How to rotate better

chri

Yes, I think this is the way I have to go. I have tried many other solutions and none worked correctly. This will be pretty laborious but is the only way to do it.

What is an .rar file?

It's à zip archives
It contain the SOLVESPACE file

Chri

solo

I used copy along path here, the idea I guess is if the animation could follow a path, make sure the axis to the component is correct however.

http://youtu.be/mIoVWOX6yxI

ntxdave

@solo said:

I used copy along path here, the idea I guess is if the animation could follow a path, make sure the axis to the component is correct however

The real problem when animating is that the size of the panel is larger than the size of the arch in the track so when you try to rotate a rotation by itself makes the edges of the panel go outside the arch. Therefore you have to develop a combination of small rotation and translation like Chri had in his drawings. Turns out it is not as straight forward as one might think. Good challenge though

pilou

As seems it's a mess to make the animation with all the object in the same time

Maybe a trick is make an animation of one object alone in a Layer
Then display all layers in the same time!
Of ourse each object begin at its own start position!

But at least the best solution will be an animation following a path!

solo

Dave

My point is if we could animate an object to a welded path and the axis were correctly set then what you are needing is achievable.

ntxdave

@solo said:

Dave

My point is if we could animate an object to a welded path and the axis were correctly set then what you are needing is achievable.

Understand. This one might still be a little tricky but might work better that way. The current standard rotation alone does not work correctly for this situation. We will have to wait and see when the path is implemented.

Another question for you (different topic), what do you think of using Thea with Animator?
I am also curious of you ever came up with anything for the water/foam in my car wash animations? I exchanged some messages today with Chris from Twilight Render and they are working with Fredo to get Twilight Render Pro 2.5 working with Animator.

solo

The whole water foam thing is a bust, I suggest Blender for that. I cannot see a SU solution on the horizon.

pilou

Does the function "Layer visibily" of Animator is the Layers of Sketchup or specific Layers of Animator ?

fredo6

@pilou said:

Does the function "Layer visibily" of Animator is the Layers of Sketchup or specific Layers of Animator ?

This is about Skethup model layers. So you just set / unset layer visibility via the Layer dialog box of Sketchup (or Tray).

Fredo

driven

the shutter on one of my vans works more like this...

more like this?

but I have no idea how to chain more slats easily...

@Fredo, I get a few oddities on my mac, but basically working... [I'll PM you]

john

pilou

Ok for the Multi Layers / Visibility , works fine!

What about "Current View" against Layers Visibility ?

ntxdave

@driven said:

the shutter on one of my vans works more like this...

john

Yes, this is what I am trying to achieve. However, in your video as well as the image that Pete (Solo) posted in this thread, the problem with the garage door (look back at image) is the relationship of the size of the panel versus the size of the arch. If you go watch your garage door work, you will see that the panel does not "ride" the arch based on the center of the panel. It is guided by the top and bottom of the panel following the arch and the middle will actually penetrate the arch because of the size differences. Chri posted the solution but I have not had time to do work on that yet.

@pilou said:

Ok for the Multi Layers / Visibility , works fine!

[attachment=0:3thx191b]multilayers.jpg[/attachment:3thx191b]

When I have had overlapping visual affects like that, it did not work correctly for me. I must have done something wrong. Would you mind sharing your model so I can see what I am doing wrong?

OH - I see now what the difference is. In mine, I wanted the some of the items to disappear during the overlap and that is the difference. You do not need to share. If you had wanted the first cube to disappear when you made the 2nd one appear, the overlap would not work. You would need to control the show & hide of each object with individual actions with 0 duration.

pilou

Seems the key is the button
"Capture Layer Visibility from the current view"
with good setting of the Box dialog of Normal Layers!

It's a bit tricky to have side by side Object + Layer visibility!

Managment of tracks seems not permit that ?

cub1.skp

ntxdave

Pilou, I understand the relationship between the object animation and the visual effect but you are not understanding the visual effect correctly:

When you capture the layer visibility it captures the visibility state of ALL layers
Unless you want to reverse the state of visibility of a layer, you should not set the duration greater than 0
If you want to control changing the state of layers in an overlapping situation (some layers on and some off, you need to have multiple captures with a duration of zero.

Yours is working correctly with durations greater than 0 because you are not turning layers on and off at the same time.

Suggest you go look at this thread: Visual Layer. I think it covers it pretty thoroughly and Fredo states that he will allow the control of selected layers in a future release.

pilou

Missing this one: I will study that!

driven

@ntxdave said:

...the problem with the garage door (look back at image) is the relationship of the size of the panel versus the size of the arch.

the animation logic is the same for any size slat...

click to gif...
slat longer then arc segment...

translation + rotation from the same base point for each segment...

john

pilou

About layers!

@unknownuser said:

But the new visual effect "on-Off" for layers, would make it more intuitive, because each one becomes independent from where it is positioned in the timeline and thus can be reused.

So wait and see for no headaches!