Animating Light

Is it possible to animate a light source moving in an assembly?

 

Yes, check it out. All you need is this bad-ass M.F....
http://www.mikejwilson.com/solidworks/solidworks_files.htm

That's short for Macro Feature of course!

*) Open the assembly
*) Drag the light fixture shade a little bit
*) Hit CTRL-Q

You will see the spot light re-direct itself accordingly.
It's not "real time" unfortunately, but it's good enough for
animations.

You can edit the Macro Feature to do many lights as
well as different kinds.

Here is a sample anime...
http://www.mikejwilson.com/misc/associative_lights.zip

Mike Wilson

 

Mike:

How do I edit the macro feature?

Jacob

 

for that matter how do i insert a macro feature into my assy?

 

In the original ZIP file you downloaded from my site, there
is a regular macro file. This is what you edit. The Macro
Feature in the assembly references this file.

When you edit the macro, there are some brief instructions
to get you started.

Mike Wilson

 

Well, if the macro is written properly, all you need to do
is run it and it will insert the Macro Feature, 'feature' into
the Feature Manager.

Since I'm not a macro expert, it took me many hours of trial
and error as well as help from this NG to get it working.

I haven't tested it in 2004, so there may be some glitches
there. I just tried to run it and got an error. Probably a
minor fix.

Mike Wilson

 

i'm trying it in 2004 and get an error at the line: "Set Doc =
swApp.ActiveDoc"

 

Hmm, not sure what's going on. For now you can remove
the line "Option Explicit" and re-save the macro. This
should allow you to run it.

I won't have the time to de-bug it for the time being.
Maybe one of our API Superheroes can help? Like I
mentioned, my macros skills are pretty rusty so any
advice, new additions, improvements would be warmly
welcomed.

Maybe you can start a new API thread to help get you
the features you need in your animation macro? That
way you can grab the attention of the API people (they
might ignore this thread).

Mike Wilson

 

Thanks Mike.