I have a large model that need to allow people to walk through. This will entail entering rooms, opening doors, climbing staircases, etc. To explore a real building to my design on foot would take about 3 minutes. Can S/U be set up to do this?
SU has camera animation, done with transitions between scene pages. You can change the transitions times between pages, and delay time for pages, at least globally via the standard UI. (ModelInfo > Animation)
There are some plugins that will make camera path animations easier. SMustard has one I believe*.
Basically you draw a series of connected edges on a special layer. And then tell the plugin to create an animation.
Plugins can vary the specific page delay and transition times using the Ruby API.
- See FlightPath and FlightPath2,⌠CameraControls, etc.
Also search Trimble Extension Warehouse for âanimationâ or âflythrough walktroughâ
Sounds like something thatâs beyond me! Are there folk that you could pay to do this stuff?
Sure I suppose. Do you want me to move this topic to the Commercial Work and Collaboration category ?
Iâd say try giving some plugins a try if you have time. The better of the two plugins from SMustard is only 7 bucks.
Ping, @RickW should know how, or know someone who can.
Hold on @spogadog; I think youâre making this too difficult. Just create a fly-through tour by creating a series of scenes, each representing a stop on the tour. That is out-of-the-box functionality, and it could hardly be easier. Each scene should frame a view showing whatever you want to show. The resulting animation will fly from scene to scene. It probably wonât feel like a walkthru because you wonât be afootâyouâll be flyingâbut come on: flying is cooler than walking any day of the week, and it will allow you to show your people every location and feature you want them to see in whatever order you wish.
-Gully
True, but adjusting the scene transition times so you donât have jarring abrupt speed changes during your animation is tedious and time consuming. That is why the plugins exist - to smooth things out quickly. It can also be challenging to get the desired path of motion (ever had a camera move through a wall or two because of SketchUpâs âin-betweeningâ actions?) - another reason for the plugin.
Itâs worth trying out the free version of my FlightPath plugin. If it generally works but you need additional control or options, you could consider the pay version.
True enough, @RickW. The OP seemed to be suffering from option overload, and I just wanted to remind him of the simplest approach. I guess heâll just have to weigh his expectations against his resources and make a choice.
-Gully
not exactly what you are looking for but the in the meanwhile free Revizto may already fulfill most of your needs besides interactions with objects.
Thanks. So you just download this for free and then load your SU model into it?
If I understand their site correctly, the viewer to watch their scenes is free, on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. But, the editor that makes those scenes is quite expensive, and is subscription.
SketchUp Skill Builder video: How to install an Extension
How to install an Extension: Tutorial
Hopefully the extension has a description of how to use it.
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Thanks to all you folks who helped me out with this âwalk throughâ thing. I went with Gullyâs suggestion with the fly-through âthingieâ. Results are utterly stunning. Shame I canât find ANY of your replies; whatâs going on here?
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Thanks Dan, all working good now!
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Tried this and, as you say, it did what it says on the tin in epic style. Thanks!
I see what you mean about âflyingâ vs âwalkingâ but I was able to mitigate this to some extent by keeping the âcamera?â close to the ground and incorporating lots of stop-off points (scenes).
I rather hoped that by gradually cracking a door ajar by small increments (in successive scenes) that it might result in it fully opening in the finished animation. Needless to say, it remained resolutely shut! Guess thatâs the maths of the programme? Can SU be persuaded to incorporate this kind of motion as part of 'flying through? Or is it time to cough up the dosh for a plugin?
I suppose a plugin that also allows a musical backing track is asking too much?
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SU scene animation is not intended to cause models to âmove,â but rather to cause the camera to move through the model. As for the modelâitâs the same model in every scene; if you open the door a crack in Scene 1, itâs open a crack in all scenes. The scene simply provides a âfilterâ through which to view the model using some set of display attributes, including point of view, visibility of certain layers, lighting, shadows, etc.
The only way to cause the door to appear to swing open or shut is to superimpose a series of instances of the door component, with each instance shown at a point along the swing arc. By turning the visibility of each door instance on and then off in sequence through a series of scenes (typically using layer visibility), you can create the illusion of motion, like some old-time stop action animation, but at the expense of adding a bunch of extra geometry to the underlying model. The model itself is the same in every scene; however, parts of it are visible in some scenes but not others.
-Gully
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Iâm guessing that component animation is only available in SU Pro? I need to portray a succession of doors opening plus a âmachineâ breaking/erupting from beneath the ground. Will I need SU Pro in order to achieve this?
If by component animation you mean actually making the model move, that isnât a native function of SU at all. There are a couple (that I know of) plugins that animate SU models, although I havenât personally used them. Iâm pretty sure they both work with SU Make, although Iâm not sure about version compatibility.
I suspect that others will be able to chime in if you need help with them.
-Gully
At this time, built-in component animation, can only be triggered by the DC Interact tool. (It looks like a browserâs hand cursor clicking a link.) The Dynamic Components functionality is actually an extension, but it is distributed with all editions of SketchUp.
You can code dynamic components in Ruby, but the nifty dialog wizard to create them, is a Pro Only feature.
(They are actually just a component with a special named attribute dictionary, that has specially named attributes and attributes that are formula.)
So a DC door component would have a behavior attribute with a formula like: âonClick(Animate(âŚ))â so that the door swings open when the user clicks it with the DCInteractTool.
Built-in plain-Jane scene animations, cannot stop and âclickâ DCs.
So for the fancy features, some kind of extension (plugin) that use Ruby to fly the camera, and stop and rotate doors will be needed. Some of these plugins are easier as you draw a flightpath on a specially named layer, and the plugin code moves the camera along the path, rather that you setting up hundreds of scene pages.
Yes, I found out this morning just how tedious it can be attempting to generate a SMOOTH and consistent flight path using scenes! I also note that it is not possible to fully invert the camera; it always r defaults to being the âright way upâ as soon as you approach, or pass, the vertical. I discovered this whilst trying to simulate an aerobatic âloopâ, no chance!
Do I take it from what you say that Dynamic components CAN be accessed in the free (non Pro) version of SU? I need all this stuff simply to âpimp upâ a bid for a screenplay. I would stump up for SU Pro, but Iâm getting the feeling that âsexyâ animations arenât really its thing?
BTW: does SU Pro allow musical/vocal backing tracks?