SW presentations

ok people, so how do you make your engineering presentations?
I ask this question because I live in a fairly isolated and backward part of
the world lacking exposure to major company practices.
I have been doing some reasonably sophisticated raytraced animations in
Blender of SW assemblies that take up a lot of processing time...like 3-4-5
mins a frame...realistically an animation of 30 secs seems enough time spent
for a one person operation like mine, however it seems to me I would
actually make better use of my time stringing a couple of dozen well chosen
photo renders together in a slide show or PowerPoint file.
Are people really interested in paying for animations and 'clever'
presentation pitches?
what do audiences prefer? do they fall asleep after 5 mins no matter how
cinematic? do you spend a lot of time jazzing up with effects and
transitions etc.
any opinions and experience would be helpful to hear about
thanks
neil.

 

We do some sales presentations here every so often using PW and Animator.
The animations typically run about 1-1 1/2 minutes. I splice together
animation shorts, renderings, some info slides and a little music to fill
the time. The videos aren't terribly long but they get the concept and
point across. People seem to be content with them.

How does blender work with SW? I downloaded a copy of blender a while back
but haven't had a chance to really use it. I'd like to see some rendering
you've done with it from SW models.

Rob

 

Neil:

Powerpoint is pretty much the basis for most of the presentations I do,
in fact, I much prefer it over Word any time I have to mix images and
text. There are a couple ways you can mix animations with PPT. One way
is just to have a still image, and hyperlink it to the animation, and
click to run. Another way is to use an animated gif, and it will run
automatically and continuously inside the PPT slide. For simple, short
(10 sec) animations, I like the gif.

If I'm presenting to a CAD savvy crowd, I like to jump back and forth
between PPT and SW. I've seem some people do SW presentations
completely in PPT with animations of menu picks running the software.
For example, imagine going to a live 4 hour What's New in SW 2005
presentation where the SolidWorks software is not opened once, it's all
done with screen captures of menu picks. In my opinion, that's lame.
You could get your secretary to give a presentation like that.

Pictures are a great improvement over plain text in a presentation. It
might be the difference between applause and snores. To me, animations
are as big an improvement over images as images are over text. I like
to include animations when I can, even though I don't have a lot of
talent at creating them. Even if you don't render it, an animation can
communicate mechanisms or exploded views like nothing else. If you
don't have time for a rendered animation, you could do just a screen
capture of dynamic assembly motion, or use the simulation tools in sw.
Animator 2005 is a big improvement over the previous version. Animation
captures the imagination like no still image can.

If you're presenting to your own boss, you might not want to do anything
too flashy, so he doesn't think you have a lot of spare time. If you
present to customers, though, I think you get extra points for "over the
top" sort of stuff. If you've ever seen Mark Biasotti's KACP (Kill
Another CAD Program) video, you'll understand the impact of images in
motion.

But be careful too, I've had presentations backfire on me. Some people
have no imagination, vision, or sense of humor. Sometimes folks can't
make the leap from the cartoons to reality. If the people in your part
of the world are sometimes closeminded, backwards and afraid of change,
2D line drawings may be the only things they understand.

One time a potential customer called my SolidWorks model of his product,
which was driven by a VB interface, a "pretty picture". This is a
stigma most 3D CAD has long since shaken off, but some people simply
cannot make the leap.

Anyway, could you post some of your stuff? I'm always interested to see
cool work.

matt

 

I do a lot of presentation material, we're manufacturing machines and
loading systems for food industry. What we do is to put our machines and
systems into the cusomers premises together with some of their own machines
to show the flow through the process. I render everytning in Photworks and
another guy then takes it into PowerPoint and fill in with comments,
explanations and figures. Recently we also bought NavisWorks where we make a
"Walk Through" through the entire model (saved as an avi) and brought into
the PP presentation. Later on in the purchasing process, when we're close to
an order we can also send over the NavisWorks model and viewer to let the
customer do his own walk through and have a closer look at what's gonna
happend. We have talked about making animations but so far it's too time
consuming for me to handle and as Your question is ...will it really pay
back. A few key functions in our machines and the systems I'm gonna animate
and also started a little, but it's only gonna be very short sequences
brought in to the PP presentation.

This way of presenting our material is highly appreciatet among our
customers and agents as almost no one of production people in a meat plant
can read a 2d drawing in the same way as he can see the layout from a
photorendered 3d model. A photorendered layout alsos gives the presentation
a more professional look, and once You've got the hang of how to do it it
doesn't take that much time to do.

Krister L

 

Content and context.

Content:
I think that people will pay attention as long as they are getting
information they need. I recently did a user group presentation that
lasted about 80 minutes. While attendance wasn't too great, it was
gratifying to see people taking notes and asking intelligent questions
all the way through.

Context:
Know your audience. What do they need to see? What do they want to
know?
Don't try to answer 100% of questions right from the main body of the
presentation. Pick your important points, make it clear more
information is available. You don't want a free-for-all, but you do
want some flexibility in the direction your audience may wish to take.

 

hmmm....thanks for your replies guys,
I think I will change my approach on the basis of what you have said.
while animations are to me quite interesting to do they simply take too much
time to set up and process - typically I render these over a weekend - but
even so it takes 1-2 hrs run time per sec of animation. 5 secs would seem to
be about the minimum clip useful to give a glimpse of something....maybe I
will just do one or two clips for visual spice and have photos and slides
for the body of the presentation. It seems a better idea to interact with
the audience rather than have them passively receive something.
I know what you mean Matt about people not appreciating your work - I did a
kinda cute/fun anim of a torch carrying emaciated cartoon 'mouse' on a
bedside table using a very realistic cellphone (the styling concept I was
trying to promote) to call PizzaHut in the middle of the night.....humour is
something we have eliminated from our personality now that we have made it
to the top... : {

Matt have you seen this free add in for PPT.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/producer/prodinfo/default.mspx

Rob,Matt... re Blender unfortunately its not possible to share my best work
with you because of commercial confidentiality and also the animation files
are quite big - up to 240mb...also I have nowhere to post them for public
access...sorry
If you are interested in Blender go to http://www.blender3d.org/ and
download the latest version.grab the Blender 2.35 regression suite also and
from the video tutorials animation section ' Key Framing and IPO
curves'...this will help you appreciate some of the functionality.
go here for PDF 2.3 user guide
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=documentation&file=index
this is really necessary to get your head around the program. there is also
version release notes here for new stuff added since 2.3
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Blender_2_35a.482.0.html
go here for a really useful forum
http://www.elysiun.com/forum/index.php
to get Solidworks parts into Blender you need to export as VRML

Krister, is the NavisWorks walk through of just a shaded model or does it
support real time shadows and textures? how long does it take to set up ? I
suppose this product would have limited use for presenting an industrial
design..can it do exploded or animated parts or is it just a fly around?

Tick, I suppose you used PPT too?how many PPT slides did you end up with to
talk intelligently about for 80 mins? how long did you spend preparing for
it?

thanks again guys
neil

 

Neil......about the Navis Works

It's a lot more usefull for a plant layout then for a smaller industrial
design. One major thing is filesize....it brings down the largest SW-files
to something really handy to work with....You can do a walkthrough or
flyover on a quite simple computer, there is a free viewer called Freedom
coming with the software and also downloadable from navis website.

It uses textures and lights...but it can also be rendered just as good as
Photoworks...but too timeconsuming, my experiences is that photoworks is
faster if You just wanna have a picture. It doesn't use the PW material
either, You have to add new materials. What I've done so far is to put on
textures, a little bit like "real view" in SW, there is a library of
textures coming with the program and more are downloadable at lightwork. I
put on textures by picking the parts in a list, then adding material to a
group of parts, rather then finding them on the screen. I't not at all like
a photorendered picture but good enough for a presentation. An animation is
not at all difficult to set up, just to state a bunch of viewpoints and then
bring them into an empty animation.....a few adjustments... and it's done.

It can't do explodes but cut-slides are really simple tasks.

Take a look at www.navisworks.com, they will also offer You a demo if You're
interested

Have You ever used 3D studio?....last year we had a consultant doing a video
for us, showing a machine in an animation. I gave hime all necessary files
saved as STL and he brought them in to 3D studio....added material and did
the animations there and saved it all as an mpg. This was an older guy
....complaining a lot ....took a lot of time he said, I then talked to some
younger guys at an IT-company...and they said.... hmpf....piece of
cake....maximum two days to set up.

Krister L

 

thanks Krister,
Seems everyone has a problem with the time it takes to make detailed
presentations rather than the capability of the software to deliver
realistic results....
re using 3D Studio, no,out of my price range for an individual esp for
occasional use. played with gmax a bit for fun though. : )
if you don't mind me asking - how long was the video you had done and in
ballpark figures what did you pay for it? was your company satisfied it as
money well spent?made a difference to winning your clients approval? would
a few photorealistic shots in a PPT presentation have been OK ? or would
that have been seen as too basic,cheap,or 'unprofessional' ??

cheers

I will pay a visit to Navis Works and check it out....

 

Hi again...

This video is 5 min long and we paid roughly 40000Sek for it...(7500 AUD).
Ended up with about 50Mb. This was done because in order to show the
features in this machine we needed an animation. In my opinion it's not a
really good video could have been done more realistic, and also 5 min is a
bit too long. He also failed a little with some movement simulation inside a
drum. My boss is of an other opinion, but he can put together moviclips
from intallations, testruns and stuff like that to a 40min long video and be
quite satisfied with it....no one will ever look at that from start to end.
This was done for one of our standard machines though, so the clip will be
"up to date" for quite a while.
When You want to show a machine like this one, I don't think a PPT can
compete with a movie clip, the problem is to find skilled people who can do
these animations "on the fly", to bring the price down
My opinion is that it is more important to show the features You want to
highlight in for example realview then to have a fancy surface with shadows.
In a PowerPoint presentations it is possible to do both without too much
efforts, but in a movieclip with a big machine it takes for ever.

Krister

 

Krister,
I am a bit taken aback by the $8000+ NZD pricetag for 5 mins!! O
wish I knew people locally with budgets like that....

myself I am thinking about presentations 3 mins long - about the length of a
pop song...a suitable attn span and easy to find a background sound track
for.
also I think clips of 5,10,15 secs depending on how much detail to
comprehend.

downloaded free MS PhotoStory3 recently, can set up pan and zoom across
pics/renders and record commentary for each segment separately before
mixdown. ;o )

thanks for your answers
regards
neil

 

hi Jonathon,
for your interest Blender has a similar ability called 'toon' shading.

I am not sure that the miracles you refer to are not actually becoming
common place as technology advances. well I mean if I was just illustrating
a general idea I would be better to pull out a napkin and draw on a corner
of it? (with a disclaimer clause on the back!) why not utilise the PC
ability? rapid prototypes? virtual reality? this sort of stuff opens up
visualisation possibilities for the designer,engineer and the client.
when it comes down to it I can put
reflection,refraction,translucency,halo,specular highlights etc on an
individual LED and have these turn on and off or even change colour.once I
have these attributes set up I can quickly import them into other projects
these are capabilities of technology..people may be wowed by this on first
sight but I mean colour television was amazing at one time.
just a different perspective....rhetorically yours

 

good points.thanks for your input... )

 

by the way Krister here is a useful compositing utility that a 3D studio max
user might benefit from too ;o )
http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html
cheers

 

ok well, Rob and Matt, I sat down and did a little doodle with some basic
stuff just for your amusement and mine....
if you like I can email to you - 2.8mb though
cheers
neil

very simple model ex SW
raytraced with reflections,area light etc. and diffuse energy from spherical
sky map
various paths and camera focal length variations
few transitions for good effect.. I hope : )