A More Sophisticated Animation Script request
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There is an opportunity (a big one perhaps) where my manager would like to use some of my sketch up models to create animations. The animation would be for a "how it works" promotion for our client and potentially for manuals to be used by maintenance personnel.
There are existing scripts which are very clever in animating objects via copying component instances along a path and animating cameras along paths. But none do both well enough for what I have in mind.
What I am looking for is a way to animate the movement of objects and do so in sequence; so for example, CarA drives along a road, CarA stops at intersection, CarB passes across the intersection from left to right, CarA resumes driving forward. The camera might follow CarA from a above along the same path or it could be at a constant point but zoom in and then zoom out when CarA is at the intersection. If the script were to create multiple pages and or layers to simulate the movement of an object and control time, then there would need to be a way to EASILY edit the sequence in which objects are sequenced.
I realize SU is not meant to be a primary animation tool, but if I could use it to produce an eyecatching "animated storyboard" that might be good enough. Then I am thinking the objects in the model and their respective paths and the camera location and/or camera paths could be exported to a more sophisticated program like 3D studio Max or LightWave for Final Production by a professional animator. This way, costs and time for the final highend animation could be optimized, but the initial development of the animation storyboard could be kept inhouse.
Soooo ... I was wondering if anyone has anything in development along these lines or something else even more specialized or perhaps be interested doing so if there were "adequate inducements"? . Bottom line the script must be "user friendly" with regards to creating and then updating an animation storyboard.
You can email me directly if you don't wish to discuss online (JClements at BrwnCald dot com).
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Hi John,
That is an excellent question.
This is a feature that is really needed and not too far fetched imho.
Not only for straight sketchup output, but also for rendered animations.
It's not implemented yet in a good fashion, but Vray for Sketchup will have animation support in the future (at least they SHOULD as the engine is capable, read: fast enough).
Also the expected Podium v2.0 will really fast(some insiders say even faster than Vray) to be able to do animation....So a 'real' animation script that can translate an animation to scenes/pages will have a bright future imho.
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I too would like a better animaton interface in SketchUp. At lest for the camera.
Here is a mock up I've made som time ago. It is doable but would need some more advanced web dialog that I'm not capable of.
Image slightly too large. To view it all download it.
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@unknownuser said:
...Whatever they are coming up with in v7, it has to be substantial because there are a lot of good Ruby plug-ins and add-ons these days. So I think there is a very real possibility for this.
And I suspect that it will be out soon as there's so much silence on the Google side.
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It's been on my personal list for 2-3 years, and I did a proof-of-concept that moved objects, but never got an interface going. Didier followed with a bit more development, but it was still short of what you describe.
I thought I might revive it, but maybe I'll wait to see what v7 brings (I would hate to develop something that got swallowed up by a native function).
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Rick, I understand perfectly what you and others are saying about the "eventual/emminent?" release of v7. I did want to test the waters ... if there were some scripts in near "beta" phase, then it might warrant a change in my strategy for the near term.
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