Drawing a line for the camera?

sketchnl

Hello people,

I have a project where people want to see the inside of a house. My problem is animating the camera along a path.
Is there a plugin for this? If yes wich plugin. Please help me out.

Jeremy

mitcorb

I am gonna hazard a guess that it is "Proper Animation"? Search this keyword/phrase in this Forum, maybe.

bentleykfrog

@mitcorb said:

I am gonna hazard a guess that it is "Proper Animation"? Search this keyword/phrase in this Forum, maybe.

I think Proper Animation would be good for animating objects rather than the camera. For camera animations it uses Sketchup scenes.

@sketchnl said:

I have a project where people want to see the inside of a house. My problem is animating the camera along a path.

There's two plugins that I can think of, both could do what you're looking for with a little tweaking.

http://www.smustard.com/script/FlightPath
http://www.smustard.com/script/FlightPath2

FlightPath allows you to take a curve and use it as a camera path. There are a couple of issues with this that could cause some headaches for you. I've had to rely on other plugins to get a good result with FlightPath, so I'll quickly go through them.

The first issue is creating a curve. If you've got a complex path that contains a lot of circles, straight lines and bezier curves thaen you'll need to weld this into one single curve before you start to use the tool. I'm still using the old [url=http://modelisation.nancy.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=474:ztq958a5]Weld plugin by Rick Wilson[/url:ztq958a5] for this job, and it seems to work fine, but Diggsey has written [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=36822:ztq958a5]Recurve Plugin[/url:ztq958a5], which contains a lot more features than Weld, though I'm yet to try it out.

The second issue is the vertices in the curve you've created. FlightPath works by creating a scene at each vertex on your curve, then animating between each scene with Sketchup's scene transitions. It regulates speed by changing the scene transition time rather than changing the vertex position. So this means that if you have vertices placed in an irregular fashion you might get some unusual results. It also means that effects like acceleration are a bit difficult to do. To get evenly spaced vertices I use a tool called [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=13563:ztq958a5]BezierSpline by Fredo6[/url:ztq958a5]. When you right-click on your curve, you have a submenu called "BZ - Convert to". In this submenu you have the option to Polyline Divide. This will give you the option to divide your curve by any number you like. You'll have to play around a bit with the number to get a good result.

There's also a plugin called [url=http://www.ohyeahcad.com/suanimate/:ztq958a5]SU Animate by OhYeahCAD[/url:ztq958a5]. Its very similar to FlightPath in the way it animates the camera, so I won't talk much on it.

Now for a bit of self promotion. I'm currently working on [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=35140:ztq958a5]Sketchup Floating Camera[/url:ztq958a5], which will give you a video game like ability to animate the camera. Its on the shelf at the moment as I've got some uni work that needs dire attention, but when completed it will give some nice physics effects with the camera animation. And coupled with [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=23517:ztq958a5]Chris Fullmer's Camera Recorder[/url:ztq958a5], it will give you the option to edit and smooth out the camera flight path you've recorded, to make presentations nicer. Hopefully I'll get this out in the next 4 weeks, after all the bugs have been ironed out.

hope this helps,

-niall

mitcorb

Hi, bentleykfrog:
Thanks for the correction.

sketchnl

@bentleykfrog said:

@mitcorb said:

I am gonna hazard a guess that it is "Proper Animation"? Search this
hope this helps.....
-niall

Thanks, your posts are very useful

Now you"ve done all. and you've made the flightpath. And then we have a little problem.
How can we flip the animation.

I.ve made a few lines, I welded it, And it's not a close line.
it need to go from right to left but is goes from left to right. How Can I fix this?

mitcorb

If you are using perhaps a Bezier Curve as your path, I think Fredo6 in his Bezierspline script has a setting called "Revert Curve" and I think this changes the orientation of start to end.
Also, I think the new plugin " " by - - has some effect on directionality. Let me check to get the names right and I will return.

That'll be "Recurve" by Diggsey. See in Plugins Index for link to thread.

sketchnl

@sketchnl said:

@bentleykfrog said:

@mitcorb said:

I am gonna hazard a guess that it is "Proper Animation"? Search this
hope this helps.....
-niall

Thanks People, this is so useful

bentleykfrog

@sketchnl said:

@sketchnl said:

@bentleykfrog said:

@mitcorb said:

I am gonna hazard a guess that it is "Proper Animation"? Search this
hope this helps.....
-niall

Thanks People, this is so useful

No worries Jeremy.

Here's the link to Revert Curve by Fredo6

sketchnl

@bentleykfrog said:

@sketchnl said:

@sketchnl said:

@bentleykfrog said:

@mitcorb said:

I am gonna hazard a guess that it is "Proper Animation"? Search this
hope this helps.....
-niall

Thanks People, this is so useful

No worries Jeremy.

Here's the link to Revert Curve by Fredo6

Thanks bentleyfrog