animator

Hi,
In my last post where I asked about photoworks, I've got great tips and
advice on how to render my project from Lee and Rob (hope you guys had a
chance to read my replies to this thread. sorry for the 2 day delay in
response... ).

Now things are getting more complicated: I need to use animator in order to
make an animation using photoworks renderings.

So here is what I've made: In animator I made a sequence of view orientation
changes which animator interpolates between perfectly, but......... now
comes the tricky part: on the last 5 seconds of the animation I want
animator to explode the assembly of the ring assembly object so the client
will notice the subtle changes in geometry between the titanium part and the
gold part, but unfortunately animator explodes the WHOLE animation sequence
instead of only the last 5 seconds. I'm unable to create an orange timeline
between the explode keys of the exploded part on the last 5 seconds,
although I specifically introduce the explode step 5 seconds before the last
frame.

My goal is:

frame 00:00:00-00:20 = collapsed
frame 00:00:20 - 00:00:25 = exploded

Is this at all possible? or are those detailed and coloured timeline
representations on the help file are merely theoretical. I think I'm surely
missing something here, but I'm unable to find it in the help file.

thanks,
Gil

 

Gil,

Did you have the time bar moved to the time when you wanted the explode
to start? Are any parts moving in the rest of the animation or just a
view change? I tried it here on a simple assembly, and I was able to
get the explode to start at a specific time independent of the first 5
second view change.

If you see an orange line extending back to the beginning, ctrl-drag the
keypoint from the beginning to the place where you want it.

 

Did you have the time bar moved to the time when you wanted the explode to

Yes. i moved the time bar to the 15th second before applying the explode
step. in the animation all the parts stay in place - no movement what so
ever. the only thing which changes in the first 15 seconds is the view.

After applying the explode to the animation in the 15th second, the orange
line which suppose to appear doesn't appear. Only one keypoint of the
explode appear at the beginning of the timeline (a blue keypoint), but if I
control drag it (or drag it without control) then no orange timeline is
added between the keypoints, instead solidworks adds another blue keypoint
to the time description (without any timeline stretching from the previous
one to the new one)!

Beside the overall animation timeline (thin black) and the view orientation
timeline (thick black), there are no additional timelines or timeline
colours available in my time graph, the only hint that there are supposed to
be such timelines are the blue diamond keypoints at the beginning time of
all my schematic components in the animation bar.

I'm using SW2006 sp5 with windows XP sp2.

thanks,
Gil

 

Hi Gil,

Ahh, animator - software that needs some SERIOUS attention to the user
interface in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm not great at it but one tip I can give you is to right click the
explode key at the begining of the timeline and paste that key to the point
where you want the explode to start. I've not tried with Explodes, but when
I'm trying to stop strange movements of things that usually helps.

Otherwise, try making a simple assembly, say two things, and make your
mistakes on that before trying with your main one.Also, once you have a
point that's working ok, make sure you save before moving on to another part
of the animation, that way when it all goes mental you can get back to the
last good bit.

Finally, I dont know how you're doing to the view animation, but using a
camera with 'dummys' to control the view and position seems a pretty good
way to have a look round an obeject.

Good luck.

LB

 

Hi Gil,

Hello Lee,

I second that without any hesitation.

Allready tried it - but in vain! When I right click the explode feature in
the animation bar, then SW highlights also the move component item and the
appearence item, and opens a menu in which there is no explode option.
Attempting to move the keypoint on the explode line achives nothing: SW will
not create orange timeline between it and the previous keypoint (it will
just copy the blue keypoint to a new position while leaving one behind in
the initial position whithout any change in animation).

My assembly is very simple (3 components in one hirarchy layer). the explode
step consists of only one moved component.

Regarding the saving issue: here is another strange thing - while pressing
the save button solidworks colses the viewports of the animation bar.
althogh i didnt check if it actually saved okay (should check it in the near
future)

Could you please clarefy this point? What are exactly dummys?

Thanks. I allready had success when i used the "move component" in the
animation, instead of the "explode" - different terminology but i think the
result is the same, or at least what i wanted.

 

When I say 'dummy' I mean create a simple part, say a sphere or something,
and put two of them in your assembly. Now when you set up a camera set the
target as the origen of one of tehm and the camera position to the origen of
the other. Also, set the camera roll to a plane of the one that control
position and make sure you mate the plane parallel to something that keeps
the camera the right way up - other wise you can have some funny twisting
views!

Now you can use these two components to animate the camera view, and then
hide them when you render or play your animation (make sure you hide them at
the begining of the time line or they'll fade in and out...). This technique
is good for creating walk-throughs and stuff....I think in 2007 there might
be a bit more camera animation control but I've not had a moment to have a
play as yet.

 

O.K. Lee, I think I got the idea:
The 'dummy' objects are placed so I can snap and mate the camera to them, so
if I apply movement to them the camera stays fixed to them. thanks for
clearing this for me.

Cheers,
Gil