Keyframe Animation Error! (tweens creation)

[ppmmonteiro]

Hi everybody, i started to use Keyframe Animation yesterday, its amazing how you can move things so easily.
My problem starts when i try to create the .tweens file! Using the "MAKE TWEENS" button, the following mesage comes up:"This filename contains illegal characters.", and nothing else!

I tried to change the filename, change the location (desktop/many diferent folders), use just numbers into file and folder names, but nothing worked out!

Could someone help me with this issue?

Thanks a lot!

[Rich O Brien]

does the file amend

.tweens.skp

when you click the make tweens button?

Are you removing the .tweens suffix for any reason?

[ppmmonteiro]

No, the file amends

.skb.tweens

!

I tried to remove the .tweens suffix and it didnt work out, as expected. I emailed Regular Polygon and, for while, they said it could be a bug related to Latin Chacters, that could be in a folder on the path, or in the file name itself.
I tried to rename them using numbers, but it was in vain.

If the "file path" is this thing (C:/Users/Documents/02.skb.tweens), wich are just latin letters, so i dont know what to do.

I really dont understand about computers thing, but i supose that in USA or Europe, you guys use the same Unicode than here in Brazil, dont you? I don´t understand where the problem is!

[Rich O Brien]

.skb is a backup of the .skp

Are you opening .skb files or .skp files?

[ppmmonteiro]

Sorry, you right, its .SKP

[TIG]

Without fuller details of your folder-paths, file-names etc we can't be sure...
Do any of them contain any characters that are NOT standard ASCII characters - e.g. 'accented-characters' that you might use in Portuguese, BUT will cause many Ruby processes severe heartache...
If so then try renaming folders/files to avoid the issue...
For example
São_Paulo
must be
Sao_Paulo
etc...
that single ã in a file-path WILL break many of Ruby's File/Dir methods...

[Bob James]

Same song: new lyrics
When I try to create tweens, the new Layers dialog pops up with all of the tweens, but then SU hangs.
There is one tab (1-001), but then the next (and only other tab) says "delay" and SU goes "Not Responding"

Since I'm trying KA for the first time, my model is very simple: a series of door segments one by one being raised vertically.

---

[Regular Polygon]

@ppmmonteiro said:

My problem starts when i try to create the .tweens file! Using the "MAKE TWEENS" button, the following mesage comes up:"This filename contains illegal characters.", and nothing else!

Actually, I already told ppmmonteiro that this error is due to Latin (i.e. non ASCII) characters in the file path. They can cause the file name to be invalid if you are saving a file via the API. (For example, using Sketchup.active_model.save.) So, if my script finds non ASCII characters, it generates that error message, rather than save the model, and then exits.

Next, I was going to locate where the Latin character was in the file path, so I could provide an alternative location for him to save the tweens. However, before I could respond, ppmmonteiro posted here. I guess looking for a second opinion.

Anyway, this is not a bug in Keyframe Animation. It is a bug in the SketchUp Ruby API. Any plugin will have this problem if the file path has characters in a foreign alphabet.

[Regular Polygon]

@bob james said:

Same song: new lyrics

In your case, the tweens are being created, it is just taking an inordinate amount of time to generate them. It is the Layers Dialog, which you have open, that is slowing everything down. The problem is that SketchUp tries to update the dialog, while it is creating the geometry, which slows it to a crawl. If you close the dialog, the tweens will be generated in a fraction of the time.

The same thing goes for the Scenes Manager dialog, and the Model Info | Statistics panel.

[TIG]

The main issues with non-ASCII characters in file-paths causing failures or incorrect results in the Ruby API are with File and Dir. There is a thread where we are trying to resolve this issue... BUT Ruby 1.8.6 is susceptible to problems with UTF strings, and hard to 'trick' !
If the error is only trapped when saving the SKP, then have you tried the alternative code [idiotically undocumented, but cross-platform]: Sketchup.send_action("saveDocument:")
This might work ?

[ppmmonteiro]

Hi everybody, im glad with all your help and it was really usefull! In particular i wanna thank Regular Polygon, because they were impeccable in solving this issue.
My ignorance in computers maybe have generated this feeling that the bug was in the KeyFrame Animation Plugin, but now i realize that not.
Anyway, last night i was desperate and restless,so i started to retry what Regular Polygon told me , to save the file in a flash drive. I tried in other two i have and then, the third one worked out, with this file name: 2.tweens

I still dont understand how to fix it, however, my principal issue is now solved, the tweens creation is working out and that quite easy! Im gonna take care of this particular flash drive.

Now im looking for the better way to render this images to create a photosequence, and then use FinalCut or something like this to edit the video. I hope that its not impossible.

Although i´m not certain, i´m studing Kerkythea to do this, but still with no tangible results.

Once again i thank everybody for the help, and for now ScketchUcation and KeyFrame Animation will be part of my daily basis.

My best Regards.

Pedro

[Regular Polygon]

@tig said:

If the error is only trapped when saving the SKP, then have you tried the alternative code [idiotically undocumented, but cross-platform]: Sketchup.send_action("saveDocument:")
This might work ?

That is interesting. I didn't know there was a saveDocument: action.

Unfortunately, though, this method only saves the current model. I need to save the current model as a different file. As far as I know, the only way to do it is, Sketchup.active_model.save(path2). But, then there is a problem if path2 contains non-ASCII characters.

[Regular Polygon]

I released an update, Keyframe Animation 1.6.1, which has a workaround for this problem.

Now the tweens will be created, and you can save them anywhere on your hard drive, no matter what language you are using.