Isolated sectioning

beejay

Hi,

how can i make and animate a single building grow from plan (using section cuts)
to its full model while the other buildings around it are already in their final heights?

is this possible in sketchup?

remus

That should be possible, probably the easiest way to do is it is with section cuts, if you group the building you want to grow first then put loads of section cuts inside the group that go steadily upwards in small increments.

Then make a scene for each section cut, and in that scene make its section cut active. Do this for every scene/section cut untill your animation looks like the house is growing.

EDIT: okay, i didnt realise this before, but SU automatically adusts the position of the section cut (hard to explain but it makes sense when you see it.) If you make one section plane at the bottom of the building and then one at the top (all within the buildings group.) First right click the botom section and make it active, add a scene at this point. Secondly, make the top section plane active and then make another scene. Now as you flip between the scenes it should do a nice little transition thing between the section planes.

Im guessing that to control the speed of 'growth' you'll want to play around with the sene transition time (model info->animation)

artwhore

There is a great tutorial on this at go-2-school.com. Look up the videos on the section tool.
Pat

Alan Fraser

All you need to do is use 2 section cuts...active and inactive...then transition between them using a scene change, switching which one is active as part of the transition. To avoid the section planes cutting the entire model, you'll need to do all this inside of a group.

DavidBoulder

I used the two section technique for a campus masterplan (about 15 phases) some phases demolish a building, while others add new buildings. Same technique, just reverse order of scenes with section active.

Here are some tips

to have consistent speed of buildings rising from the ground place top section cut for all buildings just above the height of the tallest one.
if you want the building to look like something other than an empty box, at a minimum add in some floor plates, and double wall for building shell. Columns, building core, windows, would look great.
you can create your scenes to setup your sections cuts, and then alter scenes for camera path (update with only update camera location set) or do camera path, and then section, but I liked to get sections set first, so I could preview final product better. I used flightpath to help create my path.
my original thought for camera movement was to just do a circle around the campus looking towards the middle and down around 45deg. Ended up having nice look where camera moved around to approach where building was going to be demolished, and when one was going to be built. The camera started to focus on camera before demo/build started, like it knew what was coming next (which of course it did).
In my case I created every building as a component vs. group (its my view that SU7 should just drop groups and only offer components). I initially just did a simple box for buildings, and saved out to folder of saved components. Then while I was working on the flight path and look of the project, someone else was modeling the buildings for me. Whenever they updated a building, I just reloaded the component.
I also added a watermark for each phase that ghosted in white text throughout the animation.
I dropped project into Layout to make 11x17 handouts with plans of each phase.
For simplicity I color coded new vs old buildings.

Sorry can't show the project - will be secret for a while. If I get time someone I'll make a dummy version of it with generic buildings and blocks (to protect the innocent).

[edit] I added attachment of test file where I made the skin, floors, and columns come up at different times to make it look more like it was being built. I did this by staggering the heights of the section cuts for each group.

multiple section cuts to animate building going up

beejay

Thank you, thank you very much !!!
I will use these techniques on a project i'm working on....
i am planning to present this in an animation + a little background music

'am really grateful for everybody's assistance . . .
Thanks a lot

plot-paris

very impressive, David.

it never occured to me to use several section planes to show different elements of one building grow.

thanks for the demo file

DavidBoulder

Thanks, I think I thought of that from 5th element or some other movie where they were building up a person, bone first, then tissue, then skin. The trick was doing it with just two scenes vs. something more complex. That is when I realized I can adjust the heights of the lower and upper section cut for each group as a timeline to control the start and finish of the build. As long as what you want is linear (e.g. no speed ramp up or down) you can get any timing you want with just two scenes.

@plot-paris said:

very impressive, David.

it never occured to me to use several section planes to show different elements of one building grow.

thanks for the demo file