[Plugin]$ Keyframe Animation

Regular Polygon · 1 Feb 2012, 05:53

Just bought this plugin, Regular_Polygon; I have been meaning too for a while.....

I use your other plugins quite a lot so I feel I should contribute!!

Thank you!

Regular Polygon · 1 Feb 2012, 07:09

Hi emerald15,

Trying to animate two folding doors is an interesting problem. The door on the right just rotates about its right edge, so that is easy to animate. But the other door, to the left, moves in a way that is neither a simple rotation, or translation. However, it is possible to represent this motion using animated subcomponents. When you animate a subcomponent (subgroup), it moves relative to the parent. So, the combined motion can be something more complex than a translation or rotation.

First, clear/delete any position data you have recorded for the doors. Then make a group out of the two doors, so each door is a subgroup. The basic idea is, you rotate the left door about the hing through some angle less than 180 degrees. At the same time, you rotate the entire two door group about the right edge through an angle of 90 degrees. The combined motion causes the doors to fold together exactly like they do in real life.

I am sure that a video would explain this much better than words. I hope to make some tutorials in the near future. If it isn't clear, you can just email me your model, and I can quickly set up the animation, and send it back to you.

emerald15 · 6 Feb 2012, 16:29

Thanks Regular Polygon.
As per e-mail, I followed instructions but failed. Here is the skp file if you would kindly help. Thank again.

folding doors 2.skp

Regular Polygon · 7 Feb 2012, 02:53

No problem, I think I have those folding doors moving correctly. I made the doors subcomponents of a group. To create the folding motion, both the doors, and the parent group, rotate at the same time. Here is your model with the animation set up.

Animated Folding Doors

And, for anyone wondering what it looks like, I exported the animation.

[flash=480,274:3xeqywwp]http://www.youtube.com/v/D2wmqRcHoyA?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash:3xeqywwp]

Thanks for sharing your model, Emerald15.

I think this is a good example of how animated sub-components can be used to create more complex types of motion.

emerald15 · 7 Feb 2012, 09:32

Thanks so much for this - exactly what I've been trying to do. I'm still working it all out, but now I know it is possible!

emerald15 · 7 Feb 2012, 13:00

Sorry, I must be still missing something.

I have grouped the components/groups into a parent group. I can rotate the far left door and each of the right side doors individually within the group (through selecting them in Outliner). However, when I move the parent group the sequence goes wrong. I've tried various combinations of moving the subgroups & parent group and moving all the subgroups inside the parent group, but I'm not getting the right result.

andybot · 8 Feb 2012, 00:16

does it matter if it's a group or component? Just a thought.

Regular Polygon · 8 Feb 2012, 07:10

@andybot said:

does it matter if it's a group or component? Just a thought.

It shouldn't matter. Groups and components are treated the same.

@emerald15 said:

Sorry, I must be still missing something.

If you have the model I attached, this might clear things up a bit. Select the parent group, so that it is highlighted. Then step through the animation a scene at a time. That will reveal how the parent (highlighted) group is moving. And then it will be more clear how the individual doors are moving inside the parent group.

emerald15 · 11 Feb 2012, 12:42

Yes, I have already done this - I went through your animation frame by frame. I know this is something to do with how I move each individual panel. I've attached a screen grap of another of my attempts, with the parent group highlighted. How this compares to your version (screen grap also attached) is that your parent group box stays the same shape as it starts in scene one, even when you have rotated one of the subgroups within it, while mine changes shape to fit the formation as my panels are rotated.

The way I am moving the subgroups is to select them in Outliner, (triple click on subgroup) rotate subgroup, then right click outside the parent group to close it. I'm guessing this is where I might be going wrong as the box then changes shape?

Regular Polygon · 12 Feb 2012, 05:51

Well, I didn't use Outliner, so my workflow was a little different. Here is what I did:

Rotate the parent group.
Click the record button to save the position data for the parent group.
Double click on the parent group to edit it.
Rotate the doors (subcomponents).
Click the record button to save the position data of the subcomponents.
Close the parent group.
Repeat steps 1-6 for the next scene.

One thing that might not be very intuitive, especially if you are using Outliner, is that the parent group has to be open (in edit mode) to record the subcomponents. Normally, when you click the record button, it records the position data for all of the top-level groups and components in the model. But, it doesn't record the subgroups/subcomponents. To record the subcomponents, you have to open the parent first, and then click the record button.

If that is not the problem, then my next question would be, does the parent group move correctly? If it does, then the problem is just with the subcomponents.

I am not sure why the bounding box does not enclose all the subcomponents in my model. I guess SketchUp doesn't resize it automatically. I may need to write some code to resize the bounding box when there are animated subcomponents.

emerald15 · 12 Feb 2012, 10:51

I'VE GOT IT!!!
I was setting up the rotation of the subgroups before the parent group, not vice versa.

By the way - I didn't use Outliner either 'til this challenge - I just thought I should try it & it seemed easier to pick out the subgroups.

re: the box - mine behaves differently too now (not quite the same as yours)... but, hey... does this matter?

Thanks so much for the help... I've been tearing my hair out!

Regular Polygon · 27 Jun 2012, 03:20

Hi folks,

Version 1.7 is available on the download page. Nothing glamorous, but it has some useful improvements to the interface and workflow.

There is a scrollable Web dialog to adjust the transition time and delay time for all the scenes. It is accessible from a button on the toolbar. Best of all, it replaces the SketchUp input box, which could be a nuisance because it ran off the screen if you had more than 20 scenes.

There are some other dialogs for reporting your license ownership details, and free trial status.

I received a few requests for the ability to record the position data of specific objects, without affecting any other objects. So, that has been implemented as an alternative workflow if you need to precisely control what is recorded.

There are more details in the release notes. Oh, and starting with this version, you can get a new free trial, even if you had one before.

Thanks

iichiversii · 27 Jun 2012, 07:51

This is great, fantastic

ashscott · 18 Sept 2013, 10:55

I'm enjoying your plugin, you've obviously put some serious work into development.

I was wondering if you have a solution to the problem of rotation axes moving during an animation if they are part of a second rotation?

My example of this is on an excavator's boom - the first part of the boom rotates seamlessly but if I rotate the second part of the boom (called the stick) at the same time as rotating the first part - the rotation axes is not interpolated properly (regardless of how/where I set the group's origin/axis)

Here is an attempt to show the problem in a GIF

Note how the second portion of the boom doesn't stay synchronized with its pin nor stay aligned with it's ram mounting on the top - any suggestions?

emerald15 · 18 Sept 2013, 12:33

Not sure if this helps, but it sounds similar to my problem with a folding door sequence (earlier in this thread) - you might find an answer in there.

ashscott · 20 Sept 2013, 03:51

Hey thanks Emerald - the discussion regarding the folding door really helped.

For anyone else struggling with this:

Record position for the first piece (the parent component)
Open the parent component and moved the nested component to its required position
Record that position
Close the parent component

The capacity for keyframe animation to relate its coordinate systems to a parent component system rather than the coordinate system of the model as a whole makes this plugin significantly more powerful than other animation tools I've used

ashscott · 23 Sept 2013, 06:54

I've never had this happen before now - I was using Keyframe Animation so I suspect it is somehow causing the issue.

I saved a 16 scene animation. It saved fine and I went to "save a copy as". Sketchup crashed and I got a bugsplat. Then the file itself disappeared - I'm left with 13 empty .SKB files in the windows folder.

Two days worth of animating work is gone - somehow the files themselves got messed up when sketchup crashed.

Two questions:

How is this even possible
How do I get my work back?

ashscott · 23 Sept 2013, 07:02

I've now been through it all - the file is totally gone.
The only thing I can recover is a version of it from three days ago....

The 13 .SKB files are empty files all presenting the modelling space in various orientations.

I'm running this in SU8 but I also have the free version of SU2013 installed on my machine. I'm running windows 7 on an i7 laptop.

If anyone is interested to try and trouble shoot this then let me know and I can give you more details.

I'm totally stunned that this is even possible

raineysky · 23 Sept 2013, 15:54

Sorry about your problems Ashscott. I did a trial with Keyframe Animation not long ago and was getting bugsplats also. Just figured it was a problem with another plugin and left it at that. I'd be curious as to what you find out about your problem.

ashscott · 25 Sept 2013, 10:46

I just managed to replicate the problem - I hit control+S after a stint of modelling and the file did not save (there was no notification of this). When I look at the directory that the original file was saved in (Called "Keyframe_Act3.skp) a bunch of empty .skb files have shown up - see attached image: