[Plugin]$ Keyframe Animation

dedmin

@regular polygon said:

@tfdesign said:

A great plugin, but I think your price is a little on the steep side.

Well, I guess the market will ultimately decide this issue. But, compared to other commercial animation plugins, I thought the price was a bargain.

SketchUp was offered by Google to be a non-elitist app for everyone- why I imagine, it was offered for free, but for someone living in a 3rd-world country, or someone on unemployment benefit (and there is a lot of it about these days) $20 is a lot of money. Compared to say the SDS plugin, which IMO does something a lot more complex, and costs $2 more. Or how about even FredoScale, which is a dynamite plugin, but donationware. Please, don't get me wrong, and I'm sure your plugin will do very well, but again it will be richer countries like America who will be able to afford the more basic, yet essential payware plugins, leaving many in poorer nations, out (again).

Tom

I'm in the worst position - living in the poorest country member of the EU, with almost European prices but with 3rd-world salaries! Average salary here 300 euro, 1 liter gasoline - 1.25 euro! But this plugin is well worth the money! Great work!

tallbridgeguy

Thanks for fixing it! I will give it another go.

Update: It works great now!

Update: I got it to work in kerkythea.

Stuart

cperkins

youdaman! Sketchup stock just jumped 10 points! Here's a quick one exported from Sketchup, animating 4 levels deep. I'll post a rendered version later on. Thanks again!

[flash=400,225:2kxqbjh1]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=22511394&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0[/flash:2kxqbjh1]

dtrarch

Hello tfdesign

On the price please.
We are all conditioned to the generousity of our friends here on the Forum and perhaps just expect everything to be for free.
Keyframe Animation is offered as a commercial plugin and if it is to be used as tool for professional work and profit the price seems more than fair.
It the use is just for fun then one must just accept that it is a pay to play deal and affordability is moot.
Perhaps a fair rule for use is to either pay if asked for or at least thank the authors for those plugins that one actually uses.
There really is no such thing as the proverbial free lunch.
What a treasure this SuperForum is.

My most personal thanks from to all who share their creative skills and generous good help here on this Forum.
We all know who you are.

dtr

Regular Polygon

@tallbridgeguy said:

Thanks for fixing it! I will give it another go.

Update: It works great now!

Update: I got it to work in kerkythea.

I am glad that solved the problem. Thanks for the update.

@cperkins said:

youdaman! Sketchup stock just jumped 10 points! Here's a quick one exported from Sketchup, animating 4 levels deep. I'll post a rendered version later on. Thanks again!

That animation is great!
It is a good example of nested animated components. Thanks for sharing your work.

tallbridgeguy

Hi is the download link broken for windows?

s

Regular Polygon

Well, that is strange. Firefox downloads the installer just fine. But IE claims the file is not found.

OK, the link on the Download page should work for either browser now. I zipped up the installer, and IE seems to be content.

@tallbridgeguy:
Thanks for that.

tallbridgeguy

No problem, I have been playing with the plugin. It works great!

tallbridgeguy

Here is a quick tutorial I made showing what I am doing.

If you watch it full screen at 720p it is tolerable....

Thanks!

YouTube - tallbridgeguy-keyframe animation Tutorial
[flash=853,510:2nvj5w9m]http://www.youtube.com/v/UxUMMdSJTgs?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:2nvj5w9m]

Regular Polygon

Thanks for the tutorial. I learned some things about using Kerkythea.

The plugin to export the animation to Kerkythea is su2kt.rb by Tomasz. It works great, but you still have to stitch together the images generated by Kerkythea to make a movie, which is one more step.

If rendering is not required, there is a quick way to export your animation directly from SketchUp. Just create the tween scenes using the Keyframe Animation plugin. Then export the tweens to a movie using the SketchUp utility, File > Export > Animation.

cperkins

nice tutorial tbg. I've been editing the actual .xml file to change max iterations on progressive settings.. your way is much easier

Have your tried exporting to Kerky after creating the .tweens file? I used su2kt's batch scene export and got it over fine but the resolution doesn't hold. It ends up being about 200x200 every time. Maybe it's something I overlooked. I'm pretty sure I've been choosing the 'match scene resolution' option from the export dialog.

tallbridgeguy

Hi cperkins, I have exported tween files with su2kt and it worked great.

BUT I have only used the setting in the dialog like 640x480, 800x600...not the match scene option. I will give it a try tonight and see what happens? I am sorta surprised we can't change it later in KT to anything we want?

Maybe check your camera setting and see if it set to 200x200 the default?

s

peweuk

Great plug-in - but can anyone tell me why the exported video (attached is output from SU 8 using V1.4) is so blurry at the edges.

router.avi

I must be missing a setting or something somewhere

Regular Polygon

Hi peweuk,

The most likely culprit is the anti-alias setting in the Options dialog. If you don't check it, the edges will be quite blurry.

peweuk

@unknownuser said:

The most likely culprit is the anti-alias setting in the Options dialog. If you don't check it, the edges will be quite blurry.

I already tried that - the video I attached had Anti-alias switched on (it is exactly the same as when it is switched off).

Regular Polygon

My only other guess is that the edge styles might have an effect. All edges are a little blurry. So, the thinner they are, the better. I would turn off things like Profiles, Depth cue, etc., and see if that improves the quality.

peweuk

@unknownuser said:

I would turn off things like Profiles, Depth cue, etc., and see if that improves the quality.

Unfortunately everything is turned off -

@unknownuser said:

So, the thinner they are, the better.

where is the thickness setting?

rohallorah

@regular polygon said:

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd mention that version 1.4 is available. There is now a toolbar to facilitate the animation process. Here's a screenshot:

[attachment=0:269n9yz7]toolbar overview.png[/attachment:269n9yz7]

Thanks

Look forward to trying out the new version!!

Ecuadorian

Is there a way to export these animations as FBX?

Marian

I had an Idea today . Would it be possible for the plugin to detect scale deformations or other modifications to the mesh not only its position? Now that would make it a game changer