Animation in sketchup

remus · 9 Jun 2008, 12:42

Su isnt very good for animation really, but i can be done.

The basic principle is to make lots of copies of the car and place easch one on a different layer. You then only have one layer visible at a time (controlled using scenes) and cycle thrugh the visible layers. You can then introduce camera movement between the scenes as well. Really id recomend experimenting a bit, you'll probably get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Mr S · 9 Jun 2008, 13:40

I have yet to try this software out.
But it looks as though it can do what you require.
It claims to work well with SketchUp files.

Visit: http://www.antics3d.com/

With regard to cars, you should also take a look here:

http://www.antics3d.com/forum.php?action=thread&topic_id=750

If you try it out please post back your results.

Regards
Mr S

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juju · 9 Jun 2008, 14:00

There is also this plugin called SU Animate over at SU Plugins website . $49.00.

silver_shadow · 9 Jun 2008, 14:13

i also got sketchup animate but its also working in sheets and not really freely like physics.. hmm i really would like to see what you guys will come up with, lol

kwistenbiebel · 9 Jun 2008, 14:37

Hi Ho Silver,
SU animate indeed works with scenes, but the results aren't too shabby. (not that I used it before).
I just base it on the youtube footage that is around:

KENTUCKY · 9 Jun 2008, 16:18

silver_shadow,
Here are some sample pure sketchup animations I had laying around from the old google forum.

following a car

car making a turn

a bunch of blocks moving

anglaret · 9 Jun 2008, 18:32

Mr S

I tried Antics, but it is far complicated just to have a car go along a street, or somebody crossing a road.
Instead of going to the soft by export, I would prefer the soft to come to SU.

In fact we have made the choice of rendering and animating all projects, instead of only big ones, that is why podium is useful for us; one of us is brilliant with another renderer, he failed exporting OBJ with a 80Mo view in full hierarchy. It ended with Podium
Marc

silver_shadow · 10 Jun 2008, 04:42

%(#FF0000)[hi thanx for responding so soon guys, I kinda like kentucky's cars, nice idea. Its actually wierd no one has written a script that could do static scenes with simple animation on it and still be able to work on the drawing while the animation runs. hold thumbs lol.
Also maybe because no one is interrested in sketchup animation, like Biebel says...its just too shabby. Sketchup grew tremendiously from what it was made for in the beginning and so many people uses sketchup at them moment, just becasue it just the simplest thing on the world to use. I so hope in the furture pipeline someone,a developer, script writer or even google's guys themself look into this. Maybe Sketchup 7 will be ready for this, if they allow sketchup to work with higher poly models, uses multi processors, these things might do a worlds change in simple or even advanced modelling, and maaaaaaaybe lol............
maybe we will get animation going on this super cool application ]

gcon · 11 Jun 2008, 14:00

Hi,

If you want to animate your SketchUp props then Antics really is the easiest way. Once you get over the fact it's a separate app, it's about as easy as animation can get. Like SketchUp, Antics is also available as a free download. You just import your SketchUp model straight into Antics, then use point and click to direct your model around.

Depending upon the model you are importing you may need to do some configuration (e.g. assign a speed to a car model). Then you can click on a point on the floor and the car will move there, or draw a path and have the car follow that. There are tutorials on the Antics forum which take you through the process, as Mr S mentioned. You can then direct your action and render it out as a video.

Disclaimer alert - I do work for Antics, but I would still say this even if I didn't!

I'm more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Either post up here or PM me.

Gary Conway
(Antics)

kwistenbiebel · 11 Jun 2008, 14:55

Cinema4D is your best bet at the moment for what you want.
It is made for things like that.

I have the same hopes for SU7 to have all the things you mention, but I think that is beating on a dead horse...

Unless.... one of the notorious ruby coders could help out.

Eiter way, having an animation running while editing the model is way too CPU/GPU demanding.
I doubt any other package can manage that, not even Maya, C4D or Max.

ScottPara · 11 Jun 2008, 17:46

Cinema 4D is a great program that can not only animate quite well, it can also render well too. It is a bit like max but I find it far easier to learn. I have not used it in a while (just have not needed it) but I would say it will work for what you are looking for and give far better results than any of the other recommendations. Granted it is a bit of change but I think in the long run it will be the right choice.

Scott