[Plugin Beta] Animator - v4.4a - 01 Jun 25

duanekemp · 17 Jun 2021, 10:41

I'm having serious issues with completing a simple animation. The SketchUp output was fine, though it took over three hours to render 10 seconds at HD720.

SketchUp 2021
Doors Animation SU test
First time using this plugin in quite some time - 25 frames per second for ten seconds, camera position and interior sliding glass doors animation.
Not rendered, I can't believe it took 3h10:48 seconds!!! Dang.

But, while using Thea Render, every render export keeps crashing around the three second mark.

At 25 fps, Windows posts a message that there's no more space around the 74th to 79th image in the sequence, which crashes the process and SU With the Render window stuck.

Doors Animation SU Thea test 01 Crash 03
1280x720 Presto Bucket at 128 samples per pixel (basically nothing). 25 frames per second for ten seconds, yet each render test of the animation has crashed. First image rendered at 9h58 and basically took two minutes for each until the last image at 13H16... crashing on the 75th image.
A total of 74 images were produced before the new crash, which equals only 3 seconds of the 10 and STILL a total of 3 hours and 14 minutes of rendering.

Yesterday, I cleared out 60GB of programs from the C Drive in case that's where the memory was being "stored" or created, but, that wasn't the solution as it crashed again. It's a simple camera move and sliding door animation. What could be possibly going on?

Could it be the Thea Render Temp file location not having enough space? Could it be the drive data folder (where the SU file and image are being compiled) having not enough space?

Is there an explanation as to why the animation export is creating such a huge memory block somewhere?

At over three hours per test/crash, this is two days trying to get to the end of a 10 second test and I'm being terribly surprised as to how others are able to get 2 minutes of video. So, what am I doing wrong?

fredo6 · 17 Jun 2021, 11:16

Did you try the rendering with Thea from Thea itself (instead of launching the generation from Animator)?

Normally, the requirements for disk is to have enough space to store the image files, one per frame. Do you have the size of a single image?

For memory, I think this is more related to Thea. Animator and Sketchup do nothing special during the generation in term of memory usage.

duanekemp · 17 Jun 2021, 11:21

Because Animator exports .png files... the image size is larger than a .jpg (which would be preferable) and so, each image is around 1.46 MB.

But, now you have me curious... How does Thea know the path and animation created in Animator in order to render the same animation from Thea?

Ah... hadn't tried the Thea animation tool (Animator plugin).

Giving this a go in Thea V3: http://kb.thearender.com/thea-for-sketchup-v15/export-animation-studio/

fredo6 · 17 Jun 2021, 13:56

@duanekemp said:

But, now you have me curious... How does Thea know the path and animation created in Animator in order to render the same animation from Thea?

The Thea team was kind enough to integrate Animator in their list of animation programs, based on an API I provided to them.

@duanekemp said:

Ah... hadn't tried the Thea animation tool (Animator plugin).

Tell me if it works better...

duanekemp · 17 Jun 2021, 18:17

@duanekemp said:

Ah... hadn't tried the Thea animation tool (Animator plugin).

Tell me if it works better...[/quote]

So far, it's rendering but not exporting the renders to the folder. For a moment, I thought this was going to be the solution.

duanekemp · 17 Jun 2021, 18:27

@jql said:

Thanks for providing this solution so fast!

I will resume my endeavours with animator asap!

@JQL, have you used this plugin since Thea Render V3 came out?

tiquibachaaaaa · 27 Jun 2021, 15:51

I have a problem while animating. I press the play but it doesn't show the movements, the only way it shows is when I open the window for export images and press the play button.

Calcifer · 2 Jul 2021, 02:03

Hello Fredo,

I am having an issue I never had before with animator:
I animated some spinning gears. It works fine when I scroll through animator. But when I export, some gears don't spin. I go back to the project and they spin properly. Here are few odd things: some spin, some don't. The ones that don't, I tried to change the axis (from x to z) and it works. But when I move it again, it doesn't work anymore. I tried several things: changing the group/object axis. I also tried to rotate the gear within the group. It doesn't work. I tried to use the model axis and the object axis, same results. I also exploded the gears, regrouped them, gave them a different name and re animated: still doesn't work. The odd thing is when I create another object (cube, cylinder, I even tried another complex shape), it works.
I have been using Animator for years now and it's the first time I get this specific issue.
Thank you in advance

fredo6 · 2 Jul 2021, 05:31

@calcifer said:

Hello Fredo,

I am having an issue I never had before with animator:
I animated some spinning gears. It works fine when I scroll through animator. But when I export, some gears don't spin. I go back to the project and they spin properly. Here are few odd things: some spin, some don't. The ones that don't, I tried to change the axis (from x to z) and it works. But when I move it again, it doesn't work anymore. I tried several things: changing the group/object axis. I also tried to rotate the gear within the group. It doesn't work. I tried to use the model axis and the object axis, same results. I also exploded the gears, regrouped them, gave them a different name and re animated: still doesn't work. The odd thing is when I create another object (cube, cylinder, I even tried another complex shape), it works.
I have been using Animator for years now and it's the first time I get this specific issue.
Thank you in advance

If you could send me the model, I could have a look.

Note that spinning symmetrical objects (like gears), may also give the impression of static movement when it spins too fast or at a multiple of the frame rate. I would suggest you put a color mark on the gears to verify whether they spin or not.

Calcifer · 2 Jul 2021, 13:59

@fredo6 said:

If you could send me the model, I could have a look.

Note that spinning symmetrical objects (like gears), may also give the impression of static movement when it spins too fast or at a multiple of the frame rate. I would suggest you put a color mark on the gears to verify whether they spin or not.

Hello Fredo and thanks for your response.
It turns out indeed those specific gears are moving. I did slow them down and put a color mark. It works. Thanks again.

I take the opportunity to ask a more genereal question about Animator: when a model is more complex, animator takes a while to respond (it can take up to 30 seconds to have a menu open - like, when I create a new movement). Granted I now have a lot of objects and moving parts in the file. In the past tried to lighten the model buy using proxies (for the static parts) but it remains the same. Outside of animator I can navigate very smoothly.
I know my hardware is getting a bit old: which part of the hardware should be updated to increase animator performances? I think i have a decent cpu but my gpu is now very old.
Thanks again for your fantastic plugin.

fredo6 · 2 Jul 2021, 22:35

Animator is dependent on the complexity of the model for some functions of the editor, as it needs to go through object hierarchy in the model.

Which 'menu' can take 30 seconds to open?

Calcifer · 3 Jul 2021, 17:54

The best example is when adding a new movement. Clicking on the icon is instant but accessing the panel (translation, spin, rotate etc...) takes about 30 seconds. Then, it's fine, I can select the object almost instantly. Entering the value takes about 10 seconds to process the information. Then closing the new movement takes a bit of time as well. Also, If I want to edit a clip, it takes about 15 seconds to open it to adjust.
My model is quite complex - I believe - so any change can take some time. Hence i was wondering if I could boost my computer in some way.

You got me curious about the hierarchy: does it mean that it would take more time to animate an object that is deep into the hierarchy over one that is at the top? I have to say I didn't notice any performance difference depending on which object I work on.

Sugareth · 15 Sept 2021, 16:54

Hi Fredo,
Firstly, thanks for the animator plugin, I have used it many times over the years. I might have missed something obvious, but with the latest update I don't seem to be able to insert a rotation animation? Previous versions of the plugin this was fine.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
Sugareth

Edit

Second issue I am having, previously I could double click on a sequence and it would let me edit the translation etc. - has this functionality been removed?

Edit 2

Restarted Sketchup, the menu is now appearing OK.

Edit 3...
Trying to recreate the bug - appears to happen when I temporarily exit to Sketchup. The movement type window then doesn't reappear. When I close Sketchup I also notice that the "Temporarily Exit to Sketchup" dialog from Animator is still open.

fredo6 · 17 Sept 2021, 15:45

Could you open the Ruby console to see if there are error messages.

fredo6 · 21 Sept 2021, 05:55

New Release: Animator - v3.6a - 21 Sep 21

Requirement: LibFredo6 v11.5

Maintenance release

Extension of validity

See plugin home page of Animator for Download of RBZ from the PluginStore.

See Main Post of the Animator thread for more information.

nate101090 · 3 Dec 2021, 22:32

HELP! I just installed and started using animator plug in today, and I created a long animation with many moving parts. I successfully saved an animator file along with my progress today, but not there seems to be a glitch. I can see all of the assets in the timeline, but I can't scrub through the timeline. When I click back to beginning it won't take me there, and when I click on generate video...all the windows disappear and I can't see the generate window box that I did see before. Not sure how to solve this glitch and open the generate window box again.

fredo6 · 4 Dec 2021, 07:49

Difficult to say anything without having the model.

At least, could you open the Ruby Console while running Animator.

duanekemp · 21 Jan 2022, 14:21

Hello,

Trying to test Thea with Animator again with an older version of SketchUp (2020).
When I launched Animator, it said that the version no longer worked and needed updating.

I update LibFredo6 and through the SketchUcation store plugin, tried to update Animator. Didn't work. Tried direct download and SketchUp Extension Manager wouldn't work either, saying Failed to install Animator_v3.6.rbz and with the Extension store the message is UnZip Error: Could not upzip archive.

Has something changed that it won't install on SU2020?

Actually, just did the same exact thing in SU2021...

duanekemp · 24 Jan 2022, 11:35

And... for some reason, with SU2021, there was no problem with the update today! Hmmm.
Interesting. I did nothing different.

demiremre · 31 Mar 2022, 02:30

Hello Fredo

I've been using Animator for a long time and I love it.

Im working on a important animation work (deadline is tomorrow ) but suddenly I got an error window like in the picture. I downloaded it and try to update but nothing has changed. It's seems on the latest version in extension manager.

I deleted and reinstalled, used in higher sketchup versions but I got still same error.

Windows 10
Sketchup 2020