[Tips] Animator Tips and Tricks

fredo6

Can we add a Clip (or a movement) made in a previous session to the current session where an another is yet created ?

Say an object A (a Car) is on the screen and animated
A ball is an object B (a Ball animated) previously made in another session, can we add it to the car ?

Any animation piece (i.e. sequence) created within a model can be integrated into a film, knowing that you can have many films within the same model. Think of a Sequence as a Component Definition in Sketchup. You can create instances of a sequence and insert them in the time line, change some parameters like duration, easing, ... (like you can scale a component instance in Sketchup). All sequences created in the model are accessible from the Insert buttons (for Movement, Cameras, Visual Effects, ....):

Animator - Insert sequence.png

Note that you can also insert a full film

Animator - Insert film.png

Fredo

solo

I'm still using Thea 1.5, but I cannot get animator to work with Thea, it works perfect with straight SU output but nothing happens with Thea, at first it just rendered the 1st scene, now when I click 'render animation' it does nothing, what am I doing wrong?

fredo6

@solo said:

I'm still using Thea 1.5, but I cannot get animator to work with Thea, it works perfect with straight SU output but nothing happens with Thea, at first it just rendered the 1st scene, now when I click 'render animation' it does nothing, what am I doing wrong?

Do you mean when you launch the rendering from Thea (not from Animator)?

Fredo

MANaboutTOOLS

Hi,

I am using a Mac and cannot change the scale of the timeline to zoom in. When I mouse over the scroll bar it says "Use Mouse-wheel +ALT to change scale"

The equivalent on the Mac is the "option" key. When I push the option key and touch scroll the Mac magic mouse it zooms the model and not the timeline.

Thanks
Kent
https://manabouttools.com

Screen Shot 2018-10-31 at 1.09.47 PM.png

fredo6

@manabouttools said:

Hi,

I am using a Mac and cannot change the scale of the timeline to zoom in. When I mouse over the scroll bar it says "Use Mouse-wheel +ALT to change scale"

The equivalent on the Mac is the "option" key. When I push the option key and touch scroll the Mac magic mouse it zooms the model and not the timeline.

Thanks
Kent
https://manabouttools.com

I don't have a Mac to test.

Could you try with Command or Ctrl to see what happens.

Fredo

MANaboutTOOLS

I tried as many combinations as possible. All just zoom the model.

Kent

fredo6

@manabouttools said:

I tried as many combinations as possible. All just zoom the model.

Kent

Can you at least scroll the timeline (mousewheel, no modifier) and scroll the tracks (Ctrl + mousewheel), [assuming you have enough tracks) ?

MANaboutTOOLS

I don't have enough tracks to test that. Will try tmrw.

MANaboutTOOLS

I changed a clip to make it longer so it brought up the scroll bars. I am unable to scroll the timeline with the mouse wheel. It always zooms the model window.

Kent

MANaboutTOOLS

Any keyboard shortcuts to zoom the timeline? Or any settings to key in a zoom value to get around this?

Thanks
Kent

fredo6

@manabouttools said:

Any keyboard shortcuts to zoom the timeline? Or any settings to key in a zoom value to get around this?

Thanks
Kent

Let's take things in order

without any modifier, putting the mouse cursor over the time, can you scroll the timeline?
with Option key pressed, and assuming you have enough tracks, can you scroll the tracks?
with Command key pressed, putting the mouse cursor over the time, what do you get?

MANaboutTOOLS

I can click-drag with the left button to scroll the time. I added enough tracks to test this.

No. Hovering the curser over the bar and gesturing with the magic mouse (scroll-wheel) zooms the model.
No. Zooms the model
With the mouse hovering over the scroll bar the time reads (for example) 25.5 s. If I press the command key the time then reads 25.50 s. And as above, mouse wheel gesture zooms model.

I hope this helps. Do you want a screen record?
Kent

MANaboutTOOLS

Here's a screenflow capture...

fredo6

Do you have a special mouse ?

MANaboutTOOLS

No, mouse came with the mac.

fredo6

Could you open the Ruby Console when you run Animator and scroll with the mousewheel.

Thanks

Fredo

MANaboutTOOLS

Yes,

I have Ruby open. No difference.

Kent

juju

@manabouttools said:

Yes,

I have Ruby open. No difference.

Kent

any messages in the ruby console when scrolling?

MANaboutTOOLS

No. Nothing

fredo6

@carloshmejia said:

First of all thank you for your amazing plugins.
I am learning to use Animator. For some reason my original position changed and now it not correspond to my model. Are there a way to reset or change the original position of my clip?

Probably not...

There is a Positioner facility in Animator (4th icon), allowing you save and restore the position of objects. It is a good idea to save the position of objects before you start building animations.

Fredo