Animator: Parametric Animation plugin - Discussion

Falstaff · 5 Jul 2016, 17:01

I've managed to get my animation to work. I scrapped my last on entirely, I had so many animated sections that the plugin kept getting them jumbled. It doesn't like anything unpredicted.

For each rotation section (I created 12, like a clock) I had 4 or 5 commands so as you can imagine that was quite a lot of movement between two legs. Also in the original I manipulated the movement through direct input of the degrees - so it was about 30 unique numbers. Really confusing to tell which was which.

In this animation I created all my movements outright and instead of having unique numbers I rotated each component the maximum amount 360 degrees and then manipulated it through the DIMS control to get the degree I needed. In the tutorial you can see Fredo6 uses the DIMS as well. Somehow this is less confusing for the plugin. Also clicking save after each new move seems to help.

So I had 8 New Movement controls:
Left Calf 360
Left Leg 360
Left Pedal Stay Flat 360
Left Crank 30
Right Calf 360
Right Leg 360
Right Pedal Stay Flat 360
Right Crank 30

Then I repeated these 12 times and it didn't get hung up on anything. Getting my wheels to rotate the legs started flying around where they shouldn't be again. Also moving the biker messed everything up. Ideally I want him to bike down a bike path. Next time, Im pretty happy with this outcome.

Check it out here : https://youtu.be/Bs9x6pjaPLA

@falstaff said:

Thank you for your thorough response. That is exactly how I had it set up as far as rotation, in my video you can see the circle behind the foot divided into 12 sections.

My question is what could be the problem if nested components are not rotating around the indicated axis? It seemed to work well for me for the first few sections, and then somehow got bogged down or something.

@ntxdave said:

@falstaff said:

My guess is either its somehow being influenced by another recorded movement for some reason. Or the plugin is misinterpreting the axis.

For the foot, there are two sequences. One is a rotation based on the reference circle below it and the other is a spin to adjust the ending position of the foot.
.

fredo6 · 6 Jul 2016, 08:07

@richardpmuller said:

Maybe an idea. The possibility to add sounds to the animation ...

I assume that in normal cases, users will do a post-production with an appropriate video editing software, where you can cut and rearrange sequences, add legends and sounds. So no plan for that in Animator.

Fredo

Leonard96 · 8 Jul 2016, 20:59

Wow! This animation plugin rules. Is the best plugin ever released by someone for SketchUP Make. Also, if you don't mind I would like to see by myself how this baby works so... I can be the Rat Lab
I would be grateful if I could test it too. If not, I really understand you. It's sad but still I respect your decision.

-Leo

fredo6 · 9 Jul 2016, 08:51

I publish here video tutorials showing some features from Animator, based on public videos posted on YouTube.

For the tutorial below, I have used a model with a simple forklift and pallet.
Credit to Burckhard Heimlich for the Forklift model

Here is the original model (SU2015)
Burkhard Heimlich - SU15 - Gabelstapler - 0.skp

The final animation is shown below in Natural mode (i.e. without rendering) and Rendered mode with some rendering software supporting integration with Animator. It is advised to watch the video in Full Screen mode, to see the details.

In Natural mode (No rendering)

Rendered with AmbientOcclusionEx
Many thanks to the Fluid Interactive team, in particular Nicola and Alberto

Rendered with Thea (no model preparation)
Many thanks to the Thea team, in particular tomasz

Rendered with SketchFX (no model preparation)
Many thanks to the Fluid Interactive team, in particular Nicola and Alberto

Rendered with Twilight Render Pro
Many thanks to the Twilight team team, in particular Chris

1) Preparing the Model

Animation should come at the end of the design process, so that most of the objects are in place. Note that Animator allows to add new objects, but modifying the hierarchy of objects already referenced by Animator may cause undesired issues.

Note: I use the term Object to designate both Groups and Components. Animator supports both. Note that the main difference is that when you animate objects which are inside a component, this affects the other instances of the component. When you select a Component Instance, Animator always shows the other instances that would be affected.

Here are a few advices to prepare the model for Animation, essentially around

Verifying the Grouping of objects. Grouping is a nice way to transform objects as a whole (even if multi-selection is supported). For instance, a car should be an object, embedding sub-objects such as the car body and the wheels, so that you can move the car while spinning the wheels.Deciding about Groups versus Components, making unique component instances, etc... are the kind of decisions you need to think about.
Naming the Objects: It will make it easier when selecting objects in the Movement Editor. Animator selection displays a popup showing the hierarchy objects under the mouse, so that you can pick the right one. If no name is given, then you will see "Group" or "Component", as in the example below:
[attachment=3:1mluf46k]Animator - Group Selection.png[/attachment:1mluf46k]
Creating Layers. Animator records the layer visibility when recording cameras. So it is better to create them before starting the design of an animation.
Saving the original object positions. Animator includes a Positioner utility, allowing to save the position of all Objects in the model and later restore it. You can save several positions. As there may be bug or mis-manipulation, it is always good to keep a reference positioner so that you can restablish conistent object positions. This is useful, because Undo will not work (objects moves are transparent)

2) Creating a First Animation

The following tutorial shows how to create a basic animation.

3) Finishing the Object Animation

We can now finish the object animation. The tutorial shows how to re-use existing movements and modify / adjust the animation after it is built.

4) Adding Cameras

You will see how to create travelling views with simple cameras and how they are interpolated (fade-out)

5) Installing FFmpeg (MS Windows)

FFmpeg is an open source tool, free, which is used by Animator to generate video files. The tutorial shows how to do the installation once.

6) Generating a video

The tutorial shows how to generate a video at specified dimensions and frame rate, with several options available.

7) Launching / Stopping the Animation

This video tutorial explains the different ways to start, pause, stop and navigate through the Animation in Editor and Player mode.

%(#008040)[ Tracking Cameras]

A tracking camera is a camera attached to an object with a certain viewpoint. This allows to follow the object when it moves.

Tracking cameras supports the Fade-out option, so that you can smoothly switch between two tracking cameras following the same object. Fade out also works to make a smooth transition with other cameras.

9) Layer Visibility

Animator supports two methods to control Layer Visibility

STATE: capture of the visibility state of ALL layers. This can be done via the Visual Effect Layer State, or via a View or Scene Camera
ON-OFF: Specify the visibility state for given layers
Layer on-off is more adapted to super-impose layer visibility changes since you can control layer by layer.

Note that when these visual effects have a duration > 0, they are ignored when the animation time is after.

duanekemp · 9 Jul 2016, 09:41

"I publish here video tutorials showing some features from Animator"
Excellent tutorial help videos. Thank you so very much for taking the time to do these.

faust07 · 9 Jul 2016, 16:44

This is so great and pushes SketchUp to an high level similar to Sketchy- and MSPhysics. The videos and tutorials show that impressive. Is there somewhere a link to download and to test the plugin?

pilou · 9 Jul 2016, 16:59

It's in beta test Period! Ask Fredo or Rich O Brien...

ntxdave · 9 Jul 2016, 17:00

@faust07 said:

This is so great and pushes SketchUp to an high level similar to Sketchy- and MSPhysics. The videos and tutorials show that impressive. Is there somewhere a link to download and to test the plugin?

If you are meaning the Animator plugin, see this thread If you are meaning the Twilight Render software, they have stated that they will be posting a link to their software sometime today. You will have to have the Pro version though (at least that is my understanding).

elfred · 31 Jul 2016, 11:34

@thomthom said:

New round of donations for Fredo - anyone?

Could You send me info how to do that?
This many is treasure who earned our support.

wagoneer · 1 Aug 2016, 14:15

I'm eagerly awaiting your newest plug-in Fredo. Having been tasked with creating some animations, SketchUp is where I wish to do it so your excellent tools help enormously.

One question, will Animate have a path tool so I could make my shapes/groups follow paths other than straight lines?

Kelly

cotty · 1 Aug 2016, 14:31

@elfred said:

@thomthom said:

New round of donations for Fredo - anyone?

Could You send me info how to do that?
This many is treasure who earned our support.

One fast way...

Bob James · 1 Aug 2016, 16:44

@ntxdave said:

If you are meaning the Animator plugin, see this thread

I get:
"You are not authorised to read this forum."

JohnDurnan · 29 Oct 2016, 15:31

@thomthom said:

@fredo6 said:

But I don't know how to reach the others

PM me who you are looking for - I'll see what I can do. I have the ChaosGroup contacts for sure - but I should be able to obtain other as well.

Oh, that would be ideal. If this could work with Shaderlight renderer, my world would be complete. I'm currently using "Keyframe Animation", however, it will not work with Shaderlight. Therefore, I cannot complete my animations by rendering them. The still only look like cartoons. Thank you for all of your efforts with this!

fredo6 · 31 Oct 2016, 21:30

@johndurnan said:

Oh, that would be ideal. If this could work with Shaderlight renderer, my world would be complete.

I need to find a contact there (which I don't have at the moment), in case they would be interested.

Fredo

whiterabbit · 11 Dec 2016, 20:50

is there a newer version of the animator plugin, I was trying it out (great) but since upgrading to 2017 it says it has expired. I tried it back in 2016, same message. How might it be possible to get the latest version. Is it available for purchase?
Thanks

fredo6 · 11 Dec 2016, 22:03

@whiterabbit said:

is there a newer version of the animator plugin, I was trying it out (great) but since upgrading to 2017 it says it has expired. I tried it back in 2016, same message. How might it be possible to get the latest version. Is it available for purchase?
Thanks

The latest version is now on the PluginStore

The discussion forum on Animator is also public.

Latest version is Animator v1.2h, which requires LibFredo6 7.2h.

Fredo

MALAISE · 15 Dec 2016, 11:08

Hello Fredo

Small enhancement (if possible): could you replace red crosses against green slash
inside Maintenance of Animator Objects ?

The Help comment is confusing ( you delete a red cross !)

Pierre

fredo6 · 15 Dec 2016, 11:16

These are ACTION buttons, not STATUS buttons.

So the red cross is to delete, the green check mark is to undelete, and the red color for the whole row indicates the status.

If you are better icons however, I am interested.

Fredo

MALAISE · 15 Dec 2016, 18:15

Could such a picture fit the function ?

fredo6 · 15 Dec 2016, 18:43

@malaise said:

Could such a picture fit the function ?

Very nice icons, but I would (and maybe will when appropriate) use them for MERGE and SPLIT.
However, if the single rectangle is replaced by a red bin, that would be perfect

Fredo