Hi,

I was testing the process of screen capturing the animation with Active Presenter and I am not so happy. The resolution setting had to be very low because if not the resulting video would have lagged very bad even though inside SketchUp there was no lag at all.

Renderiza

Very good questions…

For alternative rendering engines I went ahead and tried LightUp and you can see the rain animation but it doesn’t show the thunders or the wet spots in the floor. Seem it doesn’t update the object is visibility while in LightUp render mode. I guess you can modify the code to make the thunder not rely in visibility but rather position to make it work inside LightUp. I have not tried Twilight Render but I have a feeling it might not work.

As for implementing other animation plugins I can say I am a very happy SimfonIA Animation Tools user and constantly use it to make a rough animation before translating it into code. Let’s say you animate something with that plugin, it can play the animation while the rain script is running but lag is something to watch for if you make too many simultaneous component animations.

As for other plugins that transition between scenes for animation I can imagine being a problem with how I use scenes styles to simulate the brightening of the sky when there is thunder. Maybe if that feature is eliminated I don’t see way other animation plugins shouldn’t work.

To export animation to avi I use Active Presenter for screen capturing since I currently don’t know how to write a movie exporter for my plugin. The export movie option in SimfonIA only works with animations done only inside that plugin. Maybe in the future since with SimfonIA the key frame data stays with the object I could leave it as an option for people that have that plugin as well for them to use their movie exporter.

I will eventually make a video of the rain plugin’s features when it is little bit more polish.

Thanks

Hi,

Thanks for letting me know about does errors I got to see them also in the ruby console.

The sound effects need a lot of work, I have been trying to record rain to capture the right sound but it is still a work in process. I am hoping to the gods I can get a good thunder sound so I can put it right after the thunder animation but for now the only thing you should be hearing is a rain sound with few thunders here and there. The reset sound will be replaced eventually.

Thanks again for trying it.

Very good advice thank you.

@chris fullmer said:

Can I ask what your script does?

Its called "Rain" and the script allows you to have animated rain & thunder with sound so you can present your own projects with it.

I was planning to release it little later so I could fix some thing but I will put a beta version up in DropBox so you can test it yourself. Actually you helped me figure out how to make the sky bright when the thunder hits by teaching me how to reach a page by name which makes me want to release it for free even more.

Here is the link;
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3q9aa57384xo253/Rain%20v1.0.0%20Beta.rar

Hi,

I am seeking advice in this topic so I can learn from people that have more experience than me. At the moment I am creating a script that I was thinking of selling it for two or three dollars but to tell you the truth it just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. I am kind of convinced now that I will release it for free soon in hopes that people will like to try it.

What do you think is the right thing to do and have you ever been in this state of thinking?

Thanks

It worked!

Thank you so much!

Hi,

I am familiar with (Sketchup.send_action "pageNext:") but I have been trying to go to a specific page by name and not by relative position. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks

Lumion is great option…I have tried their objects animation tools and I am afraid it is quite limited. It works for basic stuff like moving cars for example.

My favorite plugin for animating objects inside SketchUp is “SimFonIA Animation Tools”. It provides a record video option that compiles all the individual frames to a video automatically and you decide the resolution which is good. There is more than one way to animate for example you can use key frames for recording multiple component and subcomponents positions which enables you to keep layering animations one on top of the other to achieve a more complex animation easily. Also you can record vertex’s positions for animation using the Deformation option inside the key frame editor to create more organic animations. For more options you can animate using the “Transformation Processor” which has lots of options in itself.

From the video you have posted correct me if I am wrong but it seems you have “LightUp” for rendering?

If so the “LightUp” can display the first component layer animation but sadly not the subcomponents animations but I have received feedback saying they are working directly with LightUp and Twightlight to have more compatibility with the plugin, fingers crossed.

Overall the tools inside “SimFonIA Animation Tools” will enable you to animate your Bridge very easy plus you can maybe add moving water, trees, clouds, birds and so on. The best part in my opinion is that somehow the animation stays with the object so you can share it with other people or reuse it in another SketchUp project, don’t know how that is possible but it is. The learning curve took me a couple of hours to figure out that in order to activate the animation input for the key frames you had to assign a name to the animation inside the transformation processor but after that it was all good.

@unrealviz said:

Hi, nicely done. What I like are those hand-held shots. They give it a doze of a tension and drama . But I would like to draw your attention to those fast shots at the beginning. They seem just a bit to fast, to chopped. Like chase scene in the accelerated movie from the old times, if you know what I mean!:D

Thanks for the critic I really appreciate it. For the camera controls I think is worth mentioning that I used CStools for C4D.

...

The following solution to be able to play more than one sound simultaneously without sound clipping came to me very randomly. I hope this helps someone and if I ever figure out how to play sounds without small frame freeze then I will post it here. I have gotten less frame freeze using "swf" files but stiil looking to have none slow downs.

<html>

 <head>
 </head>

<body>
 <span id="dummy"></span> 
 <span id="dummy2"></span> 
 <span id="dummy3"></span> 
</body>

<script>
// Sound Effects

 function playSound(soundfile) {
 document.getElementById("dummy").innerHTML=
 "<embed src=\""+soundfile+"\" hidden=\"true\" autostart=\"true\" loop=\"false\" mastersound />";
 }
 
 function playSound2(soundfile2) {
 document.getElementById("dummy2").innerHTML=
 "<embed src=\""+soundfile2+"\" hidden=\"true\" autostart=\"true\" loop=\"false\" mastersound />";
 }

 function playSound3(soundfile3) {
 document.getElementById("dummy3").innerHTML=
 "<embed src=\""+soundfile3+"\" hidden=\"true\" autostart=\"true\" loop=\"false\" mastersound />";
 }

// Place Sound effects

playSound('sound_1.swf')

playSound2('sound_2.swf') 

playSound3('sound_3.swf')

// ect

</script>

@redot said:

I love this. Great work.

Thank you very much!

You have definitely worked hard on choosing the right camera angles to sale the project. The attention to detail on the model and populating the space with people, trees, cars, etc.… sure brings life to the scene. Nice work!

This is beautiful work…congrats!
Overcoming the evident texture tilling problem that most 3d models suffer, especially stone facades is something to admire.

Thanks for the comments!

@unknownuser said:

Cool but seems there is a little problem of scale!

I was so focused that my building had the same dimensions as the real one that I didn’t realize the train is scale was off.

@jpalm32 said:

Nice! Zombies as passengers would be cool!

The initial plan was to make a ghost train that delivered ghost to the hunted train station but zombies would have been better. I later realize that because of the deadline I could not pursue that so I ended up with this anti-climactic ending.

Thanks for the comment!

@wtrouser said:

With the music I half expected a gladiator to jump off the caboose and slash the building in half with a broadsword.

I was gonna but ran out of time.

@wtrouser said:

Maybe in the sequel?

Indeed!

Music by Immediate Music: Epicon

The train model was made by SeaGate and can be found in Google Warehouse. Here is a link; http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=21655789dfe68c488e2c190e770fdce7&prevstart=0

Everything else was made by Rafael Rivera. The 3D model was made in Google SketchUp, the textures & animation in Cinema 4D and post in After Effects.

@chris fullmer said:

Hey, great job! It looks great!

Chris

Chris thank you very much!

Video Update #3

To download the latest SketchUp game version go here;
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w9m7du0fnhkgwv0/bIqndmMs1S

Thanks

Video Update #3

To download the latest SketchUp game version go here;
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w9m7du0fnhkgwv0/bIqndmMs1S

Thanks

I am so frustrated that I don’t possess the knowledge yet to understand most of this discussion. Correct me if I am wrong but could this code make animating textures possible? If so I am very interested in trying to figure how I can do this myself.