SimFonIA Animation Tools (SAT)

[jgb]

OK, I played with SAT for a few hours today, and my response here to my experiences will be split in 2 parts.

Part 1; (today) is what problems I encountered as a newbie to SAT and my climb up the learning curve.
It will be largely what problems I encountered with the documentation, examples, the APP itself and some suggestions for improvement. I will define as best I can what I was doing and what happened, that in my opinion, was wrong, inconsistent or incomplete as an example of "how to".

Part 2: (starting tomorrow) will be a sort of tutorial based on my climb up the curve, without comments regarding stuff in part 1. The 1st one will cover installation, the documentation, and initial exercises with the KeyFrame Editor.
Later if the SimFonIA team wish to incorporate into their own tutorial any that I have written, they are welcome to do so.

I got interested in SAT because for years I have been seeking a good animation plugin for SU. I have certain needs that may not apply to others, but I love to design stuff (aerospace mostly) having a background in that area, and SU gave me the tools to draw in 3D that Autocad could not. I have a mountain of paper drawings for concepts that I have just scratched the top of the heap putting into SU. What I needed most was an articulation function that would allow me to link moving parts and see what happens as bits move. I don't just design the "outsides" I design the structures and mechanics as well to prove to myself the concepts will work.

I found SketchyPhysics and it seemed to give me much of what I needed. Others did magic with it, proving it could be done. But for me, it was near impossible to learn to the extent I needed.
Other animation plugins were nowhere near what I needed.

Then last week I discovered SAT in another thread. I went through their website, and although disappointed it was not free, at least it was somewhat inexpensive and had a free trial download.

So I downloaded the trial version.
It seemed to install as instructed, but the toolbar failed to expand. I reinstalled, same. Then I closed/opened SU and the TB was there, as suggested by SimFonIA_Team (back up this thread).
As noted before, there is NO SAT tutorial or how-to manuals. I went through several of the PDF's but as a newbie, they were a bit opaque. The Documentation webpage says: must keep the "User Guide" at your side. but I printed the UG and found it to be lacking as a User Guide. It does explain the features of SAT, but not how to use them, nor even where to start as a newbie. It gets into technical details before you know whats what. Read it once and put it aside.
The "General Introduction" is a better first read. Print it. But it is still not anywhere near a tutorial or "how-to" guide.
From what I had seen so far I figured the "Keyframe Editor" [KFE] was a good place to start.
PRINT THIS PDF This is where to start.
Read it first. Then start on PAGE 9 EXAMPLE 3. If you try stuff before that, nothing works, because there are a few quirks to SAT that are not obvious, primarily the need to use the "Transformation Processor" [TP] when defining a keyframe sequence. The TP part that is linked from the KFE (the transformation name), should be part of the KFE dialog box. In fact the whole Keyframe Editor Dialog box needs an overhaul. It is a bit confusing, disjointed and takes up way too much screenspace.

The dinnerbell just rang, so I'll continue 1st thing Tues am with the rest of the story and a suggested new KFE layout.

[SimFonIA_team]

Hello Jgb,

Thank you for your argumented return. You are raising a very interesting problem that we we did not have considered.

Indeed we have designed the documentation for a user who begins its learning by working on the transformation-processor. It is the cornerstone of SAT and as soon as you have understood its use-philosophy everything should be clear.

But your experience is showing us that a user can starts with functions which are of interest for him ( bullet and keyframe in your case). What results in misunderstandings like the one you justly notice :

@jgb said:

primarily the need to use the "Transformation Processor" [TP] when defining a keyframe sequence. The TP part that is linked from the KFE (the transformation name), should be part of the KFE dialog box.

So keep on reviewing, it is very interesting for us and we will for sure take your remarks into account.

@jgb said:

Later if the SimFonIA team wish to incorporate into their own tutorial any that I have written, they are welcome to do so.

Thank you this is a very interesting proposal! If we do so, you'll be informed for sure.

[jgb]

SimFonIA_Team; Thank you for monitoring this thread.

To all, sorry for the no-show yesterday.
The "old Battleax" pre-empted my entire day.

Right now I am looking into what may be an interference of Curviloft and SimFonIA.
Back here real soon.

It's a problem with my "shape". Posting it to the Curviloft thread.
Curviloft seems OK with SimFonIA.

[emerald15]

Hi jgb

Just thought you'd like to know your review of SimfonIA is of great interest & much appreciated. I started working with Sketchyphysics but had the same problems I think some others did. Sad, but it doesn't look like those problems are going to get resolved. So, although I'm still dabbling (not essential to my work but has potential) I'm very interested to hear how SimfonIA is measuring up.

Keep posting... we're reading every word. Thanks

[jgb]

Well, it is Wed, mid afternoon. Continuing from where I left off.........

I loaded "Example 1a.skp" and watched it move. I did the examples suggested in the KFE PDF with ease. I added a few more moves and they worked as well.
Same with example 1b. But it showed me nothing more than I found out playing with 1a. Example 1c looked exactly the same as 1b. I also tried 2a, 2b and 2c, but ran out of "play" time to master what they were demonstrating. I really need to master "waving around" multiple groups, with independent motion, as this is a major area that I will be exploiting.
Here's what I found so far with the Keyframe Editor. Some may be attributed to my ignorance of all it can do, but when I try a new S/W app or plugin I expect a certain intuitiveness and consistency of operation. Then I hit the doc's to find out more. In this case, the KFE PDF offered little clarity, up to the point where I was at exercise 2a/b & c (page 12 is where I am here).

1- From what I've seen so far, the KFE depends on the Transformation Processor for only 1 function, that is "Animation Name" and the TP is "mode sensitive" to the KFE. So if an object is not selected, the TP does NOT display the expected Animation dialog. Took a while to understand this.
In my mind, that function should be part of the KFE dialog, not a separate dialog. And I would suggest the objects' name be taken from the SU group or components name, to avoid confusion later when there are multiple moving objects.

2- When an animation finishes, the object deselects and the KFE dialog reverts back to "Camera" mode. This is VERY confusing, when creating or editing a motion sequence.
The KFE should stay in "Animation" mode and the object should stay selected. When I had 2 groups that coincided at time 0.0 and each had different sequences, it was very difficult to select a specific group to edit, especially re-selecting the group being defined or edited between runs.

3- There seems to be no way to STOP an animation part way through, only pause. You have to wait for it to finish. Not to big a problem when the trial limits you to 10 seconds, but later when the runs are longer that will be a big problem.
You need a "Stop/Quit" button on the toolbar. Preferably it should stop where it is and if time 0.0 is wanted, use the "goto" button

4- There seems to be no easy way to update a time sequence, other than creating a new one with the changes and deleting the old one. For example, changing the time from say, 2.0 to 2.1. Or swapping positions of time 2.0 and 3.0.
If the Keyframe list were dynamic, I would just change the time (or name, or objects position in SU). Add an "update" icon next to the "delete" icon to make the change. Then the "create/add" keyframe dialog would be just that.

5- In playing I royally screwed up a long Keyframe list, so I wanted to start over, rather than take the time to try to fix it. Without saving, I reloaded the same file into the session. The object reverted to the last saved position, as expected, but the keyframe list stayed with the messed up sequences.
The Keyframe list MUST stay current with the last saved SU file version. If not this will lead to problems later when the SU file is edited, or a Bugsplat requires opening the SKB or Autosave files.

6- This one is a SERIOUS bug. I ran a sequence, letting it end normally. I then modified the cube by extruding 2 sides and adding some structure to it, just for the sake of it. I ran the Keyframe sequence and let it end normally. OK so far.
I then hit the UNDO button to revert the object back to a cube. The KFE Watermark said "Rewind" then went back to its' normal view, but at the 8.4 second mark which was the end of the sequence, before the timeout at 10 sec.
The UNDO STACK EMPTIED and there was NO UNDOING any of the edits I made to the cube.
And, the 8 sec watermark STAYED onscreen during subsequent runs, with the running watermark running normal. The 8 sec watermark is deletable, but the cleared UNDO stack is a major problem.
The SU UNDO Stack must be preserved. You can add SAT operations to the stack if you want (the stack is limited to 100 operations) but clearing the stack is a major no-no.

7- I took a hard look at the KFE dialog box. My main critique is the amount of screen space it occupies. So I made a revised version, taking less space and incorporating my comments #1 and #4.

I've attached a before/after pair.

Note the size reduction, and addition of the Transformation Name, the UPDATE Icon, GOTO 0 Sec button and the warning regarding deleting all Keyframes.

I added the GOTO 0 Sec button because that is a given but I often wanted to return to a defined time repeatedly during a list creation or edit.

Hopefully tomorrow I can start the Tutorial based on what (little) I have learned so far.

[jgb]

While writing the tutorial (a bigger job than it seems, especially since I am learning as I write about it) there needs to be some clarification on a few of the previous points I made.

Point # 1 - The Transformation Processor (as far as Keyframes are concerned) does another important function. If you have 2 or more moving groups and therefore 2 or more KFE lists, the TP also ENABLES or DISABLES any KFE List. This allows you to select which group(s) are moving in that run.

3 - Toolbar STOP or Quit button. I now realize the REWIND button does exactly that, although it resets back to Time 0 as does the GOTO 0 button in the KFE, the KFE may not be visible during a run.
I still think a STOP button on the toolbar would be useful if it stopped the object at that point in time (between keyframes) for analysis or to create another keyframe between 2 others and be exactly position accurate when it ran. Tweaking a position midway between 2 keyframs is dicey if you need to place it manually.

5 & 6 - I need to play with these more to validate the conditions. During the tutorial writeup, what I saw happening in these 2 conditions was not consistent, but they DID happen.

The Tutorial is up to 12 pages so far, as a MS Word document, with many screen prints (which take up a lot of page space). It's about 2/3 complete with part 1, dealing only with moving groups around the screen. Part 2 will cover moving the camera POV which is akin to SU Scene manager.

Then I will decide what part 3 will cover. Any suggestions??

[SimFonIA_team]

Hello Jgb,

Well, it is a long work you did there ! Unfortunately it is sometimes difficult to imagine your problem without knowing precisely what case you treat.

So : Points 1,2,3,4,5,7 are possible improvements to the plugin, they are stored on our side and will be discussed for the V2.0. Point 6 is clearly a bug, it is now in the bug-list.

About Part 3 of your exploration I sugest you to take a look at the cornerstone of SAT : the transformation processor )).

[anguscoleman]

Hi, don't know if this is the right place to post my issue, but I tried already to contact assistance service from SAT and I have not got an answer yet.
Well, I am evaluating the plugin by SAT, but I am already stuck. I followed step by step this tutorial on how to animate a character:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QN_zkeUv94&list=FLC977Lpj09izbktbnO3luBw

but when I press Play button, there is no animation. Nothing happens, except a message flashing for a second, that says: "directory or files C:\SATTemp already exsists" and in the SU window appears the sign: "animation in progress", wich remains forever.
Well, can anybody help me?

Thank you very much

Angelo

[duanekemp]

Any further news on development here?