Animation Walkthru....What to use?

tinanne

Jakob, this is very interesting and I would really like to have a go at this process, but I'm having trouble understanding what your saying. Any chance you can post a quick SU model with your instructions?

plot-paris

I am afraid I have to do that tomorrow - for I am thoroughly pissed at the moment
but I'll definitely try to set up a proper tutorial at some point.

Panga

For a better render of walkthrough animation, don't forget Kerkythea, it's free, really simple to set up a walkthrough from sketchup scenes. For me the best way to achieve a good animation.

http://www.kerkythea.net

Bye.

kwistenbiebel

@plot-paris said:

the best way to get nice results is to use flightpath2, I think. if you get TransitionTimeEditor as well, it is quite easy to get some nice animations. you can buy both scripts in a presentation bundle at smustard for 14$.

now you only have to get fredo6's bezier curve plugin to create the camera path. and if you wan't to have it really easy, get the free camera line plugin from smustard as well.

and thats the procedure (I have only tested the use of cameralines once. but the rest definitely works great):

first you set up the scenes you want with SketchUp

then you use the CameraLine script (under the camera menu). it will create a path of connecting lines between the camera positions. at each connecting point an additional line will point in the viewing direction of each camera.

group the camera direction lines to prevent them from connecting to the camera path

now draw a bezier curve (I recon you use the f- spline, I believe that will stick closest to the path), connecting all the camera points.
make sure to press Ctrl at the beginning of the drawing process to unlock the curve from its drawing plane
group it to seperate it from other geometry.

now draw a second bezier curve that leads from camera aim to camera aim (the tip of the camera direction line), using exactly the same number of control points.
this is important for timing the camera orientation later on.

with both the camera path and the path for the camera focus created, you can delete the lines from the CameraLines script.

next refine the curves by moving vertex points. you can even add control vertexes by double clicking anywhere on the curve or delete them by double clicking them again. but make sure to add/delete exactly the same number of vertexes at the same point of the curve to the camera aim path as you did to the camera path. like that you can ensure, that the camera and the camera aim move at the same speed (because for each segment of the camera path, the aim moves one segment as well). you can ensure that you worked precisely by selecting one curve after the other and compare the number of segments via the Entiti Info window. both have to be the same.
it may be quite difficult to move the points correctly in 3D space. to make it simpler you can use the arrow keys to lock the movement to one of the axes. it is easier to change the position one direction at a time.

now, at last, you can use the flypath cript. choose the first curve as the camera path and then the second curve as Target Path. the script now creates loads of scenes, one for each segment of the curve.

in the animation settings of SketchUp set the delay to 0 and the transition time to a low number (depending of the amount of scenes created and the speed you want).

flightpath2 will manipulate the scene transition times so that no matter how uneven the distribution of vertexes along the curve is, the animation will stick to one speed. if that is what you want, you are finished now.
however, I found it very useful to be able to control the transition time by influencing the number of vertexes at different places of the animation (by adding mor control points).
to achieve that you need to use the TransitionTimeEditor script to set all the scene transition times back to default. like that the animation will speed up when the number of segments of the curve decreases and slow down when there are more segments.

if you want to redo the animation to refine things, delete all the scenes and go over the curves again. the animation curves will be saved on a hdden layer called flight path.

if you work with a big model you should stay at a certain distance of any geometry with your camera to avoid the clipping problem. and don't pass through a shadow or you will face the clipping bug.
if you export the animation as still images with a higher resolution and sample it down to the right size later.

to assemble the images to a video you can use programs like the free virtual dub. you can use a filter to sample down the image size to the desired resolution while creating the animation video.

I hope this was of helf for you. tell us if you find any new tips and tricks. I would love to see some results, if you are allowed to post them.

Thanks for that very good explanation Jakob!
This is probably the best solution (Su-Animate works similar and can do object animation) we have for sketchup for now.
It's not much...but it is something.

But it still remains a real challenge to get decent output.
I am wondering if this process can't be simplified.....
I mean, would it be difficult for one of the ruby wizards to write a new plugin that works easier (or improve the existing ones)?

Setup your scenes.
Run animation script that will create an EDITABLE curve with control points (like Fredos bezier tools) automatically and with immediate effect on the animation.
Easy speed control (sliders ?)

That would be so much easier....

plot-paris

one could even think to combine this with some functionalities of the Film&Stage plugin. so that you have a physical representation of your key-cameras in the model. moving the camera-component actually alters the whole animation, right clicking the camera lets you 'look through it' and change it's position from a first person perspective.
ideally the scenes in-between wouldn't be shown at all (neither as scene tabs, nor in the scene manager). on the other hand, then export to render engines would probably not be possible.

but thats a great idea, kwistenbiebel. I even remember us having a longer thread about that somewhere...

kwistenbiebel

Hi Jakob,

I am currently trying a smooth animation using cameralines.rb , F-spline bezier curve and SU-animate to make the camera path and camera target path into animation frames.

I am experiencing trouble though to get the F-spline to have more than 400 segments, and I would actually need 1171

Any suggestions?

By the way, this is my last attempt on trying to get a smooth animation using sketchup.
Even with combining all these little rubies, it remains tedious.

If I can't sort it out properly, I'll go Cinema4D for all that has to do with animation....

caddict

@panga said:

For a better render of walkthrough animation, don't forget Kerkythea, it's free, really simple to set up a walkthrough from sketchup scenes. For me the best way to achieve a good animation.

Have to agree with this, super easy and fine results

plot-paris

kwistenbiebel,
I am afraid for an animation of that scale (1171 frames! man, thats going to take a while to render ) SketchUp is indeed not the right program at the moment. but perhaps at some time all our suggestions will find their way into one almighty ruby. and then it will be a piece of cake to set up some nice film scenes...

perhaps we should file through the 'mighty animation' thread and this thread again, get all the good ideas into a list, prop it up a bit with images to show what we want - and then approach all the ruby-masters in the hope that they see the potential...

kwistenbiebel

Yes, but I think it would need the involvement of one of the ruby masters.

I tried hard to get something smooth... using the method we discussed (cameralines.rb / F-spline bezier camera and target paths/ SU-animate or Flightpath2 for creating the frames).
It is a hassle and you can not animate the field of view or animate a changing sun position.
So actually it is not a good solution.

Nevertheless, this was the end result (as in Pibuz' thread):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vEZm-20dVKE&fmt=18

I am still convinced that Sketchup needs a simple timeline solution with recordable keyframes.

caddict

And yet, it seems like a pretty fine result to me!