[Plugin] Animator - v4.5a - 22 Jul 25

Floorguy

Disappearing group? When I choose the Translation movement and then go Selection of Objects, I select my group to move and it disappears, never to return. Even when I quit Animator and return to Sketchup, the group is gone. If I go back and purge all sequences, it comes back. Any ideas? (I'm pretty new to Sketchup and Animator)

Disappearing Group.mov

fredo6

@floorguy

Strange, indeed.

Could you post the model so that I have a look.

Many thanks

Fredo

Floorguy

@fredo6 said:

@floorguy

Strange, indeed.

Could you post the model so that I have a look.

Many thanks

Fredo

Here's a link to the Sketchup file Fredo. Thanks for looking.

(drive.google.com)

solo

Is Animator and Thea 1.5 still working? I cannot get them to work together, I tried both from Animator dialog and from the Thea window to render an animation to no avail.

fredo6

@solo said:

Is Animator and Thea 1.5 still working? I cannot get them to work together, I tried both from Animator dialog and from the Thea window to render an animation to no avail.

Good you signal it.

Something has changed in Thea 1.5, and the method for rendering does not work as it used to (you can see it in the Ruby console). This simply prevents the rendering from Animator with Thea. is ennoying and there is little I can do on my side.

Fredo

solo

I have informed Tomasz about this issue, hopefully, he will fix it. I hear that Animator works with Vray now, I did not see Vray in the options, Is there a tutorial for Animator and Vray? I may need to use this if Thea is not working anymore.

fredo6

@solo said:

I have informed Tomasz about this issue, hopefully, he will fix it. I hear that Animator works with Vray now, I did not see Vray in the options, Is there a tutorial for Animator and Vray? I may need to use this if Thea is not working anymore.

I sent a message to Tomas too.
VRay is supported, but same thing happens with the most recent version (v1.6), where the API is less stable and can hang.

More generally, there is not a lot of attention from rendering software companies to provide a stable and flexible API to use rendering from an external program (like Animator).

Fredo

solo

@fredo6 said:

More generally, there is not a lot of attention from rendering software companies to provide a stable and flexible API to use rendering from an external program (like Animator).

Fredo

That is too bad, so what do I do?

Here are the options I have available, SU native or Thea, now that we know Thea no longer works (sad news) when I install Vray it will show up as an option? but the newest version does not work? so I have to somehow find an earlier version?

Is there any other render engines that work with Animator?

animator dialogue.JPG

fredo6

Solo,

Twilight is also supported.

By the way, you really need to install ffmpeg in order to get the video files (mp4, mov, ...). Otherwise, you'll only get a sequence of png image files).

Fredo

fredo6

Apparently, based on Tomasz advice, the problem disappears with the latest version 1.5.09.547.

I uninstalled Thea and then installed this latest version and it works again.

Fredo

Charlie__V

EDIT: Version# corrected.........thanks Fredo

@solo said:

That is too bad, so what do I do?
......... so I have to somehow find an earlier version?

Solo
Don’t know if this helps as I don’t know Thea’s last working version in Animator. (SU V1.5.09.547)

404 Page not found : downloads

(www.thearender.com)

Macho3001

Hi Fredo

I have just downloaded your wonderful plugin and specially like the detailed control over keyframes management (easing etc) and the ability to render animations on vray. However, you have not built support into it so as to be able to render animations outside of the local environment (ie, vray cloud for instance) as 99% of professional animation renderings happen over render farms and not on local systems. Vray cloud https://www.chaosgroup.com/vray/cloud is the new rendering platform by chaosgroup like other 3rd party render farms out there and currently is in beta, free for testers. We are trying it out, and it indeed is good.

Is it possible to export out Keyframes from Animator as Sketchup Scenes (complete with easing values etc), so that those may be given out to Vray Cloud? I am sure many architectural firms out there would want this feature. Thanks.

Ar. Nitin Sharma
3DA Architects

fredo6

@macho3001 said:

Hi Fredo

I have just downloaded your wonderful plugin and specially like the detailed control over keyframes management (easing etc) and the ability to render animations on vray. However, you have not built support into it so as to be able to render animations outside of the local environment (ie, vray cloud for instance) as 99% of professional animation renderings happen over render farms and not on local systems. Vray cloud https://www.chaosgroup.com/vray/cloud is the new rendering platform by chaosgroup like other 3rd party render farms out there and currently is in beta, free for testers. We are trying it out, and it indeed is good.

Is it possible to export out Keyframes from Animator as Sketchup Scenes (complete with easing values etc), so that those may be given out to Vray Cloud? I am sure many architectural firms out there would want this feature. Thanks.

Ar. Nitin Sharma
3DA Architects

Animator exposes an API for rendering software to batch the rendering from outside Animator. So far, only Theahas implemented it.
Generating scenes is not a solution, because you can only handle the movement of cameras, not objects.

Fredo

fredo6

New Release: Animator - v2.2c - 26 Aug 18

Requirement: LibFredo6 v8.5a

Minor release

Extension of validity
Fix a problem coming from using transparent move! for performance, signaled by ithil

See plugin home page of Animator for Download of RBZ from the PluginStore.

See Main Post of the Animator thread for more information.

Takkegek

Hi Fredo, I did some other tests with the plugin. But I was wondering, is it also possible to have a sun animation in these videos I made ( with thea render and animator ) ? So I want all the movement of the objects + sun animation ( from dusk till dawn for example), is this possible?

other little thing: there is 'no clip defined in model' when I want to start animation render in thea render sketchup ( not animator). Even if I have the license done. Rendering from animator is no problem though.

fredo6

@takkegek said:

But I was wondering, is it also possible to have a sun animation in these videos I made ( with thea render and animator ) ? So I want all the movement of the objects + sun animation ( from dusk till dawn for example), is this possible?

Sun is supported (using Shadow Visual Effect). Just put two elements in the timeline with different dates and Animator will interpolate the shadows between the two.

Fred

Takkegek

Thanks Fredo, I will try this!

studzinski

Hi, I have created a staging animation in SU for a construction of a metro station, an 8min video, approx. 160 scenes, showing how the station will be built from start to finish, with construction equipment, etc. I am looking for someone to turn this into a more photo realistic animation, add some movement to the construction equipment, etc. Animator seems like the right tool, though I have never used it myself. Is there someone that would be interested and had immediate availability to do this for me?

Regards,

Michal