[Plugin] SAT: animation plugin - Give life to your models!

SimFonIA_team

Hello All,

We are pleased to announce the official Release of SCA (SimFonIA Character Animation).

SimFonIA Character Animator (SCA) is the first extension for SimFonIA Animation Tools (SAT). It allows to create and animate characters by using BVH (Biovision Hierachy) files.

[flash=600,400:29gv4ikd]http://www.youtube.com/v/EWiryJTz1D0[/flash:29gv4ikd]

Sample Files available

The SCA demo version is now included in the SAT demo. You will find information, a video presentation and a tutorial by following this link

Sample files illustrating the main functionalities of SAT can be found here. You will get the folder "SAT_Documents_and_Examples" which contains:

**"SAT_V1_Basic_Shapes"** - simpe basic shapes (not animated).
**"SAT_V1_Documentation_Examples"** - examples used in the documentation (Keyframe, Transformation, Bullet).
**"SAT_V1_Animated_Components_Examples"** - example of animated components.
**"SAT_V1_Basic_Functions_Examples"**(NEW!) - Simple example for each functionnality of SAT.

Best regards,
SimFonIA_Team

Pixero

I'm always interested in seeing additions to animation for SketchUp.
However there isn't really any detailed explanations what those "characteristics" of the different versions are?
I cannot see any price information for the professional versions either. Not having prices in public always makes me suspicious.
There are also some things that indicates limits of use even for the professional versions like web quota?

Also I havent seen any info on what types of keyframe interpolation it has?
What does the keyframe animation interface look like?

All in all interesting but the product is not presented/packaged in a easy to understand way and the different licencing versions are confusing and makes choosing the right version difficult.
In my opinion there shouldn't be more than 2 (or maybe max 3) different versions of a product.

Humpmetwice

@pixero said:

I'm always interested in seeing additions to animation for SketchUp.
However there isn't really any detailed explanations what those "characteristics" of the different versions are?
I cannot see any price information for the professional versions either. Not having prices in public always makes me suspicious.
There are also some things that indicates limits of use even for the professional versions like web quota?

Also I havent seen any info on what types of keyframe interpolation it has?
What does the keyframe animation interface look like?

All in all interesting but the product is not presented/packaged in a easy to understand way and the different licencing versions are confusing and makes choosing the right version difficult.
In my opinion there shouldn't be more than 2 (or maybe max 3) different versions of a product.

Very well said and I also agree!

SimFonIA_team

Hello Pixero and humpmetwice,

@unknownuser said:

However there isn't really any detailed explanations what those "characteristics" of the different versions are?

As said previously in this post the characteristics of different versions are available here : http://www.simfonia.fr/SAT/index.php?page=compare. But maybe the table is not clear (?), so feel free to ask more precise questions.

@unknownuser said:

I cannot see any price information for the professional versions either. Not having prices in public always makes me suspicious.

I understand your distrust but it is a common practice for professional software. Several reasons for this:

- The price is a strategic lever, especially for users who take several licenses. 


- Exchanging with customers allows us to offer a product tailored to their needs.


- Companies may have other needs, including services (training, special supports, modeling ..)

Thus, to get the price of professional licenses, simply send an email to contact.sat (at) Simfonia (dot) com to exchange B2B.

@unknownuser said:

All in all interesting but the product is not presented/packaged in a easy to understand way and the different licencing versions are confusing and makes choosing the right version difficult.
In my opinion there shouldn't be more than 2 (or maybe max 3) different versions of a product.

If you look at our offer, we can say that an individual user has everything he needs with the office Version. The professional licenses are indeed more dedicated to cloud, multi-team work, industrial support and specific applications. That said, do not hesitate to make suggestions about our version policy (for example if you want us to integrate additional options in the version of Office). We are on sketchucation in order to communicate about the tool but also to get feedback from the sketchup community.

Best regards,
SimFonIA_team

P.S: About the "Key frame processor": I'll ask our developer team about the interpolation method. Regarding the interface, simply download the trial version to get an opinion.

SimFonIA_team

@pixero said:

Also I havent seen any info on what types of keyframe interpolation it has?
What does the keyframe animation interface look like?

  Hello Pixero,

For the transformation Keyframes SAT uses Sketchup's algorithm, for deformation Keyframes SAT uses an algorithm of our own (based on linear interpolation between vertices) and for the camera Keyframe SAT uses a Catmull-Rom Spline.

Does anyone in sketchucation tried to use the transformation processor? We understand that people are used to a classical workflow based on Keyframes, but the cornerstone of SAT is precisly the transformation processor.

Regards,
SimFonIA.team

congellous

Does this plug in work with OSX ?

SimFonIA_team

Hello all,

Some time ago, I explained the concept of procedural animation to jgb in these terms:

@unknownuser said:

To understand the philosophy of external data-files, it is interesting to look our use of SAT. SimfonIa is indeed an engineering company. Our main task is to predict the behavior of complex systems like an aeronautical hydraulic pump, a battery for hybrid car or a smart-grid network for residential complex. A simple worflow would be:

Our customer want to predict the fall of an apple => Newton gives us the gravitational equation => our simulator solve the equation => we deliver curves, Excel datasheets and analysis to our customer

SAT was thus developed in order to emphasis the work with a video showing the result: the falling apple… That is what we call procedural animation. It is a really interesting perspective for customers to be able to see their product live instead of trying to imagine its movement from 10 stacked curves.

And as a video is worth 1000 pictures, here is an illustration of the concept through a project that kept me busy lately.

SimFonIA_team

Hello all,

Firstly I wanted to thank you for the encouragement messages and for welcoming our designer during basecamp 2012 (a great adventure for him). Today we present you some "exotic" applications of our SU tools:

The combination of SU and WebGL export allows for creating interactive assembly / disassembly manuals (think about your IKEA furniture ^^)

- In scientific computing we often need to decompose the physical phenomena in elementary meshes (lumped model, CFD ...). In order to easily visualize the results we are preparing an automatic meshes generator for SU.

Best regards,
Julien From SimFonIA team

SimFonIA_team

Hello all,

Here is a video to show the possibilities of SAT. We illustrate how we might have intervene in the Vauban's Gateway of Patrick (http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=47725). From simple geometries concept to the object in its environment.

SimFonIA_team

And to celebrate Christmas wee also have a special offer : -50% on SAT Office Version (200 €->100 €) and on SCA Extension (150 €->75 €). Available until 02 January 2013 )).

Quick-start guide to come ))

SimFonIA_team

On the advice and with the help of Pilou we have created a quick-start guide for SAT.The objective is to present the philosophy of the transformation processor through the most frequently used functions: rotation and translation. The first part is a short introduction to SU and thus will not be interesting for most of you.

But the next two part will led you to rotate Pilou's weathervane! Normally, after that, nobody should say that our plugin is complicated))

If someone try the challenge we will be very interested in his feedback.

Best regards,
Julien from SimFonIA

Quick_Start_Guide_en_V1.0.pdf

Girouette.skp

Girouette_mouvement_compose.skp

SimFonIA_team

Hello All,

A few words to wish you an happy New Year and to thanks those who bought the plugin during this christmas offer. Don't hesitate to ask your question here or on our email adress if you have questions.

Best regards,
SimFonIA team

SimFonIA_team

last word to remember you that today is the last day of our Christmas offer, do not miss this opportunity ))

driven

@simfonia_team said:

do not miss this opportunity

Hi I tied not to miss this, but now I'm confused if it will all works on mac?

Error Loading File /Users/johns_iMac/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/Plugins/simfonia/SimfoniaLoader.rb
(eval);18;in `require'; no such file to load -- /Users/johns_iMac/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/plugins/simfonia/PhysicControl/RubyControllerInterface.dllError Loading File simfonia.rb
(eval);18;in `require'; no such file to load -- /Users/johns_iMac/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/plugins/simfonia/PhysicControl/RubyControllerInterface.dll

There's no obvious[to me] warning that it won't...

john

Edit: I just had time to revisit the site, to see if I'd missed the 'doesn't work on mac' warnings, and they are not there, I think they should be, I did leave a contact message so I guess I'll get a reply...

SimFonIA_team

Hello Driven,

I regret to announce that indeed the SAT plugin does not work on MAC. As specified in the first page of the installation manual, the plugin works under windows XP to seven, and Version 8 or higher of SkecthUp.

You're right, it does not appear clearly on the website and we will fix it. If you have purchased a paid version without the proper configuration we will fix the problem simply with the message on contact.

Unfortunate that you can not try the SAT beast...

driven

Cheers for the reply,
I've been an avid follower since first announcements, and when i saw the 'offer' had some spare 'xmas' cash I thought I'd jump right in, I didn't read the installation instructions...
Sort out the mac version, please!!!

john

ps I want it for stuff like this, so I can do them better...

SimFonIA_team

Hi all,

     @driven,

Normally, the problem was solved this morning, hoping that you are not too disappointed.

@driven said:

Sort out the mac version, please!!!

I also believe that it would be a good idea, especially as many architects (who are mainly SU users) use MAC. The problem is mainly due to the use of dll to read the data contained in the scenario files, but it is not on our close agenda; the priority is rendering. But we like apple pie )).

I must confess that I find it hard to understand the function of the object you posted in video. Our hypothesis is that it is a system for climbing ropes?
In all cases it seems quite feasible for SAT!

   @sketchucation world

We worked with Pilou to see what is the learning curve of our plugin. It results in the quick-start guide posted above and a series of video tutorials that Pilou has kindly made (sorry it is in the language of Molière ^ ^).

http://moiscript.weebly.com/deacuteformations.html
http://moiscript.weebly.com/rotations-1.html
http://moiscript.weebly.com/tableur.html
http://moiscript.weebly.com/texte.html
http://moiscript.weebly.com/visibility.html
http://moiscript.weebly.com/table.html
http://moiscript.weebly.com/discret.html

driven

@simfonia_team said:

     @driven,
Normally, the problem was solved this morning, hoping that you are not too disappointed.

Hi, thanks, got the email, any news on when a mac version will be available?

@unknownuser said:

I must confess that I find it hard to understand the function of the object you posted in video.

exactly why I keep looking for better ways of demonstrating this type of object...

@unknownuser said:

Our hypothesis is that it is a system for climbing ropes?

originally, it was designed as a filament (soft 3mm 'plastic' cord) feed mechanism for a ''RepRap' style additive 3D printer. The Miga Motor is the size of a credit card.

@unknownuser said:

In all cases it seems quite feasible for SAT!
...very

john

SimFonIA_team

I was editing my answer when you wrote your message :

@unknownuser said:

I also believe that it would be a good idea, especially as many architects (who are mainly SU users) use MAC. The problem is mainly due to the use of dll to read the data contained in the scenario files, but it is not on our close agenda; the priority is rendering. But we like apple pie )).

dickorama

I don't know if this has been covered yet, but will animated sequences export in pbx?