Animation/Video in SketchUp

leedeetee · 18 Jul 2011, 11:42

Hi there,

The company I work for design, manufacture and install outdoor playscapes and play areas.

We're having a new website designed and would like to add a couple of videos/animations of our schemes to the content. I have only ever used scenes for animation so I am just wondering if there are any good alternatives? I note there is the FlightPath2 plugin on smustard, has anyone had any experience of using this? Can this export to a web-friendly format?

Happy to look at any possibilities though.

Thoughts much appreciated.

Thanks!

Lee

leedeetee · 18 Jul 2011, 11:44

By animation/video, I actually think I mean fly-through???

Dave R · 18 Jul 2011, 12:10

The plugin just sets up camera locations in a smooth path for a fly through. then with scenes created, you can export the animation as you are used to.

leedeetee · 18 Jul 2011, 12:30

Ah, excellent, so that could suffice for my needs then?

Also, we need the fly-through to be able to 'look around' like the native SU tool. Can the flightpath2 plugin do that?

Dave R · 18 Jul 2011, 12:54

the flight path plugin just creates a nice smooth path for the camera to follow. I think you would need to break the path into segments with the ends of the segments being where you want the camera to do the look-around.

So for example, your entire flight path might be in through the front door, through the foyer, into the lounge, then to the dining room, to the kitchen and finally out the back door into the garden. You might set the first flight path to go from the front garden through the front door and foyer and end in the lounge. Set up views for the look around at that end point. The next flight path would be from the lounge into the dining room. At the end point of the flight path you'd create another set of look around scenes. Then on to the next flight path.

Your look around scenes could be only two or three. Just rotate the camera around say 180° for the first one and 180° again back to the flight path direction. Does that make sense?

leedeetee · 18 Jul 2011, 13:19

That makes perfect sense. Thanks so much, Dave.

Dave R · 18 Jul 2011, 13:28

You're quite welcome.

It did occur to me that you might be able to make a small loop in your flight path for the camera to follow instead of stopping and rotating the camera. you'd need to make sure the path doesn't intersect itself though.

DanYHKim · 18 Jul 2011, 20:45

If you have any video editing software, you can get good results by setting up your fly-through and look-around animation sequences as separate video exports, then stitch them together in post-processing. You can also add scene transition effects, titles and voiceovers for a more interesting look. If you are careful about the way you set up the beginning and ending scenes in your different animation sequences, it is easy to find an ending frame and beginning frame from two video exports that exactly match each other, making the transitions less abrupt.

Sometimes this has given me better results than trying to lay out the entire animation sequence in one shot. For instance, some parts of a flythrough look better with smooth transitions between scenes, while others benefit from a pause between scenes, or the length of time in the transitions need to be different. Editing in post gives you flexibility.

Gaieus · 19 Jul 2011, 03:06

Yes, exactly. I used shorter pieces of animation with the combination of stills (for the transition effects) in this video (demonstrating "phases" of a Roman excavation site). Used only Windows Movie Maker for it.

[flash=600,500:159ufj09]http://www.youtube.com/v/bKsEpF1Neh0[/flash:159ufj09]