Access to "Include in Animation" from Ruby API

[Ferraro]

Why was this feature left out? Most of our models consist of an animation fly-through, and several still scenes for various key viewpoints. The stills are not included in the animation for obvious reasons. I have automated our process of creating scenes for production, but the automation becomes pointless if the end user has to manually find and uncheck each scene to be excluded from the animation. This is extremely frustrating and some method of creating an excluded scene is entirely necessary if any scenes at all are to be created from the Ruby API. Pages.add is crippled without this feature. I am so frustrated with this that I absolutely refuse to upgrade my pro licenses until this feature is added, as it is the single largest improvement that can be incorporated into Sketchup for our use.

[john_drivenupthewall]

I recall it is all in the ‘naming’…
to exclude from an animation from ruby, both ‘page.label’ and ‘page.name’ need brackets (around_name)…

@DanRathbun had some detailed post’s about pages…

john

[eneroth3]

The brackets are just added in the UI to show the scene isn’t included in the animation. They are not a part of the actual scene name. A scene can have brackets in the name while being included in the animation and if the same scene is later excluded it will show with double brackets in the scene tab.

[Ferraro]

Dan asked for this feature with no success as far as I can find. Since page.label is read only, adding brackets here is not a possibility. If you add brackets to page.name, you simply put brackets in the name string like eneroth mentioned.

[DanRathbun]

@Ferraro

Why was this feature left out?

The native animation feature(s) have always been rudimentary, and likely not expanded as they were considered a professional feature. (Ie, there are limitations in the Free / Make editions with regard to animation export.)

Basically I think that their status (as to expansion) is “in limbo” and have been put off as the 3rd party animation extensions have been filling the gap for the most part. That and other features have had higher priority.

@Ferraro

Dan asked for this feature with no success as far as I can find.

True, as of SketchUp v2017, this FR has not yet been implemented. (It is just one of those minor API omissions that has not yet percolated to the top of the “to do” list.)

This is likely to change in the future, especially for SketchUp Pro as there have been quite a few animation feature requests that are (or should) only be implemented in the Pro edition(s).

There are other long hoped for “core” feature requests that’ll probably be implemented before animation gets any more “love”, but these other “core” features are happening slowly, so it’s only a matter of time.

@eneroth3

The brackets are just added in the UI to show the scene isn’t included in the animation.

Actually, the brackets are added to the page object’s label (read-only) property.

@john_drivenupthewall

I recall it is all in the ‘naming’…
to exclude from an animation from ruby, both ‘page.label’ and ‘page.name’ need brackets (around_name)…

Adding brackets to the name property will have no effect on the animation page set.

So, currently (as of SketchUp v2017,) there is no easy API means to set a page to be included or not be included in animation.

@john_drivenupthewall

@DanRathbun had some detailed post’s about pages…

I posted a query method (to determine if a user has manually set a page to be included in animation,) that should work for any old version (even if a page’s name has it’s own brackets.) :

[Ruby] RfE: Sketchup::Page animation query / setter methods needed

Oh wow… … I just realized there always was a workaround for the boolean query method. (Depending upon …) Example: def page_used_in_animation?( page ) # # Returns false if page's label is the page's name # surrounded by parenthesis, otherwise true. # ( Works even if user manually named the scene # page using parenthesis around the name. ) # if page.is_a?( Sketchup::Page ) if page.label.length - page.name.length == 2 && page.label[0,1] == '(' && page.label[-1,1] == ')' re…

I did explore a possible workaround using template pages in this thread:

Handling "Include in animation" flag in Scenes

I am wondering if there is a way to handle the “Include in animation” flag from the API. I can’t see any related method in Sketchup::Page, so I guess it is not possible at all. Any hint? It would be useful to define whether a scene is included in a rendering cycle or not.

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I also wonder if a component file with a scene could be used ? The component could be only a cpoint at the ORIGIN, but have the proper kind of page (included or not included in animation.)

[Ferraro]

@DanRathbun

I also wonder if a component file with a scene could be used ? The component could be only a cpoint at the ORIGIN, but have the proper kind of page (included or not included in animation.)

That is an interesting idea, I was not able to find scene information saved into my component files after inserting the components back into a new model though.

[Ferraro]

Well if there is anyone else out there in the Sketchup Universe that needs to include (or exclude) scenes in their animation programmatically and simply, pipe up. Otherwise, this will likely not happen. Thanks.

[DanRathbun]

@Ferraro

Otherwise, this will likely not happen.

WELL, IT HAPPENED !

The new API additions for SketchUp 2018 are live in the API docs:

• Sketchup::Page#include_in_animation= setter method

• Sketchup::Page#include_in_animation? boolean query method

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@Ferraro

I am so frustrated with this that I absolutely refuse to upgrade my pro licenses until this feature is added, as it is the single largest improvement that can be incorporated into Sketchup for our use.

Feel free to update …

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See API Release Notes:

• What’s new in SketchUp 2018

[eneroth3]

This is makes me happy to see!

[Ferraro]

This is a huge relief to me. I am almost crying right now, I am so excited about this.

[john_drivenupthewall]

@Ferraro

I absolutely refuse to upgrade my pro licenses until this feature is added

so have you???

john

[Ferraro]

I was just discussing this with my boss, we will be bringing current 6 licenses in the next few weeks.

[barry_milliken_droid]