Which rubies for better camera movement in animations?

[RickW]

Kannonball referenced the set of plugins available in PresentationBundle2.

FlightPath(2) doesn't speed up or slow down at the beginning/end of the path, though it woudn't be hard to add. SketchUp does do some of that if there is a page delay (I think).

The SceneTiming plugin allows changes to the transition and delay times of scenes.

The PageTransitionSmoother (needs to be renamed, it came from the days when "Scenes" were called "Pages") will get a user-defined speed and calculate a scene's transition time based on the speed and the distance between scene cameras. Useful if you have set up your scenes manually, and want a constant motion speed between them. It will NOT automatically make all the transitions between scenes "cinematic", it just provides even speed between scene cameras - you need to do due diligence in creating the scenes.

I'm working on (among other things) some improvements for FP2 to better the radial motion effects.

[kwistenbiebel]

Rick,
Would it be possible to show some example animations made with the current flightpath2 (presentation bundle)? Maybe a youtube?
It would make me understand better what it can do.

[plot-paris]

I think with all these add ons for SketchUp it is very important to keep the interface as simple (and close to the native SU interface) as possible.

some sort of slider bars would be a nice idea.

I would prefer, if you are able to adjust the interpolation of camera movement and the transition of traveling speed independently (to do fast accelerations in some points). another slider to choose a specific time for each scene would come in handy too (perhaps a check box like "keep traveling speed" could change the scene time automatically, to match the traveling speed with the previous scene, if you wish a continuous flight).

one could even consider to have an additional slider bar for the transition of camera focus (so that the camera either does one fluent movement or keeps its focus on one point and then quickly pans to the next point of focus).

in order to have advanced control of the camera focus it would be very nice to be able to add a scene in-between two others, which is placed halfway on the interpolated camera path (and with halfway interpolated orientation). thus you could simply change your focus point and update the scene, without changing the camera movement at all...

[Matt666]

Good idea Plot-Paris !
+1

[juju]

+1. An interface like that would rock!

[otb designworks]

+1 on the stellar interface suggestion! That would be fantastic.

[Frederik]

+1

[kwistenbiebel]

yeah, something like that

Also, to have a more defined speed control, one could implement a speed graph (curve).
That way, the transition between 2 scenes could for instance start slow, gradually increase in speed and end slow (sinusoidal curve). Each speed variation could be setup as a different curve (horizontal line is continuous speed, curve going up is increase of speed, etc...)

[Pixero]

I disagree.
Not that I don't want the functionality in SketchUp, but doing a animation editor in just a small panel is bad in several ways. First that would mean it would have to be coded by Google when ever they deside to do it. Secondly it would be impractical with such a small panel for lets say a animation between 15-20 scenes or more. The sliders would be on top of each other.

I've simplified the image I previously posted a link to just to explain if someone didn't understand what I meant with it.

The timeline would be extended dynamicly when changing the animation lenght value.
This means you will always have enough space to see all the keys even if they are on each frame.

The black rectangles would be the same as the sliders in the post by Plot-Paris.
Draggable to the left and right to change the timing between scenes/keyframes.
The red rectangle shows the key you are currently editing. Adding new keys would be as simple as ctrl+clicking (Or something like that.)

Doing a animation control with Ruby and a web dialog means the community could start making it NOW instead of waiting for whenever Google desides they would like to do it. It would also mean it could be extended with new features so it could start simple and be enhanced with perhaps a spline curve to control speed. I believe also that is doable with a web dialog through java.

My two cents...

[kwistenbiebel]

Ok that is nice to control speed.
But can it also do smoother camera motion and control the path?

[Pixero]

@kwistenbiebel said:

But can it also do smoother camera motion and control the path?

Rick W's flightpath can do that in a limited way IMHO. Its not easily editable.
It would be better with editable spline curves that you can move around in the scene to change the path.
Maybe with a editor similar to my idea you could even add new spline knots (points) when new keys were created at the location specified in the position input boxes.

Just thinking loud here...

[Pixero]

Here is a quick mock up (basicly from Maya) of how a spline animation editor might look like for those who dont know.

And here is a link to a java web example:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/exploratories/freeSoftware/repository/edu/brown/cs/exploratories/applets/bezierSplines/bezier_splines_java_browser.html

Drag P1, P2, P3 and P4 to see that a editable splinecurve can be done in a web window/web dialog.

[Pixero]

Like I said, SketchUp's camera would need several curves, three for the camera position (x,y,z)and three for the focus points position.
For flythroughs it would be much easier with a "one node" camera which only has one position and rotation. A 2 node and a 1 node camera is what all the big 3d apps like Maya and 3ds Max have.

[plot-paris]

splines are a good idea, for they give a huge ammount of control.

however, we have to bear in mind, that we are talking about SketchUp - the one 3D app with the easiest user-interface!

I would very much prefer controls that are simple to use and seemlesly blend into the workflow of SU (like the wonderful SkIndigo plugin does - double clicking a material to get advanced settings for rendering...)

so even if we used splines for camera movement/speed control, we have to think carefully about the way to implement them. SketchUp is a one window application (has only one stage, in which all the work is done). we should not go too far in another direction...

[kwistenbiebel]

I agree Plot-Paris.
An animation enhancement plugin should breath the simplicity of Sketchup.
Also, an editable bezier curve as camera path seems an easy but effective method.

[JClements]

I think interface shown above and the bezier curve for path are great ideas for controlling the sequencing and speed of the camera.

I would like to suggest the other side of the coin, if you will, and that is the how the geometry could be animated/displayed in addtion to the camera. If it is possble I would like to see someway of animating geometry on the screen similar to what SKETCHY PHYSICS does, so the we wouldn't have to depend upon multiple copies of geometry at separate scenes; this would keep the file size down and I'd think it would make animation updating efficient. Make a path (it could be the same as the camera path or not), associate geometry and other transitioning atttributes to the path, assign the initiation of the animation to a scene tab (the scene tab could be assigned more than one object-path animation). Show/trigger the object animation by Shift-Clicking on a scene tab or use SU's View > Animation for the entire animation (with the addition of a pause button).

[RickW]

John,

Object animation is an ongoing request and dream for users and scripters alike. You could start a new thread about this.

[RickW]

I understand the need for greater control over settings, but I don't think we've hit on the solution yet. Part of the challenge is simplifying the complex while allowing for adequate control. The other main issue is working within the confines of SU's internal objects/methods/properties. If you don't mind having 200+ scenes in a model, everything mentioned is possible (assuming one wants to export to a video). More can be done with strictly internal animations, but the animation quality for most folks is rarely sufficient for presentations (too jumpy).

FlightPath is an ongoing project for me, and I have some ideas for improving the capabilities. Just a matter of time...

[kwistenbiebel]

I wouldn't mind if it would all fit in 1 animation plugin. Improved camera motion and object animation included.
But that would be dreaming