Fredo

Not working yet. Missing the whole UI. But same idea as the sliders, that is you can play normal time, fast or put at any state via the slider, depending on the options you choose. Fredo

True "Follow me"

@fredo6 said: Dave, Yes I know. Visitor is just in draft mode. Actually, I will allow the usage of views (same filtering as in the Editor). I will also decouple the Camera, Style and Layer Visibility in the next version. View Camera will still have the possibility to carry style and layer visibility, but that will not be the default. This will allow to control layers independently of view (in your case, the visibility of the water curtain is linked to the animation of the car, regardless of the view). Sounds good to me..

Does Move/Copy... the "ribbons" is on the pipeline ? PS How reuse the result of the explosion in the normal use of Sketchup? I can't copy something of the animation when I press "Space bar" for a temporary return to Sketchup! In fact I can but the animation itself is losted!

@solo said: Was SimFonIA Animation tools ever released beyond the trial? yes, but it had a weird pricing structure and a limited usage system. Nice BVH support though.

Already?!

Hopefully fbx or allembic will be in a future release. Then we can send animated meshes.

@jql said: As I broke my sequences (spacebar and line issue on other thread) and I couldn't retrieve it, I was experimenting on what I could do. I ended up exploding the animated object wich made the timeline flow again though no object was moving. Of course the sequences now weren't attached to any object... so I remembered to edit my sequences and try to find a way of assigning them to other objects. Is there a way to do this? Did you go back to the edit panel for the sequence then click on the select icon to select new objects? While I have messed this up a few times, I have also found that in fact, I could do it (at least I think I remember doing that).

I think that little orange guy lives in my laptop. Thanks for sharing Fredo.

Nice!

Thanks Fredo....... Would it be possible to have a sequence that allowed you to show/hide a layer? In my example, the only thing that is different between the 2 scenes is that the "spray" layer shows in one scene but not the other. Could be an interesting tool to be able to toggle layers like in the SU scene. But, I can certainly work with it the way it is.