Basically, this plug-in will animate the movement of objects between scenes, and it can export the animation to an AVI movie (QuickTime on the Mac), directly from SketchUp.
Since most of you are probably familiar with the other animation plugins that have been posted here, I will try to describe this plugin by comparing it with them. The main animation plugins are Proper Animation by morisdov, and Mover.rb by cmd. This plugin has a similar workflow — you save the positions of the animated objects on each scene and it moves them when the scene changes. Here are the main things that are different:
Features
-The key frames (scenes) can be easily added, deleted, renamed, or reordered. For instance, you can reverse the order of the animation by putting the scenes in reverse order.
-Precisely control the length of the animation between key frames.
-Animate any group or component. Sub-groups (and sub-components) can also be animated. They can be nested to any depth.
-Rotations are interpolated correctly every time. Proper Animation and Mover.rb run into problems with rotations, unless the point of rotation is the component's origin. This is due to a bug in the Transformation.interpolate method, which both plugins rely on.
-Generate ordinary SketchUp scenes, which capture the animation in between the key frames. Let’s call them tweens. Each tween has a copy of the animated objects, and the camera, at a different point in the interpolation between key frames.
-Export the tween animation to an AVI movie (QuickTime on the Mac), right from SketchUp.
Demos
Here are a couple demos. They were exported directly from SketchUp, and uploaded to YouTube. The first one is the obligatory rotating gears. (25 fps, 480p)
This demo uses 16 keyframes, and 12 animated components, to show the steps in the construction of a slat platform bed frame made entirely from interlocking wooden parts. (15 fps, 360p)
Tutorial
This video shows the basic steps to make a simple animation, and how to export the animation as a movie. It is a bit outdated now, it shows the workflow for version 1.3, before there was a toolbar.
Last edited by Regular Polygon on Wed Jun 27, 2012 4:23 am, edited 8 times in total.
tfdesign wrote:A great plugin, but I think your price is a little on the steep side.
Well, I guess the market will ultimately decide this issue. But, compared to other commercial animation plugins, I thought the price was a bargain.
SketchUp was offered by Google to be a non-elitist app for everyone- why I imagine, it was offered for free, but for someone living in a 3rd-world country, or someone on unemployment benefit (and there is a lot of it about these days) $20 is a lot of money. Compared to say the SDS plugin, which IMO does something a lot more complex, and costs $2 more. Or how about even FredoScale, which is a dynamite plugin, but donationware. Please, don't get me wrong, and I'm sure your plugin will do very well, but again it will be richer countries like America who will be able to afford the more basic, yet essential payware plugins, leaving many in poorer nations, out (again).
Living in one of the most expensive countries in the world (a cinema ticket here is about 15$) I can't charge a price that fits the poorest - then there'd be no return value at all. Plugins take a lot of time to develop and the market for profit isn't that big. A price of 10-20$ (even 30$) isn't unreasonable.
The complexity of a plugin can not be determined unless you've seen the code for it. A plugin may appear very simple to the user, but be doing very complex things under the hood.
If this plugin had ben trivial - there'd be a free one out there already. As he mention in his post, there are some that does part of what his do, but not everything and has some issues. Providing a plugin that completes the package is worth $20. Just because SU comes in a free version doesn't mean every plugin has to be free. It's a matter of time spent and value gained. And he has contributed free plugins - so it's not as if he's all about profit.
thomthom wrote:Living in one of the most expensive countries in the world (a cinema ticket here is about 15$) I can't charge a price that fits the poorest - then there'd be no return value at all.
OK, how about this then; you make the plugin and I collect the money?
I think $19 is fair considering it has a trial period and it's open licence on private use. Also any future upgrades are bundled in. Compared to tgi3d it's peanuts. I know there's more in tgi3d but so far RP has offered his plugins free. Time to reward his efforts.
thomthom wrote: The complexity of a plugin can not be determined unless you've seen the code for it. A plugin may appear very simple to the user, but be doing very complex things under the hood.
Sure, but your missing the point.
Just for the record, I think the UK is now catching up on Norway
Open licence on private use? Sorry I didn't see that. Fair enough then!
This looks really great -- I can do almost all of that with Dynamic components (except export) in Sketchup Pro but for Free version users who want that functionality this plugin is truly a bargain at roughly $480 less.
Best, Jason.
I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.
This is a great plugin. Animation in SU is something that is so weak and this plugin will definitely help fill the gap in a big way. I see some great ways to use this plugin. Nice job!
OK, attached are two illustrations. The illustration labeled "with", has Keyframe Animation 1.0 loaded. The illustration labeled "without" does not have Keyframe Animation 1.0 loaded. As shown in the two illustrations, Keyframe Animation greys out the bottom half of the context menu for workplane.
I am not smart enough to know why, I just discovered it.
Any help would be nice.
Please, register (free) to access all the attachments on the forums.
Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible.
I installed Work Plane v2.3 to see what would happen. The menu isn't grayed out for me.
workplane_context_menu.png
As I recall, the cause for grayed out menus was due to plugins that create UI::Command objects inside of context-menu handlers. If that is happening, it is not due to Keyframe Animation, because it does not create any UI::Command objects, and it doesn't even have any context-menus.
Is this bug reproducible? If you remove KFA does it go away? If you reinstall KFA, does it come back?
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Regular Polygon wrote:I installed Work Plane v2.3 to see what would happen. The menu isn't grayed out for me.
workplane_context_menu.png
As I recall, the cause for grayed out menus was due to plugins that create UI::Command objects inside of context-menu handlers. If that is happening, it is not due to Keyframe Animation, because it does not create any UI::Command objects, and it doesn't even have any context-menus.
Is this bug reproducible? If you remove KFA does it go away? If you reinstall KFA, does it come back?
The two illustrations show KFA installed, the "with" illustration and KFA not installed the "without" illustration. There is no model, no other activity except, open Sketchup, make a workplane, and context menu select the workplane to arrive at the two illustrations. And yes this is repeatable.
Ken
Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible.
thomthom wrote:I think this can occur if a user has an unusual high number of installed plugins. Possibly SketchUp has a limit to how many menu items it can manage.
Well, Thomthom, that would be me.
Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible.
So far, I think only some of Fredo's older plugins has been identified to leak UI::Command objects. If you updated all off these, and can verify that the number of Command objects isn't growing (using the utility in the threads that discussed this) then I think you may have run into a SketchUp limit that plugin authors can't do anything about. Until Google can address this I think the only thing you can do is be a bit more selective on the plugins you have enabled.
Very interesting. That's an improvement. A toolbar would make me buy it. The trouble with those "scene governed animation" is that nothing can be linked. So one has to move every bits and pieces every time. I wish sub-groups will work in a future version. So a hand would follow the arm movement, added to it's own, for instance.
Mario C. Certified SketchUp Trainer, QC CA, Mac Pro 2xQuad core & MacBook Pro 3.06 Ghz.
mariocha wrote:Very interesting. That's an improvement. A toolbar would make me buy it.
Thanks for your feedback.
The trouble with those "scene governed animation" is that nothing can be linked. So one has to move every bits and pieces every time. I wish sub-groups will work in a future version. So a hand would follow the arm movement, added to it's own, for instance.
I am not sure I follow you. This plugin supports nested animated groups. So, if the hand is a subgroup of the arm, it will move with the arm. You can add additional movement to the hand also. Just open the arm group for editing, position the hand group, close the arm group, and save the component positions.
You don't have to stop there. The hand group could have finger subgroups. The nesting can be arbitrarily deep.
It has a few new features for keyframe based animation. The updates, hopefully, will have some more.
Fair enough then! 
This plugin supports nested animated groups. So, if the hand is a subgroup of the arm, it will move with the arm. You can add additional movement to the hand also. Just open the arm group for editing, position the hand group, close the arm group, and save the component positions.