I recently used the Keyframe Animation extension to help create a video animation of a complex model I’m constructing. The component motion begins at about 49 seconds into the video, and continues off-and-on for most of the remainder. Using the extension took some practice but was fairly straight-forward. This model has many layers of nested components which took some thinking to plan what I wanted to have the extension ‘record’ and when, from scene to scene (about 90 scenes overall). But I’m happy with the results. (By the way the transitions to and from cut-away versions of some components did not involve using Keyframe Animation features per-se, that was done with stock SketchUp layers and video editing software (iMovie) to do dissolves between overlapping video segments.)
What a fantastic piece of work Tom.
Particularly liked the way you used the cut-away techniques. Did you use section cuts? If so, how did you apply them to subparts of the model like that? I missed the link to download the model. It would be interesting to see how you did some of that stuff.
Again, VERY good video. I assume you did some of it is parts and then used iMovie to put it together so you could get the transitions. I have done that with the Movie Maker software before but not as eloquently as you did.
Thanks for the compliment Jim and Dave. The downloadable version of the model listed at the end of the video is a “clean” version that does not contain all the scenes and cut-away alternate components. Here is a version of the SketchUp file with all of those extra elements.
I did not use SketchUp’s Section Cut feature. (By the way I think if you put a section cut within a component, it only applies to the context of that component.) Initially I was hoping to use section cuts but it turns out that Keyframe Animation does not pay attention to them (which would be needed to enable and disable them per-scene). Also I decided to make some cut-aways with non-planar sections, so doing it by hand gave me wanted flexibility.
Thus I created alternate versions of those components which I wanted to open up. These were created by copying and “making unique” the normal version of the component, then adding temporary faces where I wanted the cuts, then doing an intersection, then deleting the bits intended to be “invisible.” I organized the model with many layers, two layers for each model item with cut-away behavior. One layer holds the standard full component, the other layer holds the cut-away version.
The SketchUp file has the complete sequencing for the video, start to end. You can play the animation in SketchUp for the complete real-time video but the cut-away transitions will appear as instant jumps, not smooth dissolves. In order to do the dissolve transitions when cut-aways come and go I rendered two versions of the appropriate scene ranges. For example say a solid component is to be fully-visible at scene 5 but fade to cut-away at scene 6. I would create a throw-away copy of the .skp file with the layer containing the full component visible and the layer with the cut-away version invisible, at both scene 5 and 6. I would render those two scenes - the component would be completely visible for the entire clip. Then I would create another throw-away copy of the .skp file where the layer visibility was swapped, for both scenes 5 and 6. Then I would render those two scenes again - the component would be cut-away for the entire clip. I imported the two rendered clips into the video editor and placed a dissolve between them, for a duration that matched the running-time of each clip. (Before doing the above two clip renders I deleted unrelated scenes in the model for simplicity.)
In the end I had to create a couple of dozen separate clips, each of which had an overlapping pair of scenes at the start and/or end to be dissolved with its video neighbors. It took some practice to realize that the Keyframe Animation extension adds one extra frame at the start and end of a rendered clip. Those needed manual trimming. The extra frame at the start was eliminated after using Keyframe Animation’s “create tweens” feature, by deleting the first algorithmically-generated scene in SketchUp (with the tweens, each algorithmic scene is one video frame). I deleted the extra frame at the end of a clip (which is a duplicate of the prior frame) in the video editor.
That is an amazing piece of work, Tom. It just blows the mind. I’m a retired 74yo hobbyist who enjoys using SU as a pastime and mental exercise machine. I shall never achieve your expertise (I lack the necessary intellect and training) but it is reassuring to know that SU can be used to such powerful effect. It certainly will do more than I shall ever ask of it.
Kudos, BIG TIME!
@TDahl All makes sense to me…
Again, nice job. Many people could learn from this.
@rabbithutch I think you just posed my profile. We are the same age and in the same situation. I do have one advantage, I have a company that has me do some models for them (averages about 4 hours/month).
@ntxdave Interesting! I’m a few hours South of you in central Texas.
I lived in Austin (technically Round Rock) in the late 70’s.