SubSet of SketchyPhysics

[jgb]

Chris

I know you have a lot on your plate but here's an idea for a subset of SP.

Create a subset of SP called, say SketchyMotion. Similar to the functionality to DAZ 3D and POSER for the human form, but without the physics of SP.

In short, excise the gravity and momentum physics, and a few related joint types and retain only the joint linking and motion control. All objects would have zero mass, zero momentum/inertia and no center of gravity to affect motion control. Objects would obey only how you manually set them via servos and the interaction of free joints.

But add to it, the ability to move joints and have them remain in moved position when re-entering SU edit mode.

In my case I have a complex contraption (a folding/sliding staircase) that moves multiple components in both rotation and sliding motions. However I need to check for interferences and interactions within multiples of positions. None of it requires momentum or gravity as the entire device is motor controlled. You may recall my landing gear conundrum way back when, this one is far more complex. And even that LG mechanism has developed more complexity as well. It can take me 20 minutes to manually move the individual and subsets of components into various positions, and 20 minutes or more to reset them to base position for editing. Repeatability is quite the task.

SP in its' current form allows me to move stuff quickly but if I need to edit something, it all resets to base position and I lose context for the changes. Allowing SP to move and remain in position would greatly simplify that task, as well as allow easy positional setup for examination or JPG exports looking at the moved device from several angles, which is not possible using SP today.

I could then define several scenes at various angles/viewpoints, then move the components through various scenarios, yet view the sequential movements from the same various scene angles.

I contemplated exporting my components to DAZ 3D and defining the joint linkup there, but DAZ does not have a sliding joint, and the SU file export needs to go through a format translator first. It is now not feasible.

[Mr.K.1]

Well all animations in SP are actually made through the physics engine, if you remove that then you got no animation and most of the code is useless.

Apart from borrowing a few tools it would probably be better to just start anew.

[Jim]

jgb,

It sounds like you are describing either the proper animation or Keyframe animation plugins.