Posts made by faust07

For me this is a very understandable learning and knowledge process. Character animation is highly complex and everyone immediately recognizes deviations from the realistic movement of living beings. In the case of simplifications (due to a lack of technical possibilities or a lack of time), the environment should also be kept abstract to the same extent, otherwise it just looks funny. My attempts also fail because the claim and the actual presentation differ widely and self-doubt often prevents a presentation. It is refreshing to see your consistent pursuit of the topic and your progress. Go on! I would like to give specific help, but I don't have the time to deal intensively with Animator. In any case, Animator has the potential for it.

Very good approach and perhaps for certain animations it is enough for people to slightly move their arms, head, tilt or turn their upper body.
This creates the impression that the scene has not been populated with rigid figures. Technical simulations with people can be a bit more complex, for example when tools are to be guided.
In architecture visualizations I have found that people who are too realistic and moving are extremely distracting from the actual "content".
In urban development simulations, such as the representation of busy street spaces or traffic flows, moving people and vehicles are in turn very useful for the goal.
Today I could remember such a simulation with Animator. Here is the link:
https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=401&t=64948&start=30#p599837
Perhaps the author is still active and can give good advice or post animated models.

@ Nukeman: It should be an easy way to get the CRonoz characters into a T-pose. Usually you can download the figures in a straight basic position and there are small components built in as pivot points for the body parts (only visible in transparent styles).

@ ntxdave: Very good first result and definitely the right approach. Fredo's Animator is very suitable for timeline and K-frame animation. Smooth and pliable skin and clothing on the joints is almost impossible in SketchUp. I tried that with an orca animation with MSPhysics and had to invent profound, elaborate tricks: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=68498#p626651

In order to achieve smooth movements and transitions, Fredo's Animator provides curves for the process.
Walking, sitting, getting up and moving on is actually a complicated process. It took me a long time to do this ...

To let animated characters from other programs act in SketchUp, I consider the current state of the SketchUp functions to be impossible. It would be conceivable that Fredo could program an exchange of animation data between Blender and SketchUp, since the K-frame animation in Blender comes very close to the animator.
I render my MSPhysics animations with IndigoRT because AntonS programmed an export for it. Meanwhile, the Denoise function works very well, so that the rendering times for smooth single images are acceptably short (in daylight ...).

@ pilou: that looks fantastic! I can't get enough of it. This is the ultimate professional way. Unfortunately difficult to combine with the SketchUp universe. SketchUp -> Cascadeur yes, back no ...

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Yeah, I'm sure you're right. The automated rigging, the prefabricated complex movements and the flexible model and clothing surfaces in these programs are extremely time-saving.
For character animation with MSPhysics you also need minimal programming knowledge, which is not very user-friendly.

The source for the outer shell of the characters is, as mentioned above, the 3D warehouse ("3D People").
Most of the time I use models that are already divided into the moving body parts ("Rigged").
For example: Cronoz-artes Graphic Design, Brazil: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/by/CRonoz?login=true#
I modify and combine the body parts in order to adapt them to my representation goals and movement sequences.
Then they are combined with the simple, physically active basic geometries (with MSPhysics collision, mass, material properties etc.) and these are connected with the joints.
The joints, the behavior of the basic bodies and thus all movement sequences are controlled via MSPhysics scripts.
Special curve joints (CurvyPiston) are responsible for the movement of the figures on paths. Direct control with keyboard and mouse is also possible. But that would be more important for games.
If it's interesting, I could open a tutorial explaining the approach on a sample character.
But it would be better to wait for the new version of MSPhysics, as the author AntonS wants to improve the user friendliness and the effectiveness. As announced by him, the new version will not be compatible with older MSPhysics models.

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here is a link to some examples of character animation that I created with MSPhysics within SketchUp almost 2 years ago:
https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=333&t=69952#p641730
Unfortunately, I haven't had much time since then to go into this further. Character animation with just simple tools is a highly complex task, especially when you want to combine different types of movement fluidly.
Animator has a completely different approach than MSPhysics, but is basically suitable for simple character animation. But here you start from scratch, so to speak.
It is easier to work with systems that offer prefabricated body models, rigging and movement sequences. But it's always fun.

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I'm on the same street as HornOxx. Thank you very much, Didier!

I can not believe it. What was all the years? Great joy that you still exist. Hopefully nothing bad had happened. It's insane …

thomthom: axes tools

This is the world of MSPhysics … Sorry, but there are a mass of examples for caterpillar.

New project? Denkmalpflege or what?

Should MSPhysics simulate a wheel floating flat in the water or a kind of rubber tire on the road?
The behavior of bodies under MSPhysics buoyancy depends, in addition to material and density, very much on their size, shape and position to the surface.
The tire is a bit more complicated anyway, because here the concave shape has to be put together from individual segments.
Posting a model would be helpful to help ...

Great work. Bus and Trabi remind me of my childhood. I was allowed to drive a Trabant myself. My father let me go short time. What renderer did you use?

For single images I like to use environment maps (HDR images, JPGs etc.) directly in the render program (here Indigo RT). However, these do not work when rendering MSPhysics simulations. Then I still like to use domes with internally mapped 360 ° panoramic images of hemispheres and landscapes, whereby the night sky is also set as an emitter. I then also place light sources as sun or moon within these domes. For example, a sun (indigo or twilight light source) that I can align as a dynamic component according to the SketchUp position of the sun.

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Oder wie der Sachse sagt: "Dig, Dag und Digedag"...
(Cover of the first issue of a comic magazine from the 1950s of the former GDR)

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Thanks for the information on the further development of MSPhysics. That sounds great. Will the old models be compatible with the new version?

It is amazing when geniuses are found. I am thrilled and can hardly wait for the results. I would be particularly excited about the synergies for the MSPhysics area - voice input ...
Thanks again!

I often use this little plugin: rot90.rb
Copyright (c) 2008 Clark Bremer (aka daiku)
Rotate selected component instance 90 degrees around Z axis:
5/17/08: All 3 axes. Input from Matt666
4/24/08: Use center as rotation point instead of CI origin. Also works on groups now.

Great pictures - in the past everything was better... but back to SketchUp - which software (modeling, texturing, rendering) did you use?

@HornOxx: Freudscher Verleser...
@Chipp: great add-on. How much is it?