Messing around with animation....

[spence]

Dale,

Nice work. The animation in sketchup needs something new and I really like what you have going here. look forward to being able to use it.

[tomasz]

Hi Whaat, nice idea and it looks good.
Will it be an 'open source' script?
If answer == no, would you make internal methods known and public?
Thanks
Tomasz

[princedragoncok]

Wow, amazing! Looking forward to the day this plugin is released!

[Whaat]

@unknownuser said:

Hi Whaat, nice idea and it looks good.
Will it be an 'open source' script?
If answer == no, would you make internal methods known and public?
Thanks
Tomasz

This is the core of what I have so far. The smoothstep function is a well known function that I found using an internet search. I am using the Animation class in the Sketchup API. I thought this was a completely useless class until now... I just never understood how to use it before.

def nextFrame(view)

@frame+=1
@t+=@time_step

return false if @current_page_index==@pages.count


if @t.to_f>=@current_page_end   		#move to the next page if we are at the end of the transition time
	@current_page_index+=1
	@current_page=@pages[@current_page_index]
	@current_page_start=@current_page_end
	@current_page_trans=@current_page.transition_time
	@current_page_trans=@def_trans_time if @current_page_trans==-1.0
	@current_page_end=@current_page_start+@current_page_trans
end

smoothed_time=smooth(@current_page_start,@current_page_end,@t)*(@current_page_end-@current_page_start)+@current_page_start
@pages.show_frame_at(smoothed_time)
@filename=File.join(File.dirname(@filename),"test#{@frame}.jpg")
view.write_image(@filename,320,240,true) unless @t>@pages.slideshow_time
view.show_frame()


end

######################
def smooth(min,max,input) 

r=(input.to_f-min.to_f)/(max.to_f-min.to_f)
return r*r*(3.0-2.0*r)

end

[redot]

This looks great whaat. I'm a big fan of skindigo and look forward to rendering animations.

[kwistenbiebel]

Hi Whaat.
Any progress on this plugin?
Just asking as this feature is useful to a lot of people (including me ) .

[Whaat]

@kwistenbiebel said:

Hi Whaat.
Any progress on this plugin?
Just asking as this feature is useful to a lot of people (including me ) .

hi,

the plugin has been 'almost done' for a couple of weeks now. I haven't been working on it much. It just needs a bit of 'clean-up' and testing before I can release it. This is what the plugin can do (just so there are no false expectations):

• View a SketchUp slideshow using smooth transitions between scenes
• Export a SketchUp slideshow (as a sequence of still images) using smooth transitions between scenes

The plugin cannot be used to export a smoothed animation to a render engine. Sorry!

[kwistenbiebel]

@whaat said:

This is what the plugin can do (just so there are no false expectations):

• View a SketchUp slideshow using smooth transitions between scenes
• Export a SketchUp slideshow (as a sequence of still images) using smooth transitions between scenes

The plugin cannot be used to export a smoothed animation to a render engine. Sorry!

Bummer for the render engine support but promising anyway.

[Fletch]

I would use it for SU alone if it were avail.! please be encouraged to finish a beta for us.
I show many animations to clients these days inside good 'ole SU6. Clients love it. Would be great if it were smoothed out just like you showed.

[chango70]

How would it affect long transitions? like 16 sec?

[tomasz]

@whaat said:

This is the core of what I have so far. The smoothstep function is a well known function that I found using an internet search. I am using the Animation class in the Sketchup API. I thought this was a completely useless class until now... I just never understood how to use it before.

I have been using Animation Class for exporting Face Me components. Thanks for the code. This plug-in will be vary handy. I add intermediate cameras to smooth a path but it is very time consuming and not precise method.
Thanks for sharing and sorry for such a delayed response

Tomasz

[kwistenbiebel]

Hi Whaat,

I saw your youtube video where you rendered a Sketchyphyics scene as an animation using a render engine (Skindigo).
Is there a chance you make it into a ruby? (sketchyphysics-to-scene-tab-animation)

[CadFather]

Whaat and Fredo and Didier and TIG and All the ruby confraternity.. this way we will never see the day of SU 7! or perhaps it'll be straight to SU 8..

[remus]

Sketchyphysics renders you say? have you got a link? im intrigued.

[kwistenbiebel]

@remus said:

Sketchyphysics renders you say? have you got a link? im intrigued.

Sure, here you go.
Proof of concept by Whaat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Mi2urpMns
[flash=425,344:28sc35yy]http://www.youtube.com/v/R-Mi2urpMns&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:28sc35yy]

Whaat seems to have object animation going for Indigo (though not released yet in the Skindigo plugin) and Fryrender (version 'One') already has object animation capability. I currently just don't know how to use it on SP, as SP doesn't produce a default scene tab animation to start with.

I am really excited about being able to convert Sketchyphysics action into default Sketchup animations and use render engines on it.

As a note: Vray won't be able to benefit from it as it hasn't got object animation capability for now.
I posted the wish for it on their forum though.