An exercise: DRAWING A PARISIAN FENCE

TaffGoch

Do not, I repeat "DO NOT" stare at these images for 15 minutes and then try to walk down the stairs!

Not to mention just walking across the room, without losing your lunch!

-Taff

TaffGoch

Simon & Elisei,

I tried using Camstudio, initially, but the results were poor. Camstudio is easy, but doesn't always provide quality results. It's great, for what it is intended, but there is a better option for a "looped" animation of limited frames -- GIF animation software. (This animation is composed of only 15 frames.)

I created the frames from SketchUp 2D exports, rotating the torus 2° each interval, producing 30° total rotation. (This matches the model component rotation of one spiral "tube" to the next.)

I kept the SketchUp viewpoint constant, and rotated the torus, to avoid any camera positioning problems. I could have established 15 camera locations, to produce 15 scenes, but the way I did it was quicker. (Creating 15 camera/scene postions, however, does have the advantage that they can be saved in the model file, for subsequent use.)

I assembled the 15 frames into a GIF animation, using JASC "Animation Shop," which I bought (cheap) over ten years ago. It's my understanding that COREL bought-out JASC. The older "Animation Shop" (vs 3) can be downloaded from several online sites, or you can use one of the MANY other freeware GIF animators, available online.

[NOTE: I used the same technique to create my avatar.]

-Taff

Simon B

Well, it works for me.

More inspiration here

Arc

Play with tours and component stringer.

simon le bon

Can I believe it !!! another Simon B!? + =

Hi Arc ( you have found the link of "your" animated picture in this thread I guess ) You like to play with Component Stringer; me too. nice result.

I have made my own try with animation on this spiral cone . Dear Taff I don't know why I don't reach the smoothness of yours ~~

*simon

TaffGoch

@simon le bon said:

"...Taff I don't know why I don't reach the smoothness of yours..."

Simon,

The first and last frame appear to be the same, which looks like a pause, or stutter, in the animation. I deleted the last frame, and it's somewhat better:

Edited
However, now there's a slight "jump" in the animation. I can only guess that there must have been a variation in the degree-of-rotation for one of the frames.

-Taff

simon le bon

Hi Taff,
Thank you to watch and dissect

I thought the problem was coming from a visual bip due to the duplication of the loop..
In fact I had made mistakes. It is very difficult for me to maintain 15 times the same process. My mind goes away;.

To make it easy and unmistaken, this time, I had rotated copied the SpiralCone 2°x14 (the 15th is the same than the first)
and had placed each copy in its own layer ( 01;02;etc..) and had make them visible one by one.

This time it seems working good

++simon

Box

Just to help possibly simplify the animations for you.
Use scenes, create one scene at front one scene at back( or side to side, whichever works best for you) and export the animation as JPGs.
You can specify how many Frames per second in the export and resolution then combine in the gif program of your choice.

simon le bon

very easy indeed dear Box

Here is my "BoxCube" made in a minute with 41 pics 320X240 = 283 Ko

++simon

Box

Happy to help.
You can use this method for any number of scenes, so the cube can roll over or zoom in and out or even fly off the screen.
And reducing the number of colours in the gif will bring the file size down, I make a lot of animated avatars for people on another site and the file limit there 19.5 kb, so you learn to get everything out of each pixel.

TaffGoch

I found, online, this drawing from an old book...

...and wanted to produce the center "coil" in SketchUp. After trial-and-error with the torus "grid" spacing, I finally was able to model (and render) this:

-Taff

Model available in the Google 3D Warehouse:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=c7113517b4de5d982137e32e8ebf2b1

simon le bon

Dear Taff,

Seems to be an interesting variation of our exercise.
I'm actually a bit too much out of the game to participate actively. You know, holidays, taking some rest, and big business with my garden etc..

first dissection :

friendly, simon

TaffGoch

I didn't think there were enough colors & shadow details in the first render...

-Taff

d12dozr

TaffGoch,

that's psychedelic! Can you pleasetell how you made the color gradients? ...is that done in Kerkythea? The coloring especially is super neat

TaffGoch

@d12dozr said:

...Can you pleasetell how you made the color gradients? ...is that done in Kerkythea? The coloring especially is super neat

Marcus,

I created, in Photoshop, three radial gradients...
SketchUp_materials(textures).png
...for use as projected textures in SketchUp. I scaled and positioned the projected textures, while in SketchUp...

...and, when exported to Kerkythea, the materials are retained as "Diffuse" reflectance bitmaps (with their proper rotated/projected positions):

In the "Material Editor", I added "Specular" and "Fresnel-ramp"(procedural) settings, to give the surfaces a mild metallic appearance.

-Taff

d12dozr

TaffGoch,

Thank you for the explanation, you're like a magician with Sketchup, except that you will share your 'tricks'

TaffGoch

Marcus (and any other interested parties,)

I've attached the Kerkythea "scene" file, so you can examine the material settings for the metallized colors.

I "jazzed" the color/specular settings a bit more:

Metallized colors
I used MLT, and let the render run overnight (about 350 passes.) The above is a 50% scaled jpeg. The original is 1100x1100 pixels.

-Taff

Kerkythea "scene" file

TaffGoch

Before "metallizing;" rendered, straight from SketchUp (no material editing in KT):

![Before "metallizing"](/uploads/imported_attachments/QWjy_Color3.jpg "Before "metallizing"")
-Taff

d12dozr

Thank you Taff.

August

Please forgive me reviving an old thread but this entire thread is definitely one of my all time SketchUcation favorites. The depth of tutorial information in this thread is just awesome.

AND, there is new and hopefully relevant information to add. The GIF that by Cosycat that was posted by simon le bon on Sun Jul 25, 2010 has now officially gone viral.

I have seen it as the Profile image on Facebook by someone who had never heard of SketchUp. It is also regularly used by "vsauce" as a background in many of his videos, as seen here starting at 0:25.

Youtube Video

Just FYI.

August