Is it possible to make parts follow movements of other parts?
Like if I draw a door that opens and closes with a linear motor, and want to simulate the movement of these by simply opening and closing the door? Or if i draw a series of gears, is it possible to make it so that if I rotate the gear at one end all the other gears will follow?
Not natively. You might have a look at Animator by Fredo6. It’s available from Sketchucation.
I sometimes make animation using copies of component instances, tags, and scenes. Not at all difficult to do. Here’s an example. Click on the picture.
Its definitely possible but requires a bit of study.
Have a look at this thread which I started to cover a project I have on the go to see what’s possible.
Kawasaki S3 400 Engine & Gearbox - SketchUp / Gallery - SketchUp Community
Best of luck.
Thanks. Looking in to Animator, but looks like that is going to require quite some effort get good at.
When you make animations like this, you have to move component/groups to where you want them, make a scene, and then move them to the next location to make another scene, and so on. correct?
Thanks for your reply.
I`ve read trough your thread on the Kawasaki. cool project 
Any chance you could share the details on how you made that con-rod move with the crank when you finally got it?
I am a complete novice to animator…
This seemes to be a common misunderstanding. You have to make copies instead of just moving the item. You can assign a tag to each of the copies and make only one copy visible in each scene by turning off the other’s tags.
I’m sure @DaveR has an example lying around somewhere…
No problem.
I think the best way for you to achieve the movements you require is to learn how to use an extension like ‘Fredo Animator’ and just experiment with it.
If you get stuck you can ask specific questions on here or Sketchucation or you can check out various tutorials.
I found this one on YouTube very useful but there are plenty of other.
Animator - Tutorial 1 - Basic concepts - YouTube
Best of luck.
You can use Sketchup Physics. Not sure if it works with latest SketchUp version, but can try with Make 2017.
I used it for this animation to connect Luxo’s interocking parts:
Not correct for animations using just tags and scenes as I described and show with the steam engine. As @tweenulzeven wrote you have to make copies of the components in at their various positions for each scene (frame) of the animation. It’s nothhing special. Just using Move and Rotate to get the parts into place.
Sketchy Physics doesn’t work in later versions of SketchUp. Animator des and Fredo6 is keeping it up to date.
@Fredo6 's Animator extension is terrific, but it does require a fair amount of learning and practice to use it. Note that Animator does not implement automatic collision detection or joints etc. between SketchUp groups and components. Objects must be manually positioned. For meshing gears the needed rotations are fairly easy to define manually. For hybrid rotation and translation (e.g., a piston head and connecting rod) it is not easy.