Hi Everyone,
The Keyframe Animation plugin is at: regularpolygon.org/keyframe-animation.
Basically, this plug-in will animate the movement of objects between scenes, and it can export the animation to an AVI movie (QuickTime on the Mac), directly from SketchUp.
Since most of you are probably familiar with the other animation plugins that have been posted here, I will try to describe this plugin by comparing it with them. The main animation plugins are Proper Animation by morisdov, and Mover.rb by cmd. This plugin has a similar workflow β you save the positions of the animated objects on each scene and it moves them when the scene changes. Here are the main things that are different:
Features
-The key frames (scenes) can be easily added, deleted, renamed, or reordered. For instance, you can reverse the order of the animation by putting the scenes in reverse order.
-Precisely control the length of the animation between key frames.
-Animate any group or component. Sub-groups (and sub-components) can also be animated. They can be nested to any depth.
-Rotations are interpolated correctly every time. Proper Animation and Mover.rb run into problems with rotations, unless the point of rotation is the component's origin. This is due to a bug in the Transformation.interpolate
method, which both plugins rely on.
-Generate ordinary SketchUp scenes, which capture the animation in between the key frames. Letβs call them tweens. Each tween has a copy of the animated objects, and the camera, at a different point in the interpolation between key frames.
-Export the tween animation to an AVI movie (QuickTime on the Mac), right from SketchUp.
Demos
Here are a couple demos. They were exported directly from SketchUp, and uploaded to YouTube. The first one is the obligatory rotating gears. (25 fps, 480p)
[flash=480,385:3hatn1cl]http://www.youtube.com/v/Vv1jTZfMAds?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash:3hatn1cl]
This demo uses 16 keyframes, and 12 animated components, to show the steps in the construction of a slat platform bed frame made entirely from interlocking wooden parts. (15 fps, 360p)
[flash=640,385:3hatn1cl]http://www.youtube.com/v/2ou8_SRnLjo?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash:3hatn1cl]
Tutorial
This video shows the basic steps to make a simple animation, and how to export the animation as a movie. It is a bit outdated now, it shows the workflow for version 1.3, before there was a toolbar.
[flash=640,390:3hatn1cl]http://www.youtube.com/v/TokvZKmWLlQ?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash:3hatn1cl]