Exploding groups in scenes = pastes to others
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Hi
Im trying to do a quick animation of how my process for this project has been.
So far i've created like 30+scenes.
I have a bunch of cylinders in a row and in a group and in the next couple of scenes i want to make them appear one by one. But when i ungroup them, they paste themselves to all the previous scenes! Do i really have to go through all my 30+ scenes and delete the cylinders+update every single scene up until the scene where i actually need them? -
No, if you delete them, they will disappear from all the scenes. There is nothing like some geometry existent in one scene and non-existent in another.
However... Make a group of a cylinder and align that single group in a row.
Now make a bunch of layers (use Jim's Add Hidden Layer plugin to ad a layer that is not visible on each layer) and put the individual cylinder groups on their respective layers. Now in each scene, you can turn the visibility of any layer on/off and update the scene.See an example below. Open your layers dialog to see the changes when you go through the scenes.
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@Gaieus: Glad you showed up. I was attempting to answer similarly, but your mention of Add Hidden Layers was not in my response.
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Normally I would go the other way:
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put all the cylinders in (actually, if the are all alike, better to make them component and not group as I suggested above)
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then assign each groups/component on a layer
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and only then turn them on one by one and add a new scene to each when turned on.
No need for the plugin then but once you created all the scenes already, it may be of help (although I think it is still easier to start from scratch as you would need to make those cylinder components first anyway).
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thanks Gaieus
I meant to say i was going to hide the cylinders in each scene - not delete them
I will give the layers a try (havent even thought about them).
Once again, the quick replies one gets at this forum is just amazingly helpfull!
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You CAN hide the unwanted cylinders in the different scene tabs BUT you might go mad trying to control what seen... layers that are only on in the required scene[s] are the best way forward... trust Gaieus
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I am probably too messy and have never been able to control visibility via hiding/unhiding. For me, it is always just a temporary thing (and meant for modelling issues) OR when I want to hide edges or similar in certain groups like 3D Text or around tree leaves. Never scene based visibility.
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hehe yeah, i have to get better at sorting stuff in layers instead of hiding them.
btw. is there a smart way to move say, scene 40-55 all the way to the start of the animation? Cant be that you have to click every single one and use that up-arrow-thingy to get them to the top one by one. (cant select them all and move them together).
Tried searching for a script like that on the forum but no luck
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FWIW, here's an example of an animation I did awhile back It's made of 18 scenes with layers being turned on and off to control the visibility of the components.
[flash=640,509:1n7v3alv]http://blip.tv/play/gYhbgsG_bwA[/flash:1n7v3alv]
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Nicely done, gives a great idea on what layers can be used for.
Any chance you or any one else have an answer on how to move the order of multiple scenes at once? I really cant be asked to move 20scenes up 30-40 slots one by one with that up arrow...
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I tried every way and could not move multiple scenes. You can select multiple but that does not work with moving, sorry.
Maybe it would even be better to delete all and start from scratch (unless you have important camera views set up this way)
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There isn't anyway to move more than one scene at a time. As Csaba suggests, it might be easier to start from scratch with layers and then make scenes in the needed order. I know for me, it would be easier than trying to straighten out a confused model.
I would use this process:
Make components, copy them to the various positions as needed, make the layers and then the layer associations for the components (all primitive geometry remains on Layer 0), turn off all layers except the ones you need on for the first scene. Create the scene. Adjust layer visibility for the next scene, create the next scene, repeat until finished.
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Are you guys saying that type of scene sequencing and manipulation is not addressable with any type of ruby script?
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Well, at least I didn't. I only know that with the native options, you can't move more than one scene at a time. I'm not sure if that could be done with a plugin or not.
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Sketchup.active_model.pagesreturns a list of the SKP's scenes.
pages["Scene 1"]returns the scene with that name
pages[1]returns the second scene etc
This list is in the order the tabs are displayed.
You can set_current/add/erase pages etc so you can manipulate the list...
pages.add(name,flags,location) adds a scene [or replaces the scene at 'location' - e.g. 1 for the second scene - if no 'location' is given a new page is added at the start].
The bitwise 'flags' is also optional - it represents the scene's properties - http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/page.html#update explains this...
So it would be possible to write a script to reorganize scene tabs...
BUT it's complex.
Smustard.com has several 'page' tools [some free, some inexpensive] that might help you.
One way would be to use the scene [page] export method [provided by 'pageExIm.rb' - $5], then sort the lines in the .sup file that's generated [with Notepad++ etc], then erase all scene tabs and immediately reimport the scenes in that new order as desired, using their names ?Tip: this tool might cause problems if you haven't [temporarily] reset your Model Info > Units to 'inches' when doing the 'export' - it exports details in current units, but then imports assuming they are in inches - at least in the [perhaps older] version I have [that I have adjust to automate this temp-units issue to always export/import in inches irrespective of current-unit settings]...
There are also a Smustard tool to rename scenes logically after reordering if needed...
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