beefy and movie-grade animations. Nonetheless, for simple and speedy presentation-style animations to showcase assembles and mechanisms, Animator is a good choice. In comparison to the previously mentioned programs, it’s much closer to engineering-related CAD animators, such as the animation tool included in SolidWorks.
The Animator extension works with SketchUp 6 and above but not in the web-based application.
Setting Up Animaton Sketchup
Before starting with Animator, you’ll have to install it. The first step is to download the following
- Libfredo6: A shared plug-in library necessitated necessary for any Libfredo expansions, including Animator.
- Animator: The prime expansion used for animations.
- FFmpeg: a program to export your living into a video enter, instead of individual encloses. Make sure to carefully follow the station educations on the website.
For the plug-ins, you’ll likely need an account on SketchUcation.( Signing up is free .)
- Once you’ve downloaded the enters, open SketchUp and pinpoint the “Extension Manager” icon. You can also click “Windows> Extension Manager”. A window will pop up convey the currently installed extensions.
- To install Libfredo6 and the Animator extension, clink “Install Extension”, and unearth your downloaded folders. Install Libfredo6 firstly, then do the same for the Animator extension.
Once invested, the Animator toolbar shows up, with three essential tools for animating
- Clip Editor: This is the main tool, where you can add and revise your object animations, adjust your camera scenes, and organize your living in your desired sequences.
- Clip Player: This shows the preview of your full living within SketchUp.
- Positioner: When establishing your living, the objects in the prototype will move in space and will create a permanent change in your framework. With the positioner, you can save the original importance of objectives before you start messing with animations.
Basic Guide to Animator
Configuring Your Objects
To make your objectives easier to animate, your framework has to be prepared
- Before creating advances, home your objectives in their initial places for animation.
- Click the positioner tool, clink “Save current position as..” and reputation its own position “Original Position”. This will save your current setting, which will serve as the starting positions of all objects
Having your objectives grouped according to its movable segments will also make animating easier. As an example, you can see in YouTuber Fredosix’s video how the forklift personas were prepared and grouped as separate components.
The clip editor is where most of your animation part will be done. Opening the excerpt writer brings you to its boundary, which is composed of the following table
- Sequencer: Located by default on the left side of the screen, this is the timeline that shows your animation at a specific point in time. This labors similarly to a movie editor’s timeline, where you can drag and lengthen aspects. Instead of clips of video and sound, the elements you’ll move are the animations, camera, visual consequences, and other fixeds as they convert through the timeline.
- Insert Sequence: This contains all the elements you may need, such as animation, camera positions, and visual effects.
- Speed Adjustment: This is where you can speed up or slow down your animation by a pitch factor.
Creating an Animation
Once the clip editor is open, you can begin creating animations for an object
- Click the icon for inserting new fluctuation, then select “New Movement”.
- Click the objects you want to animate. Once selected, a roll of grouped objects will show. Select the group you want to be animated as a single unit.
- Name your groups. “Its important”, as it will shape selecting them easier. You can see the objects in a group by hovering over the word, foreground which objects belong to that group.
A list of possible livings will appear once you have a group adopted
- Translation: Linear movement in a single axis
- Rotation: Circular movement about a selected rotate level and axis
- Spin: Rot