[Plugin] Proper Animation V1.08 Beta(Updated 14/11/10)

ashscott

Can anyone explain why the traditional exporter won't recognize the proper animation moving objects?

I'm having to export through twilight as smoothstep forces me to cut out small pauses in the animation that need to be there. However, leaving my machine for 8 hours to render an animation only to come back and find that something has been mis-interpreted or I haven't set up properly is a bit of a pain.

Jim

@ashscott said:

Can anyone explain why the traditional exporter won't recognize the proper animation moving objects?

Exporting the object animations is just not something SketchUp does natively.

You could try the Key Frame plugin - it currently costs $19 but has a 10-day trial. It can export the animation to Scenes which can them be exported using SketchUp's built-in export options, or allow anyone to view the animation in SketchUp.

Regular Polygon

Ruby Plugins for SketchUp

(regularpolygon.blogspot.com)

ashscott

Ok, but will that give a 'clean' export of animated objects to an AVI? Sounds like it just gives me scenes....within which SU's exporter still wont recognize animated objects.....

Thanks for the reponse

ashscott

I get the gist of your keyframe tool now, very clever, currently exporting the animation, will give an update.

I'm surprised there isn't a simple ruby exporter based (perhaps) on add_frame_change_observer that would allow you to export an image stream of exactly what is seen in SU......Google Earth has this kind of functionality; in fact it appears to be the most robust hi res export option in Google Earth.....

Excuse me if this is a poor suggestion as I don't understand ruby well.

ashscott

So if I am going to use keyframes animation the whole animation needs to be done with the plugin.....

It looks like a nice bit of gear but I have three models in sequence which will be edited together to make a movie and all the models have been prepared with proper_animation.rb

Looks like I will have to use fraps (high res screen capture) for this one.

Thanks for your help.

ashscott

Anyone else noticed that object transitions cease to work after 25 scenes?

ashscott

Morisdov,

not sure if you know, although I'm sure you do, but the longer a scene transition is the further "out of sync" the animation easing settings become. That is, if the scene transition time is set to a longer period (say 10 seconds), in proper animation, then the default animation easing settings (0.3 - whatever that means!) will cause the transition to occur too quickly (IE the object will animate in 6 seconds and sit idle for 4). Yet if the object's transition time is very short - say 0.5 seconds - the animation easing settings will often need to be increased to stop the object animating too slowly and 'jumping' to position at the end of the scene.

This is all supposing that the goal is to get objects to animate for the whole scene transition time and no more resulting in the smoothest animation possible.

It appears, after many hours using your wonderful plugin, that the correlation between the animation easing requirement and the scene transition time setting is linear. But I haven't tested that theory. If the correlation is linear then it would be easy to have the animation easing settings automatically set themselves in relation to the scene transition time that the user selects.....

Perhaps this is all hogwash but it seemed logical to me so thought I would contribute it if it will help this wonderful plugin become even better.

Have created a very large animation (have used 5 different models with 25 scenes in each as there appears to be issues after scene 25) and am very grateful for your work. Please keep it up.

Regards

Ash

Fletch

Morisdov, just wanted to let you know, we just put this vid. up on youtube - keep up the great work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKLp1q4b3YU
[youtube]JKLp1q4b3YU[/youtube] <-- how to embed youtube video?

Gaieus

@fletch said:

how to embed youtube video?
YouTube - Twilight Render SketchUp Animation - Building Progress
[flash=480,385:232rymld]http://www.youtube.com/v/JKLp1q4b3YU?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:232rymld]

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKLp1q4b3YU]YouTube - Twilight Render SketchUp Animation - Building Progress[/url]
[flash=480,385]http://www.youtube.com/v/JKLp1q4b3YU?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash]

ashscott

Fletch,

Thats awesome! Very nice work

If it's useful to anyone, turning off Vsync on your graphics card improves the 'smoothness' of animations recorded with fraps.

This isn't a problem if you use rendering software that exports to image stream......A render tool called 'Twilight' comes to mind.

otb designworks

I am experiencing a SU crash every time I open a file and attempt to get a previously set position.

Almost always on the first attempt and, rarely, on the second attempt. I have never been able to get 3 positions without a crash.

It doesn't matter if I attempt to get a position for a single component or different ones.

Mac 10.5.8 and SU 8

I am attaching one of Google's crash logs, if that helps.

EFF94107-F3E1-42A2-A8A7-EFB34A8829FE.dmp.zip

lampliter

I just used this plugin for the first time. It is the coolest thing since su.However I had a huge problem. It seems the objects disappear in the animation. It occured to me the objects only render as long as they are with in the thickness of the geometry itself. So I put some stationary geometry out side the paramerters of my animation and everything works fine. I just wanted to share this incase someone else has the same problem. Sorry if this is already well known, but I couldn`t find a fix other than this. Thanks again for the plugin.

vodip

Is large number of scenes (say 75+) viewable and adjustable using the "scenes transition times" and "scenes delay times"?
It seems only display whatever the screen can accommodate. anyone has similar experience and has solution to it?

thanks

morisdov

Hello Chuck and other mac users,

I believe there is a mac specific problem, only on the newsketchup version 8 M1 release,
I dont have access to a mac machine. Chucks crush dump does not provide insight to resolve this.

Whoever can assist in resolving this, if you open the "ruby console" on the "window" menu - and send me all the messagesdisplayed there, just beforesketchup crushes, afterthe first get position and beforethe second attempt crushes sketchup - this is the only way to get a clue, where is the problem.

Thank you, Moris

driven

Hi Moris and Chuck...

I just did a quick test with the sample plugins on mac 10.5.8 + su v8.1 and all seems fine

Sun Feb 27 13;54;49 +0000 2011
SketchUp Version; 8.0.4810
-----
Console messages are going to /tmp/ruby_trace.txt
-----
key = Units
value = 0.0
"Prepared animated arrays 3"
"Plugins - Started Proper Animation Scenes Observer 0"
"Prepared animated arrays 3"
"Plugins - Stopped Proper Animation Scenes Observer 0"
"Prepared animated arrays 3"
"Plugins - Started Proper Animation Scenes Observer 1"
"Prepared animated arrays 3"
"Plugins - Stopped Proper Animation Scenes Observer 1"
"Plugins - Stopped Proper Animation Pages Observer true"
"Prepared animated arrays 3"
"Plugins - Started Proper Animation Scenes Observer 2"
"Prepared animated arrays 3"

and

----
SketchUpUndo0.log

----
File New
Tool(SelectionTool)
Start(Move)Commit(1264)
Start(Move)Commit(1265)
Start(Move)Commit(1266)
Start(Move)Commit(1267)
Start(Move)Commit(1268)
Start(Move)Commit(1269)
Start(Move)Commit(1270)
Start(Move)Commit(1271)
Start(Move)Commit(1272)
Start(Move)Commit(1273)
Start(Move)Commit(1274)
Start(Move)Commit(1275)
Start(Move)Commit(1276)
Start(Move)Commit(1277)
Start(Move)Commit(1278)
Start(Move)Commit(1279)

etc....
so Chuck, if you want to PM me a problem example, I'll run some test's...

I do get some clipping plane issues if I stop the animation and paint a face, close then restart.
It goes back to normal, if I stop and restart the observer however.
I'll try it on one of my large animations later

john

museummaker

This is a very useful Ruby. THANK YOU for the time and effort to create it. I currently have use for it but am having a little difficulty.

I have drawn a stage with several sets of trusses, there are different light fixtures mounted to it that I am attempting to rotate and animate.

I have mastered setting the axis properly for rotation and I can get a small set to rotate together. The problem I seem to be having is with nested and mirrored components and groups.

I have seen it mentioned to explode things to get it to work-- my question is down to what level? Like bombed apart and completely un-grouped?
My rigging is
The truss is a component (doesn't move) then there are several fixtures each with a component of a Yoke (pivots) and light (Pivots). (going to pivot on 2 axis) All the parts that move together have a unique component name to accommodate changes in the component.

I am banging my head on this one and I am sure it is something simple.

Thanks for any advice.

otb designworks

I have conducted some more testing and the results are very peculiar.

I can not get SU to crash if the Ruby Console window is open. I can Get Positions with no problem, but, when I close the window, SU will crash every time, usually within the first few Get Positions; I have managed to get at most 4 actions before crashing.

I am attaching the highly simplistic model for others to play with.

I hope we can figure this out because I would love to be using this plugin.

Thanks, Chuck

30311_PA_test.skp

driven

you didn't have any scenes?
this works on 10.5.8
log showing what's happening

Hi Chuck,

I still loose edges during the animation, but no crashes,

At first, I could only add up to 3 extra moves before crash, then I realised there were no scenes, and your transitions times in model prefs was 8 secs...

Moris,
So, is it meant to generate the scenes? I added each scene manually then switched to my next hash and refreshed in the PA dialog box.

which also needs to show_modal for mac's, I'd tweak it myself but it's encrypted..

cheers

john

otb designworks

Thanks John, for your further investigations.

I, too, am using 10.5.8

I didn't think that scenes were necessary for the plugin to work. How can I set up all my actions and check things for proper motion before I am ready to set up my scenes?

Looking forward to a solution!

driven

chuck, other then adding the scenes, I didn't use it's dialog for anything...
I guess I should of turned all or off most the update items list, here's a pic
Scroll down to see empty dialog

that way you can move around as much as you want, and commit at the end, or leave open...