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Animator: Parametric Animation plugin - Discussion

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  • R Offline
    RichardPMuller
    last edited by 29 Jun 2016, 11:03

    Thanks, simple, the water is just a flat face moving up and down. Move the water in the lock and the boat at the same time and duration up or down the Z-axis. You have to soften some outlines off the water face were they come together, so they look one peace when the doors slide away.

    Nice animation. I am curious about how you accomplished the water level changes. It comes across very smoothly. πŸ‘[/quote]

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    • F Offline
      Falstaff
      last edited by 29 Jun 2016, 16:21

      Thank you for your thorough response. That is exactly how I had it set up as far as rotation, in my video you can see the circle behind the foot divided into 12 sections.

      My question is what could be the problem if nested components are not rotating around the indicated axis? It seemed to work well for me for the first few sections, and then somehow got bogged down or something.

      @ntxdave said:

      @falstaff said:

      My guess is either its somehow being influenced by another recorded movement for some reason. Or the plugin is misinterpreting the axis.

      For the foot, there are two sequences. One is a rotation based on the reference circle below it and the other is a spin to adjust the ending position of the foot.
      .

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      • P Offline
        pilou
        last edited by 30 Jun 2016, 01:30

        Just erase the "s" in "https" then use the balise
        http://sketchucation.com/forums/styles/abbcode/images/bbvideo.gif

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs9x6pjaPLA
        

        Retro style! 😎

        Frenchy Pilou
        Is beautiful that please without concept!
        My Little site :)

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        • N Offline
          ntxdave
          last edited by 30 Jun 2016, 02:28

          @richardpmuller said:

          Thanks, simple, the water is just a flat face moving up and down. Move the water in the lock and the boat at the same time and duration up or down the Z-axis. You have to soften some outlines off the water face were they come together, so they look one peace when the doors slide away.

          That is what I thought but wanted to make sure. Again nice work.....

          @falstaff said:

          I've managed to get my animation to work. I scrapped my last on entirely, I had so many animated sections that the plugin kept getting them jumbled. It doesn't like anything unpredicted.

          Thank you for your thorough response. That is exactly how I had it set up as far as rotation, in my video you can see the circle behind the foot divided into 12 sections.

          Glad you found my coments useful. Yes, I could/should have mentioned DIMS but you got it figured out anyway. I liked your video.

          Working with subgroups/subcomponents an be a little trick but also very valuable. If you saw any of my car wash animations, I have to work with them often.

          Look forward to future animations from you.

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          • R Offline
            RichardPMuller
            last edited by 4 Jul 2016, 13:31

            Maybe an idea. The possibility to add sounds to the animation ...

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            • F Offline
              Falstaff
              last edited by 5 Jul 2016, 17:01

              I've managed to get my animation to work. I scrapped my last on entirely, I had so many animated sections that the plugin kept getting them jumbled. It doesn't like anything unpredicted.

              For each rotation section (I created 12, like a clock) I had 4 or 5 commands so as you can imagine that was quite a lot of movement between two legs. Also in the original I manipulated the movement through direct input of the degrees - so it was about 30 unique numbers. Really confusing to tell which was which.

              In this animation I created all my movements outright and instead of having unique numbers I rotated each component the maximum amount 360 degrees and then manipulated it through the DIMS control to get the degree I needed. In the tutorial you can see Fredo6 uses the DIMS as well. Somehow this is less confusing for the plugin. Also clicking save after each new move seems to help.

              So I had 8 New Movement controls:
              Left Calf 360
              Left Leg 360
              Left Pedal Stay Flat 360
              Left Crank 30
              Right Calf 360
              Right Leg 360
              Right Pedal Stay Flat 360
              Right Crank 30

              Then I repeated these 12 times and it didn't get hung up on anything. Getting my wheels to rotate the legs started flying around where they shouldn't be again. Also moving the biker messed everything up. Ideally I want him to bike down a bike path. Next time, Im pretty happy with this outcome.

              Check it out here : https://youtu.be/Bs9x6pjaPLA

              @falstaff said:

              Thank you for your thorough response. That is exactly how I had it set up as far as rotation, in my video you can see the circle behind the foot divided into 12 sections.

              My question is what could be the problem if nested components are not rotating around the indicated axis? It seemed to work well for me for the first few sections, and then somehow got bogged down or something.

              @ntxdave said:

              @falstaff said:

              My guess is either its somehow being influenced by another recorded movement for some reason. Or the plugin is misinterpreting the axis.

              For the foot, there are two sequences. One is a rotation based on the reference circle below it and the other is a spin to adjust the ending position of the foot.
              .

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              • F Offline
                fredo6
                last edited by 6 Jul 2016, 08:07

                @richardpmuller said:

                Maybe an idea. The possibility to add sounds to the animation ...

                I assume that in normal cases, users will do a post-production with an appropriate video editing software, where you can cut and rearrange sequences, add legends and sounds. So no plan for that in Animator.

                Fredo

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                • Leonard96L Offline
                  Leonard96
                  last edited by 8 Jul 2016, 20:59

                  Wow! This animation plugin rules. Is the best plugin ever released by someone for SketchUP Make. Also, if you don't mind I would like to see by myself how this baby works so... I can be the Rat Lab πŸ˜„
                  I would be grateful if I could test it too. If not, I really understand you. It's sad but still I respect your decision.

                  -Leo

                  My secret weapon is creativity

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                  • F Offline
                    fredo6
                    last edited by 9 Jul 2016, 08:51

                    I publish here video tutorials showing some features from Animator, based on public videos posted on YouTube.

                    For the tutorial below, I have used a model with a simple forklift and pallet.
                    Credit to Burckhard Heimlich for the Forklift model

                    Here is the original model (SU2015)
                    Burkhard Heimlich - SU15 - Gabelstapler - 0.skp

                    The final animation is shown below in Natural mode (i.e. without rendering) and Rendered mode with some rendering software supporting integration with Animator. It is advised to watch the video in Full Screen mode, to see the details.

                    In Natural mode (No rendering)

                    Rendered with AmbientOcclusionEx
                    Many thanks to the Fluid Interactive team, in particular Nicola and Alberto

                    Rendered with Thea (no model preparation)
                    Many thanks to the Thea team, in particular tomasz

                    Rendered with SketchFX (no model preparation)
                    Many thanks to the Fluid Interactive team, in particular Nicola and Alberto

                    Rendered with Twilight Render Pro
                    Many thanks to the Twilight team team, in particular Chris

                    1) Preparing the Model

                    Animation should come at the end of the design process, so that most of the objects are in place. Note that Animator allows to add new objects, but modifying the hierarchy of objects already referenced by Animator may cause undesired issues.

                    Note: I use the term Object to designate both Groups and Components. Animator supports both. Note that the main difference is that when you animate objects which are inside a component, this affects the other instances of the component. When you select a Component Instance, Animator always shows the other instances that would be affected.

                    Here are a few advices to prepare the model for Animation, essentially around

                    • Verifying the Grouping of objects. Grouping is a nice way to transform objects as a whole (even if multi-selection is supported). For instance, a car should be an object, embedding sub-objects such as the car body and the wheels, so that you can move the car while spinning the wheels.Deciding about Groups versus Components, making unique component instances, etc... are the kind of decisions you need to think about.
                    • Naming the Objects: It will make it easier when selecting objects in the Movement Editor. Animator selection displays a popup showing the hierarchy objects under the mouse, so that you can pick the right one. If no name is given, then you will see "Group" or "Component", as in the example below:
                      [attachment=3:1mluf46k]<!-- ia3 -->Animator - Group Selection.png<!-- ia3 -->[/attachment:1mluf46k]
                    • Creating Layers. Animator records the layer visibility when recording cameras. So it is better to create them before starting the design of an animation.
                    • Saving the original object positions. Animator includes a Positioner utility, allowing to save the position of all Objects in the model and later restore it. You can save several positions. As there may be bug or mis-manipulation, it is always good to keep a reference positioner so that you can restablish conistent object positions. This is useful, because Undo will not work (objects moves are transparent)

                    2) Creating a First Animation

                    The following tutorial shows how to create a basic animation.

                    3) Finishing the Object Animation

                    We can now finish the object animation. The tutorial shows how to re-use existing movements and modify / adjust the animation after it is built.

                    4) Adding Cameras

                    You will see how to create travelling views with simple cameras and how they are interpolated (fade-out)

                    5) Installing FFmpeg (MS Windows)

                    FFmpeg is an open source tool, free, which is used by Animator to generate video files. The tutorial shows how to do the installation once.

                    6) Generating a video

                    The tutorial shows how to generate a video at specified dimensions and frame rate, with several options available.

                    7) Launching / Stopping the Animation

                    This video tutorial explains the different ways to start, pause, stop and navigate through the Animation in Editor and Player mode.

                    %(#008040)[😎 Tracking Cameras]

                    A tracking camera is a camera attached to an object with a certain viewpoint. This allows to follow the object when it moves.

                    Tracking cameras supports the Fade-out option, so that you can smoothly switch between two tracking cameras following the same object. Fade out also works to make a smooth transition with other cameras.

                    9) Layer Visibility

                    Animator supports two methods to control Layer Visibility

                    • STATE: capture of the visibility state of ALL layers. This can be done via the Visual Effect Layer State, or via a View or Scene Camera
                    • ON-OFF: Specify the visibility state for given layers
                      Layer on-off is more adapted to super-impose layer visibility changes since you can control layer by layer.

                    Note that when these visual effects have a duration > 0, they are ignored when the animation time is after.

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                    • D Offline
                      duanekemp
                      last edited by 9 Jul 2016, 09:41

                      "I publish here video tutorials showing some features from Animator"
                      Excellent tutorial help videos. Thank you so very much for taking the time to do these.

                      Duane Kemp

                      Kemp Productions
                      Puidoux, Switzerland
                      Gallery:
                      https://duanekemp.artstation.com/

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                      • F Offline
                        faust07
                        last edited by 9 Jul 2016, 16:44

                        This is so great and pushes SketchUp to an high level similar to Sketchy- and MSPhysics. The videos and tutorials show that impressive. Is there somewhere a link to download and to test the plugin?

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                        • P Offline
                          pilou
                          last edited by 9 Jul 2016, 16:59

                          It's in beta test Period! Ask Fredo or Rich O Brien...

                          Frenchy Pilou
                          Is beautiful that please without concept!
                          My Little site :)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • N Offline
                            ntxdave
                            last edited by 9 Jul 2016, 17:00

                            @faust07 said:

                            This is so great and pushes SketchUp to an high level similar to Sketchy- and MSPhysics. The videos and tutorials show that impressive. Is there somewhere a link to download and to test the plugin?

                            If you are meaning the Animator plugin, see this thread If you are meaning the Twilight Render software, they have stated that they will be posting a link to their software sometime today. You will have to have the Pro version though (at least that is my understanding).

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                            • topic:timeago-later,22 days
                            • E Offline
                              elfred
                              last edited by 31 Jul 2016, 11:34

                              @thomthom said:

                              New round of donations for Fredo - anyone?

                              Could You send me info how to do that?
                              This many is treasure who earned our support.

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                              • W Offline
                                wagoneer
                                last edited by 1 Aug 2016, 14:15

                                I'm eagerly awaiting your newest plug-in Fredo. Having been tasked with creating some animations, SketchUp is where I wish to do it so your excellent tools help enormously.

                                One question, will Animate have a path tool so I could make my shapes/groups follow paths other than straight lines?

                                Kelly

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                                • C Offline
                                  cotty
                                  last edited by 1 Aug 2016, 14:31

                                  @elfred said:

                                  @thomthom said:

                                  New round of donations for Fredo - anyone?

                                  Could You send me info how to do that?
                                  This many is treasure who earned our support.

                                  One fast way...

                                  fredodonation.jpg

                                  my SketchUp gallery

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                                  • B Offline
                                    Bob James
                                    last edited by 1 Aug 2016, 16:44

                                    @ntxdave said:

                                    If you are meaning the Animator plugin, see this thread

                                    I get:
                                    "You are not authorised to read this forum." 😞

                                    i7-4930K 3.4Ghz, 2x GTX780 6GB, 32GB DDR3-1600 ECC, OCZ Vertex 4 500GB, WD Black 3TB, 32TB NAS, 4x 27" Monitors, SpaceMouse Pro, X-keys XK-60

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                                    • topic:timeago-later,3 months
                                    • J Offline
                                      JohnDurnan
                                      last edited by 29 Oct 2016, 15:31

                                      @thomthom said:

                                      @fredo6 said:

                                      But I don't know how to reach the others

                                      PM me who you are looking for - I'll see what I can do. I have the ChaosGroup contacts for sure - but I should be able to obtain other as well.

                                      Oh, that would be ideal. If this could work with Shaderlight renderer, my world would be complete. I'm currently using "Keyframe Animation", however, it will not work with Shaderlight. Therefore, I cannot complete my animations by rendering them. The still only look like cartoons. Thank you for all of your efforts with this!

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                                      • F Offline
                                        fredo6
                                        last edited by 31 Oct 2016, 21:30

                                        @johndurnan said:

                                        Oh, that would be ideal. If this could work with Shaderlight renderer, my world would be complete.

                                        I need to find a contact there (which I don't have at the moment), in case they would be interested.

                                        Fredo

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                                        • topic:timeago-later,about a month
                                        • W Offline
                                          whiterabbit
                                          last edited by 11 Dec 2016, 20:50

                                          is there a newer version of the animator plugin, I was trying it out (great) but since upgrading to 2017 it says it has expired. I tried it back in 2016, same message. How might it be possible to get the latest version. Is it available for purchase?
                                          Thanks

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