SAT(SimFonIA Animation Tools) is a plugin created by SimFonIA which enables you to animate SketchUp scenes. Your animations can be defined directly in SketchUp or driven by data files. The tool can handle groups in a hierarchy and its ease of use will allow you to express your creativity.
SAT is composed of different tools:
- Transformation Processor: For each group in the hierarchy, it is possible to change the following attributes over the time:
o Position, rotation, translation, orientation, scaling. o Color, visibility
SAT offers an interactive method to achieve all these actions in a simple and quick way. These actions can be performed on all groups of the hierarchy of the scene what allows relative motion between objects. Each graphical attribute and each transformation can be driven by the time, by an internally generated signal or by variables from a data file.
- Keyframe Editor provides an interpolation between keyframes during the animation. The defined sequences can be executed: once, several times, loop, round-trip and with a configurable start delay. These keyframe sequences can be controlled with the simulation time or with variable from a data file. There are three types of keyframes:
o Deformation: surface distorsion by changing vertices position inside a group. o Animation: definition of groups position o Camera: definition of view points
- Exportation allows to export directly a SketchUp animation in a video or for a WebGL site
o Videos: An easy-to-use interface lets the user choose the resolution, the duration and number of frames per second. o WebGL site: All SimFonIA customers have at their disposal a free website to host, display and distribute their 3D animations in the WebGL format. Thus the 3D animations can be manipulated through internet.
- Bullet is a physic engine (i.e. which handle gravity and collisions effects) that was interfaced with SketchUp. Different behaviors and bounding box can be defined for each level 0 groups. Groups can be linked by articulations that can have up to six degrees of freedom (3 translations and 3 rotations) and variable stiffness.This tool is used to easily create classical links such as links pivot, slide, springs etc.
Many other functionalities are embedded in SAT, the free trial version of the plugin and its documentation are downloadable at http://www.simfonia.fr/SAT/. Some examples and tutorials are available on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/SimFonIATeam. The free trial version of SAT also includes a trial version for another add-on developed by SimFonIA:
-Character animation: SCA (SimFonIA Character Animation) is an add-on of SAT which allows quick creation and management of skeletons in order to animate 3D characters. This function is based on BVH files ("Biovision Hierarchy Animation File") that contain 3D motion capture data.
Looking forward to seeing what you will do with it, we remain at your disposal to provide all the information you need.
Best regards, SimFonIA.team
Important Notes For now, "SimFonIA Animation Tools” is only available for Microsoft Windows (from XP to Seven) and SketchUp 8 and higher.
We have created this topic in order to present our animation tool and to answer your questions. Therefore one of our member will look at this thread regularly. For more responsiveness you can reach us with our official email addresses:
hotline "dot" sat "at" simfonia "dot" fr -- for hotline contact "dot" sat "at" simfonia "dot" fr -- for commercial contact bugreport "dot" sat "at" simfonia "dot" fr -- for bug report
Rendering is one of our main objectives and we are working on it. But it does not only depend on us because the work consists in interfacing SAT with a third-party rendering tool. More info in September.
I presume you're talking about the forum on our website. It is still under debate between us, so no work in progress on it.
As sketchucation is the lead on forums and tuts I suggest setting up some form of SAT developers topic/trend, the impact would be greater on SATs customers, iv also noticed SAT has a ad space on sketchucation which is great move as more will be aware of SATs existence and the capabilities of the software, what I would like to see is more tutorials which I can see happening in the near future on sketchucation but will SAT be providing tutorials also?
Work is in progress for tutorials but It is difficult to give a release date because it is a very time consumming task and we have other priority objectives. That said we have noted that this is an important demand of the community.
Thank you for your advice on the use of SketchUcation forum, we are now discovering this new world and therefore all advice is welcome. The idea of a topic dedicated to SAT developers is good but for our learning period we prefer to stay with only one topic. Anyway you can ask your technical questions in this topic, people who are in charge of this subjetc are developers ;o).
We are pleased to announce the official Release of SCA (SimFonIA Character Animation).
SCA.jpg
SimFonIA Character Animator (SCA) is the first extension for SimFonIA Animation Tools (SAT). It allows to create and animate characters by using BVH (Biovision Hierachy) files.
Sample Files available
The SCA demo version is now included in the SAT demo. You will find information, a video presentation and a tutorial by following this link
Sample files illustrating the main functionalities of SAT can be found here. You will get the folder "SAT_Documents_and_Examples" which contains:
"SAT_V1_Basic_Shapes" - simpe basic shapes (not animated). "SAT_V1_Documentation_Examples" - examples used in the documentation (Keyframe, Transformation, Bullet). "SAT_V1_Animated_Components_Examples" - example of animated components. "SAT_V1_Basic_Functions_Examples" (NEW!) - Simple example for each functionnality of SAT.
I'm always interested in seeing additions to animation for SketchUp. However there isn't really any detailed explanations what those "characteristics" of the different versions are? I cannot see any price information for the professional versions either. Not having prices in public always makes me suspicious. There are also some things that indicates limits of use even for the professional versions like web quota?
Also I havent seen any info on what types of keyframe interpolation it has? What does the keyframe animation interface look like?
All in all interesting but the product is not presented/packaged in a easy to understand way and the different licencing versions are confusing and makes choosing the right version difficult. In my opinion there shouldn't be more than 2 (or maybe max 3) different versions of a product.
Pixero wrote:I'm always interested in seeing additions to animation for SketchUp. However there isn't really any detailed explanations what those "characteristics" of the different versions are? I cannot see any price information for the professional versions either. Not having prices in public always makes me suspicious. There are also some things that indicates limits of use even for the professional versions like web quota?
Also I havent seen any info on what types of keyframe interpolation it has? What does the keyframe animation interface look like?
All in all interesting but the product is not presented/packaged in a easy to understand way and the different licencing versions are confusing and makes choosing the right version difficult. In my opinion there shouldn't be more than 2 (or maybe max 3) different versions of a product.
However there isn't really any detailed explanations what those "characteristics" of the different versions are?
As said previously in this post the characteristics of different versions are available here : http://www.simfonia.fr/SAT/index.php?page=compare. But maybe the table is not clear (?), so feel free to ask more precise questions.
I cannot see any price information for the professional versions either. Not having prices in public always makes me suspicious.
I understand your distrust but it is a common practice for professional software. Several reasons for this:
- The price is a strategic lever, especially for users who take several licenses.
- Exchanging with customers allows us to offer a product tailored to their needs.
- Companies may have other needs, including services (training, special supports, modeling ..)
Thus, to get the price of professional licenses, simply send an email to contact.sat (at) Simfonia (dot) com to exchange B2B.
All in all interesting but the product is not presented/packaged in a easy to understand way and the different licencing versions are confusing and makes choosing the right version difficult. In my opinion there shouldn't be more than 2 (or maybe max 3) different versions of a product.
If you look at our offer, we can say that an individual user has everything he needs with the office Version. The professional licenses are indeed more dedicated to cloud, multi-team work, industrial support and specific applications. That said, do not hesitate to make suggestions about our version policy (for example if you want us to integrate additional options in the version of Office). We are on sketchucation in order to communicate about the tool but also to get feedback from the sketchup community.
Best regards, SimFonIA_team
P.S: About the "Key frame processor": I'll ask our developer team about the interpolation method. Regarding the interface, simply download the trial version to get an opinion.
Pixero wrote: Also I havent seen any info on what types of keyframe interpolation it has? What does the keyframe animation interface look like?
Hello Pixero,
For the transformation Keyframes SAT uses Sketchup's algorithm, for deformation Keyframes SAT uses an algorithm of our own (based on linear interpolation between vertices) and for the camera Keyframe SAT uses a Catmull-Rom Spline.
Does anyone in sketchucation tried to use the transformation processor? We understand that people are used to a classical workflow based on Keyframes, but the cornerstone of SAT is precisly the transformation processor.
Some time ago, I explained the concept of procedural animation to jgb in these terms:
To understand the philosophy of external data-files, it is interesting to look our use of SAT. SimfonIa is indeed an engineering company. Our main task is to predict the behavior of complex systems like an aeronautical hydraulic pump, a battery for hybrid car or a smart-grid network for residential complex. A simple worflow would be:
Our customer want to predict the fall of an apple => Newton gives us the gravitational equation => our simulator solve the equation => we deliver curves, Excel datasheets and analysis to our customer
SAT was thus developed in order to emphasis the work with a video showing the result: the falling apple… That is what we call procedural animation. It is a really interesting perspective for customers to be able to see their product live instead of trying to imagine its movement from 10 stacked curves.
And as a video is worth 1000 pictures, here is an illustration of the concept through a project that kept me busy lately.
Firstly I wanted to thank you for the encouragement messages and for welcoming our designer during basecamp 2012 (a great adventure for him). Today we present you some "exotic" applications of our SU tools:
- The combination of SU and WebGL export allows for creating interactive assembly / disassembly manuals (think about your IKEA furniture ^^)
- In scientific computing we often need to decompose the physical phenomena in elementary meshes (lumped model, CFD ...). In order to easily visualize the results we are preparing an automatic meshes generator for SU.
Here is a video to show the possibilities of SAT. We illustrate how we might have intervene in the Vauban's Gateway of Patrick (viewtopic.php?f=51&t=47725). From simple geometries concept to the object in its environment.
And to celebrate Christmas wee also have a special offer : -50% on SAT Office Version (200 €->100 €) and on SCA Extension (150 €->75 €). Available until 02 January 2013 )).
On the advice and with the help of Pilou we have created a quick-start guide for SAT.The objective is to present the philosophy of the transformation processor through the most frequently used functions: rotation and translation. The first part is a short introduction to SU and thus will not be interesting for most of you.
But the next two part will led you to rotate Pilou's weathervane! Normally, after that, nobody should say that our plugin is complicated))
If someone try the challenge we will be very interested in his feedback.
A few words to wish you an happy New Year and to thanks those who bought the plugin during this christmas offer. Don't hesitate to ask your question here or on our email adress if you have questions.
Error Loading File /Users/johns_iMac/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/Plugins/simfonia/SimfoniaLoader.rb (eval):18:in `require': no such file to load -- /Users/johns_iMac/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/plugins/simfonia/PhysicControl/RubyControllerInterface.dllError Loading File simfonia.rb (eval):18:in `require': no such file to load -- /Users/johns_iMac/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/plugins/simfonia/PhysicControl/RubyControllerInterface.dll
There's no obvious[to me] warning that it won't...
john
Edit: I just had time to revisit the site, to see if I'd missed the 'doesn't work on mac' warnings, and they are not there, I think they should be, I did leave a contact message so I guess I'll get a reply...
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learn from the mistakes of others, you may not live long enough to make them all yourself...
I regret to announce that indeed the SAT plugin does not work on MAC. As specified in the first page of the installation manual, the plugin works under windows XP to seven, and Version 8 or higher of SkecthUp.
You're right, it does not appear clearly on the website and we will fix it. If you have purchased a paid version without the proper configuration we will fix the problem simply with the message on contact.
Cheers for the reply, I've been an avid follower since first announcements, and when i saw the 'offer' had some spare 'xmas' cash I thought I'd jump right in, I didn't read the installation instructions... Sort out the mac version, please!!!
john
ps I want it for stuff like this, so I can do them better...
@driven, Normally, the problem was solved this morning, hoping that you are not too disappointed.
driven wrote:Sort out the mac version, please!!!
I also believe that it would be a good idea, especially as many architects (who are mainly SU users) use MAC. The problem is mainly due to the use of dll to read the data contained in the scenario files, but it is not on our close agenda; the priority is rendering. But we like apple pie )).
I must confess that I find it hard to understand the function of the object you posted in video. Our hypothesis is that it is a system for climbing ropes? In all cases it seems quite feasible for SAT!
@sketchucation world We worked with Pilou to see what is the learning curve of our plugin. It results in the quick-start guide posted above and a series of video tutorials that Pilou has kindly made (sorry it is in the language of Molière ^ ^).
SimFonIA_team wrote: @driven, Normally, the problem was solved this morning, hoping that you are not too disappointed.
Hi, thanks, got the email, any news on when a mac version will be available?
I must confess that I find it hard to understand the function of the object you posted in video.
exactly why I keep looking for better ways of demonstrating this type of object...
Our hypothesis is that it is a system for climbing ropes?
originally, it was designed as a filament (soft 3mm 'plastic' cord) feed mechanism for a ''RepRap' style additive 3D printer. The Miga Motor is the size of a credit card.
In all cases it seems quite feasible for SAT!
...very
john
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learn from the mistakes of others, you may not live long enough to make them all yourself...
I was editing my answer when you wrote your message :
I also believe that it would be a good idea, especially as many architects (who are mainly SU users) use MAC. The problem is mainly due to the use of dll to read the data contained in the scenario files, but it is not on our close agenda; the priority is rendering. But we like apple pie )).
This is a very good news for MAC users: SAT, our SketchUp plugin for 3D animation, has been successfully tested on a Macbook Pro 2010 (OS X 10.8.2) with a “windows virtual machine”.
To illustrate this, here is a video showing the installation of SAT on a MAC using the VM "Parallels Desktop for Mac 8". Now you can use SAT on your favorite computer!
