Motion for animation

My question is regarding making a video that will show motion along an axis. For example, an sliding door, a swinging door, a dresser drawer, etc.

I am very new to SketchUp (about 2 weeks) and only using it for personal use.

Don Dawson
Corona, CA

Hello, That is a more advanced feature called Dynamic Components, it is also a SketchUp Pro feature. Check out this forum thread for some great resources from @Geo: I have a question in dynamic components - #4 by jefathey

Thanks,
AlexB

Thanks, I was looking at the tutorials on that and didn’t see anything … I will check out your link and get back to you.

Don Dawson
Corona, CA

Thanks Alex,

None of the example showed motions like a door opening and closing, sliding door opening and closing, drawer pulling out and back in, roll up desk opening and closing, etc.

Do have any specific examples?

Don Dawson
Corona, CA

You can find several on youtube

Thanks Chris,

I watched the first one concerning the refrigerator. How do you EXPORT>ANIMATION making MP4 showing the motion of the drawers and doors?

Don Dawson
Corona, CA

Check this out: Dynamic Door Beginners Project

The basics of animating objects in SU are fairly rudimentary.
Scenes allow you to set specific views and lets you animate moving from one view to another, but it doesn’t allow you to move a specific object within the scene.
So the trick is to use multiple copies of your object and “move it” by hiding and unhiding the individually placed copies.
There are several plugins around to help automate the process but it helps to understand the interaction of layers and scenes.
Here is a very simple drawer opening and closing. This can be exported as a video or a set of image files.

1 Like