I would also recommend getting Chopra's book "Google Sketchup 7 for Dummies". It has become a great reference manual for me and I use whenever I can't seem to get something to work right. It usually has the answers and easy to read and understand.

Just wanted to put my 2 cents worth in...Please don't give up. No matter how stupid your question seems to you, trust me, it's been asked before (probably by me) and these guys are very patient and willing to help. I just started using sketchup several months ago as a complete virgin to this type of program. I had never done any 3D modeling before and now I'm working on some animations (simple ones but making progress ) You'll get the hang of it. My best advice, from one newbie to another, is lots of trial and error and when you get really, really stuck...ask here.

I hope you post your attempts...would love to see them! Good luck!

I don't believe that the problem lies with the recording of the screen shot. The video transitions are already choppy when played right from Sketchup or thru the Smooth Animation video. My problem lies somewhere in the basics of the animation programs I am using.

I think it is partially that I am trying to use sketchup as an animation tool when there are probably better tools out there for this purpose. I just don't have the skills to use the more advanced animators at this time.

But thanks for the heads up on FRAPS, I did check it out and it may come in handy at some point

I agree! People here are friendly, informative and patient. Thanks all!

Honolulu...wow...that's a lot for me to think about. I'll have to work on that one for a while..lol.

Martin...thanks for the kind words. I think it's just because I came to Sketchup as a complete 3D virgin, not knowing what it was supposed to be used for and what not so I've kind of made things up as I go along and perhaps see things from a different perspective than others. Either way, I've enjoyed it and plan to keep trying to improve my skills.

ok, now I'm a little confused. I've selected a fps of 24 but I'm not sure what you mean by setting scenes a certain amount of time apart? How do you do that?

I don't think I can export it that way. It will record the camera animation but not the object animation which was done thru smooth animation. I've tried exporting thru smooth animation and then putting the jpegs thru a video maker called virtualdub but that doesn't help the transitions either. The video you see here was actually done as a screen shot using CamStudio.

If anyone has any ideas for this it would be greatly appreciated. I've tried different frame rates and transition times and nothing seems to help.

I've completed a second animation with sketchup. This is another accident scene I did for work. I'm pretty happy with it except for the jumpiness of the video. No matter what I did I couldn't seem to get the smooth transition between scenes. However, it gets the point across. I used a lot of components from the warehouse, mostly the vehicles, modifying them as needed. The houses I constructed except the windows and doors were pulled from the warehouse.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Here's the link: http://vimeo.com/7573855. If is asks for a password, it's "sketchup".

thanks. I'll give it a try!

@mike lucey said:

Final clue! The guy in the picture must have asked, 'What's up Doc?'

That's funny, it doesn't look like Bugs Bunny.

I love this...too funny.

I just realized I posted this question under Sketchy Physics forum and didn't mean too. Here's my question.

I'm fairly new to 3D modeling and animation and am still figuring stuff out. Can someone help me with which plug in is the best for animating objects within a scene? I've been using Smooth Animation and it works pretty well except that when I export the animation, there are still pauses between scenes. I need something that will take those pauses out, if possible. I don't think the Smooth Animation plug-in was necessarily created for object animation.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also, I'm not a real "techno" so the simpler the plug-in the better Thanks!

thanks, I checked out the thread and one of the things he says is that his plug in is NOT intended for object animation. That could be my problem. I may need to look for a plug-in that is more object oriented.

well that makes sense. Thanks!

This is great, Thanks!. One question. My video comes out really FAST!!! lol. How do I slow it down?

Thought I would try once more to see if anyone can help me with this problem that is driving me nuts

I've got a model I created in Sketchup and animated two items in it with Smooth animation. Made my scenes, set scene delay to 0 and enabled scene transition. When I watch the video thru Smooth Animation preview it looks good. However, when I export it, the animation pauses
between each scene. I can't figure out what is up. I'm using an fps of 24. Have tried 30, makes no difference. It's as if there are extra frames in between each scene.

For most of the video, my camera angle is stationary.

I am making the vidoe thru a program called VirtualDub (have posted this question there as well). Don't know if the problem is in sketchup or VirtualDub. It could be that I'm just missing a simple setting somewhere (I hope).

Any help on this is greatly appreciated! I'm trying to get the video posted to where you can link to it so you can see exactly what I'm talking about...no luck so far. Thanks!

just tried saving it with 30 fps rate and made no difference..hmmmm.

Now that's an interesting question. If I view the animation under the plugins tab, "View smooth animation", it looks great. If I view it under the View tab, "animations, play" it pauses just like it does after editing. I've used virtual dub before and it was fine at 24 fps. I'm trying now at 30 and I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you have a suggestion for another editor? I like Virtual Dub because it's so easy but maybe I should be using something a little better.

don't know if it makes any difference but thought I would let you know that I used a frame rate of 24.0. Not sure if a higher rate might help my problem?

I have just finished an animation using smooth animation and VirtualDub as my video editor. It looks great except for the fact that the animation pauses between each scene instead of being one smooth animation (pun not intended..lol) Anyways, my scene delay is set to 0. Does anyone have any suggestions? I would post it but it's a HUGE file as I used lots of models from 3D warehouse and it's too large to post. Sorry. Thanks for any help!