While I’ve been manually creating my own quad geometry from passing SketchUp to Blender to Unreal Engine, this sweet little plugin allows for quick file configuration saving tons of time. It’s 50% off right now, give it a shot if you’re looking to make the jump to games, VR, or interactivity.
https://cgcookiemarkets.com/blender/all-products/blendup-sketchup-to-blender-converter/
I just stumbled across blendup for the first time today and am intrigued by its potential. Do you know of links to any information about using this plug in for animating SketchUp models after they are exported into blender? or once they are in blender are all the manipulation tutorials coming from the blender side of things?
Any feedback is appreciated thank you
Once the import happens, the file becomes a .blend. Meaning you can do anything with the model that you normally could do in Blender - including animation.
As far as tutorials, you may want to check out CGcookie training for animation tutorials. Its a pay site, but the training is absolutely worth it, even just a month of subscription. The only caveat is they geometry becomes triangulated, making editing a bit of troublesome task… Having access to the original SU file means any edits can happen there.
Hope this helps!
Just to add, this is a node based animation plugin for blender. It will make the somewhat convoluted process of animation really easy. I took the time to learn the keyframe method built in, cause it’s not really far off from flash animation. But if time isn’t on your side, plugins like this can really make a difference. Cheers!
Thanks for your feedback.
I checked out CGCookie and the MotionTool plugin which both look like viable avenues to learn and produce CG stuff. I’m anxious to dive in to learning some more about creating animations of SketchUp models but really need to find something that’s directly related to the end product I have in mind. Since my knowledge beyond SketchUp is SO limited I need to find something VERY basic to know if I should invest my time in learning it. That is to say that I don’t want to spend time learning complex workflows that are beyond what I’ll use and apply for the project at hand.
I’m trying to animate SU models of residential construction materials and ‘systems’ to teach carpentry in a mobile app format which doesn’t require much of the whiz-bang that Blender is capable of. Just the basics in baby steps…
If that makes sense any additional insight you have is greatly appreciated by this 3D Newbie:sunglasses:
@thedigitaljobsite, most likely, setting up a simple Scene animation will suit your needs. Some notable examples on the SketchUp Sage.
catamountain; Thanks for your suggestion!
I don’t need much beyond scenes’ capabilities but do need enough to warrant
pursuing more advanced options and Blender seems to be a logical step.
The thing that I’ve found lacking in Scenes is animation ie: things can be
made to ‘appear’ and ‘disappear’ but what I’m after is ‘fly-ins’ and
actions. Actions like a hammer swinging, membranes being unrolled, that
sort of thing. And like any new endeavor there’s that learning curve to
tackle!
Inspecting mirrors is a job I could easily see myself doing…
There are a couple of Sketchup plugins that will animate individual components in SketchUp itself.
I’ve used one called Keyframe Animation (not free - $39) from Regular Polygon.
There’s a 10 day free trial period for you to see if it will do what you want.
Sorry, I can’t remember the name of the other I’ve heard of, but not used.
Hammers and rolling stuff below all done with a few manually set-up Scenes- following the set-up tips I derived from the tent_bb3.skp, accessible from the SketchUp Sage page linked above, something which I studied years ago.
This thread stared out about the BlendUp, converter extension. I don’t want to forget that, nor underplay that valuable addition to the SU extension universe - I quickly added a link to it on the SU Sage Resources page back when this thread first appeared. I don’t want to downplay the value of the keyframe extensions. Just a note that SUppers were manually setting up Scenes/Layers to make animations before extension developers helped to automate the process. And it’s good to know the SU basics on setting up SU files to create keyframe animations with manually set-up Scenes/Layers before exclusively using an extension.
The original only had round pegs. I used to have one about 60 years ago.
Anssi
Wow!.. I’s got some learning to do! Time to study up on the scenes/ animation methods shown above… they just might do the trick. If nothing else I’ll get up to speed on capabilities of native SU scenes.