Making extendable legs animate

I have created a ramp that has extendable legs. I made the
inner leg 1st and made it a group. Then I copied it to create the 2md leg. Then
I created the outer (slideable) leg with holes at 1 inch intervals. I took and
slid the outer leg over the inner leg. Next I clicked on one of the outer legs
held the shift key and clicked on the 2nd outer leg so both are
selected. Next I clicked on “move”. Now, I clicked on Animation-Add scene. I
held ctl and tried to move the outer legs 1 inch. My 1st problem is
I don’t know how to slide the outer legs and keep them in the correct plane and
move at one inch at a time. Then after I move the legs I Add scene move- Add
scene etc. After I have created 6 scenes and play it back the outer legs in
playback don’t move at all. Can someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Thank you. I have attached the file I’m working on so you can see what I’m
doing.

Ramp with leg lock 10-27-2015.skp (258.8 KB)

The animation-add scene is more for camera movement. For your purpose, I think you want the Dynamic Component-On_Click animate function. So that you can click on the legs and it’ll animate.
If you want to show the legs at different lengths per scene, then you can make several copies of them (each at different lengths and in different layers) and several scenes. Then in each scene, toggle on which layer you want visible/hidden.

Have a look at SketchUp as a hobby - #48 by jimhami42 to get an idea of how to animate without a dynamic component

Scene animation in SketchUp typically involves changing the Camera Location from Scene > Scene to create a walk-through or fly-through.
In such animation the objects in the model are stationary; only the Camera moves.
The camera is in fact the only thing that can move as SketchUp has no native ability to animate objects.

You can create the illusion of an object moving by creating multiple copies of the object positioned incrementally along the intended path.
In many ways the method is akin to Flip Book animation.

Each instance of the object is assigned to a unique Layer.
The visibility of each Layer is controlled by the Saved Properties of each Scene you create.
Camera Location remains static from Scene > Scene.

Take a look at the animation models below.
Open the Entity Info, Layers and Scenes mangers to see the relationship of Scene, Layer and Entity as you click through the Scene tabs.


Ralph,

If you want, I’ll send you the SKP file for the animation I shared in your other thread so you can see the correct way to set up the animation using layers and scenes. I’ll upload it to a PM when I get home from work.

And there is absolutely no reason the camera has to move between scenes for an animation.

That would be great Dave. Thank you. Would that also show me how to fold the legs up and down?

I think when you see how the model is constructed to create the animation, you’ll see how to make them fold up, too.

Check your messages.

The movement of geometry can also be created by some extensions. In order to capture the movement, one has to use a screen capture type application as SU doesnt initiate ruby when generating videos.

Here is one I created using the old mover.rb plugin

Please, what is the name of the extension? And where I can get it?

The one I used is an old script called mover.rb that was modified with easings.
You can find it here - SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation

There are other similar extensions such as Proper Animation and SU_Animate. These have actual rbz installers.

Cheers

CD

Thank you very much for the info