Animation in SketchUp

morisdov

Because your maximum "live" frame-rate is coincidentally about 25 fps?

I have implemented a high resolution javascript timer via webdialog, wrapped in a ruby class.
The problem is RACE CONDITIONS. After quite some time on workarounds I think its best to stay with the native API timer with its limitation of firing every one second, or 0 seconds if you specify a value smaller than 1 - ie almost immediatly, depending on your CPU speed and model complexity - roughly 80 to 20 times a second.

As replieed to me, the "rough" animationts in "proper animation" plugin seem to satisfy the "quick to result" sketchers using it.
The general direction of reasoning for plugin design seems to me should be of whats the most bare basic minimal functionality required for a plugin to carry its name, whats the next basic feature to add .... etc

Developing a fair plugin takes quite a few hours and with support and refining goes up to tens of hours easyly, gross.
For a really nice rounded animation solution, or any other nice plugin, you will go up to hundreds of hours gross total invested - and the next day your investment can become irrelevant by forces you dont control.

I have grown to become a big believer in using the right tool for the job - dont be fanatically limited to sketchup, use it as a sketcher and enjoy todays sketchy animation plugins

MartinRinehart

@morisdov said:

I think its best to stay with the native API timer with its limitation of firing every one second,

Huh? I'm using UI.start_timer( 1.0/fps, true ) (fps usually 25) and getting nice, smooth animations.

thomthom

@martinrinehart said:

@morisdov said:

I think its best to stay with the native API timer with its limitation of firing every one second,

Huh? I'm using UI.start_timer( 1.0/fps, true ) (fps usually 25) and getting nice, smooth animations.

Did a quick test:

t=Time.now; i=0;id = UI.start_timer(1.0, true) { puts Time.now - t; i+=1; UI.stop_timer(id) if i > 9 }; 826 1.015 2.027 3.041 4.056 5.07 6.085 7.097 8.111 9.125 10.14

t=Time.now; i=0;id = UI.start_timer(1.0 / 2, true) { puts Time.now - t; i+=1; UI.stop_timer(id) if i > 9 }; 783 0.045 0.072 0.093 0.113 0.132 0.151 0.171 0.19 0.211 0.23

Note that the timer set to less than one second doesn't trigger every half second as you'd expect it to. The results are the same if it's 1.0 / 2 or 1.0 / 10 ...

thomthom

Seems that when the timer is less than a second it's the same as a normal loop, the timer code block will trigger as fast as I can.

Jim

You may be getting smooth animations, but they are not 25 fps. When you use a timer, the animations play as fast as your computer can play them because the timer rounds the fractional second down to near zero.

It's not terribly important, in my opinion because you can still generate the correct frame-rate when exporting images to compile into an animation; and also renderers can do the same. It is only the in-sketchup animation that will be incorrect.

MartinRinehart

ThomThom and Jim:

Thank you!

Chris Fullmer

@jim said:

It's not terribly important, in my opinion because you can still generate the correct frame-rate when exporting images to compile into an animation; and also renderers can do the same. It is only the in-sketchup animation that will be incorrect.

+1

I agree completely. I don't think that main desire for animations is to make something move inside of SU, but to make something move that can be output inside a video. It should also be viewable in SU, but the final output only needs to be accurate in the video for my needs.

Chris

thomthom

Does help if SU can display an approximate - so you get a feel of the animation before you render.

MartinRinehart

I'm going to try to make stuff move in SketchUp. And move at the rate I specify. Chapter 16 has now been re-purposed to Animation. Will I get an accurate (or at least more-or-less accurate) frame rate using Animation?

What we are saying here is that Lininger's article on timers was dead wrong. Are you comfortable with that?

When I use a timer, I get smooth animation. For example, a clock hand rotates from 3 to 6. When I use a loop, the clock hand just jumps 90 degrees. SU somehow sees that invalidate() is a waste of time in the latter case? Or the timer wastes so many clocks that SU has time to redraw, or ... I'm not comfortable. Forging ahead, but not comfortable.

thomthom

@martinrinehart said:

When I use a timer, I get smooth animation. For example, a clock hand rotates from 3 to 6. When I use a loop, the clock hand just jumps 90 degrees. SU somehow sees that invalidate() is a waste of time in the latter case? Or the timer wastes so many clocks that SU has time to redraw, or ... I'm not comfortable. Forging ahead, but not comfortable.

Not sure what it actually do, but it's clear that plain loops locks up the processing completely preventing UI to redraw. I'm guessing that timers will allow other things to process after each execution of the block, while loops keep it's control.

Chris Fullmer

I think animation in SU, however it is achieved, is susceptible to skipping if the model is large, or vast amounts of data are being animated. Try it in a DC. DC's animate objects and you can put them on a timer. The more complex the object being animated is, the bumpier the live animation is.

But if it could be exported to a video, then it wouldn't matter so much.