Scenes and Physics Simultaneously?

Ace Baker

Is it possible to export video in which scenes change while a physics simulation is running? If so, how?

Thanks.

Gaieus

Hi Ace,

Mostly ou can use a screen capturing application like (the free) CamStudio or if you are willing (and able) to shell out some cash, there is Twilight Render which can export beautifully rendered animations of SP. See some on YouTube below:

Ace Baker

I'm sorry Gaieus, but you did not understand my question. The Twilight renders that you linked to are nice physics simulations, but there is only one scene. In other words, the camera does not move.

In Sketchup, you can create many "scenes", each with a different camera location. You can export an animation, and the camera will interpolate smoothly from one scene to the next.

With SketchyPhysics, you can make physics simulations.

I want to do BOTH at the same time - transition from one scene (camera view) to another, while a simulation is running, and export that as video.

Is this possible, or not, and if so, how?

Gaieus

Well, at about 0:10 there is a camera movement in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPSKm8IzeSU

(Note that I am not using SP - so I will not be able to help with technical details - just happened on your post where you asked video export)

Ace Baker

In the video you linked, the physics simulation stops when the camera moves. See?

I'm wondering if it is possible to do both simultaneously. And if so, how? "Simultaneously" means "occurring at the same time".

I'm having great difficulty locating documentation for SketchyPhysics. Is there a proper user guide anywhere?

Mr.K.1

It's a tricky one, it seems they can't work at the same time, but that would be fixable if you could access scene transition control through Ruby, but I didn't find any of that either.

So the last resort would be to implement your own transition script that will run in SP, a simple interpolation should be a good start, probably won't be as good as SU transitions tho.
Haven't got much time today but maybe I'll have time to cook something up tomorrow.

As for the SP documentation, well it's fairly scarce, apart from the basic knowledge on SketchyPhysics Wiki the only sure fire way to work something out is by going through the files.
If you're looking for something in particular maybe I can help you out.

Ace Baker

Thanks for the input Mr. K. I wouldn't know how begin scripting scene changes. If you could figure it out, I'm sure it would be very popular. I know I'm not the only one that would like to do it.

Mr.K.1

I think I got the basic thing down, seems to work pretty close to the default SU scene animation just a little smoother, but this only does camera/view transitions (hidden objects, layers and styles wont change).

Anyway script is in the yellow box, copy that to your model and it should work on it's own, and you can set transition time in the script on line @transition_time=100, howmany SketchyPhysics frames it should take between scenes.

page_transition.skp

Ace Baker

Thanks Mr. K. I can't wait to try it out, I'll report on how it goes.

Ace Baker

Running your model works fine. I added some physics to your yellow box, it still worked fine.

Then I changed the camera view in Scene 2, so that the Yellow Box stayed in view. When the simulation began, it appeared to be running the old Scene 2, not the new one. So I guess I don't understand how to update Scenes so that the script sees the updates. Before the simulation ended, Sketchup crashed. Possibly related to updating the scene, possibly a coincidence.

Then I pasted the script into my model, and tried to run the simulation. I got a long error message. It wouldn't let me copy the text of the error message, otherwise I'd post it. The error message contained a lot of the script, I can see that.

I had pasted the script into the UI of a group that has physics going on. Is that the right thing to do? Does it matter which object I paste the script into?

Mr.K.1

Well the best thing to do is just copy the box into your model, then you always know where you have the script and it's always as it was.
And by unchecking the OnTick field you can disable the scene transitions when not needed.

I tested scene updating many times and didn't run into problems, could be a freak thing.
The script always gets scene information from SU so if it's showing the old scene then it wasn't yet updated, maybe it was still updating it and crashed because of that...

Ace Baker

Yes! Brilliant!! I copied the yellow box, and my model now magically does scenes and physics simultaneously. It's the magic yellow box!

Thank you Mr. K. Now I just have to learn how to capture and export the animations. I'm sure it has to do with the red record button in SP. I'll try to find a tutorial.

Thanks again.

Ace Baker

I captured an animation using the red "toggle recording" button. After stopping the physics, it prompted me for "save animation", which I did.

Then I did
Plugins / SketchyReplay / Export animation

And it made the correct number of frames, but the images were not correct, there was no physics and no camera movement either.

I'm still struggling to find out if I have the right SP, I believe I'm running 3.1, that's what it says in Plugins / SketchyPhysics / Version Number. But I downloaded 3.2. The installer file is named:

SetupSketchyPhysics3.2-Dec2

but then the subtitle of the file says:

SketchyPhysics3.1 Setup.

So I'm confused again.

wyatt

If you want to export the camera view using Sketchy Replay you need to look at the file the industrious Mr. K posted in this topic:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=36029

DanYHKim

I have an animation of a SketchUp/Sketchyphysics model with changing POV in camera on a website that I manage. I wanted to create an interesting short video clip derived from the Project Lead the Way logo that I could use for branding any videos that we make. The site is http://pltw.nmsu.edu

The 'physics' elements are moving on their own, but I also have a sphere that is hidden, which is attached to a servo, causing it to swing around the model in a wide arc. Before recording, I attach the camera to this sphere using the 'camera follow' context menu item. There is a second hidden sphere that is attached to a piston, which makes it travel from one end of the logo figure to the center. The two joints are controlled by the same control slider, so they go through their ranges simultaneously and proportionately. The camera is set to 'camera track' the sphere that is on the piston.

On run, I immediately pause the simulation. I set the camera placement and orientation, then set the camera track/follow. I then resume the simulation and also start CamStudio video screen capture software. I let the simulation run for a few seconds, then slowly move the control slider, which pulls the camera in its arc from below the logo figure to a point directly above it. At the same time, the camera's view is tracking the ball on the piston track, making it end looking straight down onto the logo figure when the tracked ball is in the center of the logo.

I recorded this simulation several times, using different line and surface settings. All of the recorded video is then remixed using Adobe Premier to give me the desired full effect.

This was done using SketchUp 7 (free) and SketchyPhysics 3

DanYHKim

This is a second option for scene transitions during a SketchyPhysics simulation. Again, I wanted to produce a video clip to use as the title/branding of a video we produced. An example is found in the first 35 seconds of the embedded video on my website: http://pltw.nmsu.edu/cPage.aspx?pageid=event&queryid=110419

In this simulation, I used a Photo Match to guide me in modeling a clock tower that is an iconic feature of the College of Engineering. I particularly wanted to convey the transition of ideas from the familiar (clock face with moving hands) to the esoteric (Vertical Wind Turbine) and finally the concrete (Clock tower in the courtyard). After roughly modeling the tower, I added the clock face and hands, as well as the turbine. One clock hand and the turbine itself were attached to motors, making them spin.

Created one scene where the clock face is centered in the frame, and the face fills the frame. Created a second scene where the lower face and axis of the turbine is centered and fills the scene. These have some equivalency to convey the idea of relatedness. Finally, I used the Photo Match scene to superimpose the model and the photo.

After starting CamStudio video screen recorder, I centered on the clock face scene and started the simulation. I recorded the clock face simulation, then stopped and moved to the turbine scene. Restart the simulation to record the turbine scene, using X-ray surfaces. I then clicked on the Photo Match scene tab. Since the simulation is still running, the scene transition ran only one frame, then stopped, but the simulation is still running. I rapidly and repeatedly clicked the Photo Match scene tab to move the scene transition a frame at a time. When the transition was done, I recorded for some more seconds, then ended the simulation and recording.

Using Adobe Premier, I imported the captured video and edited it, using cross-fade transitions between the first two scenes. The final transition to the photo match scene seemed to slow down asymptotically as I was clicking the scene tab, so I needed to accelerate the framerate of the scene transition to make it appear more even.

This is a rather crude way to achieve simultaneous scene transition with physics simulation, but it worked for this clip.

Ace Baker

@ DanYHKim (or anyone) . . .

I'm willing to pay a reasonable fee if someone can get my animation exported to a quicktime movie. The physics simulation and camera movements all work fine. I capture the animation fine. For some reason when I export the animation, it's missing the physics.

If you would like to try the file, please send me an email. Thanks.

-Ace Baker
acebaker1234 [at] yahoo [dot] com

August

@ace baker said:

... if someone can get my animation exported to a quicktime movie. The physics simulation and camera movements all work fine. I capture the animation fine. For some reason when I export the animation, it's missing the physics. ...

Ace, did you ever solve this?

Gaieus

SP animations cannot be exported simply with the native SU (scene) animation tools. You can export it with Twiligh Render for instance (get someone to export it for you that way). It will even be much "nicer"