Scene animation with Animator

Rich O Brien

Animator requires the user to put in the hours playing around with it. Its also pretty advanced and requires a user to be proficient in SketchUp to begin with.

Anyone adept using Animator has put in the time to discover its features.

You need to set your Camera to use a scene.

ntxdave

Thanks @rich-o-brien. I will look at that the next time I start up SketchUp.

Yes, it is hard to find out how things in Animator work. I saw A neat Animator tutorial here. In particular as the 1:49 point in the video there is a really neat feature. The problem with the video is that it is fast and there is no narrative.

I had wanted this thread moved to a more generic category so that I would get more feedback. I also would like to be able to PM @fredo6-animator so that I could discuss some issues with him.

I have also looked at another plugin called Keyframe Animation that has some neat feature but not as many options as Animator. One of the primary things it can do is use SketchUp Scenes. Since you pointed out the camera link, I will look at it and see if it gives me some ways to take advantage of scenes.

OK @rich-o-brien, I just launched SU and then started Animator. How did you get to the option in your post?

Rich O Brien

@ntxdave said in Scene animation with Animator:

How did you get to the option in your post?

Double clip a strip in your timeline to edit that strip's properties.

fredo6

Scenes can be used in Animator for their camera. The interest versus setting the camera in Animator is that Animator will use the camera of the scene , which is controlled outside of Animator.

However, for tags (layers) and visibility of objects, you need to use Visual Effects.

ntxdave

@Rich-O-Brien said in Scene animation with Animator:

@ntxdave said in Scene animation with Animator:

How did you get to the option in your post?

Double clip a strip in your timeline to edit that strip's properties.

Thanks @rich-o-brien , I will look at that.

ntxdave

@fredo6 said in Scene animation with Animator:

Scenes can be used in Animator for their camera. The interest versus setting the camera in Animator is that Animator will use the camera of the scene , which is controlled outside of Animator.

However, for tags (layers) and visibility of objects, you need to use Visual Effects.

If you look at the tutorial I referenced above at about 1:49, you will see a very interesting way the poster handled an object (trvealing in it I circular pattern).. I want to do something similar with some intro text (probably reveal it in a left to right pattern - like writing or printing the text.

I have some other things in the back of my mind but I need to takes one step at a time. Bottom line is that I think Animator is a great tool but learning how to take advantage of its features is somewhat difficult.

ntxdave

@fredo6 said in Scene animation with Animator:

Scenes can be used in Animator for their camera. The interest versus setting the camera in Animator is that Animator will use the camera of the scene , which is controlled outside of Animator.

However, for tags (layers) and visibility of objects, you need to use Visual Effects.

Thanks for this feedback. Now I need to figure out how to use a lot of the features of Animator. BTW, I have used Animator many times in the past for things like looking at car washes, a figure walking along a path and even one of a drone moving around. You can see them if you go to YouTube and look for ntxdave animations (I now have a new account on YouTube so that will change in the future).

Now I want to do something really different. The movie below was created using native SketchUp animation features. I want to make a more sophisticated version using Animator and some of its features (some like the Tutorials Up video I referenced before and adding text intro and conclusion.

Here is the current video Jesus Animation.mp4

IHere is the SketchUp model for you to look at and give me advice. Jesus-Animator.skp

In this video there is a transition that takes place early (about 1:40) that I would like to understand better.

Rich O Brien

@ntxdave said in Scene animation with Animator:

there is a transition that takes place early (about 1:40)

The object is moved through the plane to fake the appearance of a Spiral getting revealed.

You can set playback on YouTube to be 0.25x speed if following along in real-time is difficult.

ntxdave

@Rich-O-Brien said in Scene animation with Animator:

You can set playback on YouTube to be 0.25x speed if following along in real-time is difficulty

I have never done that before. How do you do that?

ntxdave

OK, I looked it up and found out how to adjust the playback speed. I was able to set the speed to .25 on both my iPad and laptop.