Vedon [TM] - Animation System

This is a system I've devised to make smooth animations - primarily for interiors. It requires a few plugins and the Vedon helper objects which are for the generation of a smooth animation path comprised of several bezier curves, the creation of which has always been hampered by the bezier handles need to snap to an object - the Vedon helpers give it something to snap to. I hope that this system allows the user greater control over their animations, and that it is of use to some of you - I humbly welcome any optimisations or changes you can suggest.

For this you will need:

The FlightMarker and FlightSight 'helpers' sketchup files attached below.

The Bezier plugins

• bezier.rb (found at https://extensions.sketchup.com/extension/8b58920d-0923-42f8-9c72-e09f2bba125e/bezier-curve-tool )

• Bezier Spline - Fredo6 http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=100509#p100509

• FredoSpline - https://extensions.sketchup.com/extension/d4d62410-cea7-4fdf-9503-dee7a0aea2e9/fredo-spline

The Flightpath2 and pagesmoother plugins available at Smustard, (both found in the presentation bundle for $16) - http://www.smustard.com/script/PresentationBundle2 )

Humble thanks to Rick Wilson at Smustard for creating such brilliant plugins, and for repairing the mac version as soon as I reported a fault.

01

Anatomy of the Helpers - The Body

The helpers should be placed in two folders in your components library - FlightMarker, and FlightSight. These are simple aids to the construction of bezier curves for both the path of the camera (FlightMarker), and the camera target (FlightSight). I have supplied

The helpers have evolved through several forms to the spectacular optimised form they take today. The body is coloured in easy-to-differentiate-from-one-another rainbow colours (Vedon_00.jpg shows them in order), so you'll always know which is the next marker. All lines have been hidden to dissuade incorrect snapping of the bezier curves to the body, but the body has an internal line - which allows easy movement of the helper when grabbed at it's base.

02

Anatomy of the Helpers - The Body Tops

The helpers also have a portion which is white or black, which alternate through the helper series - so if the last marker was white, the next must be black.

03

Anatomy of the Helpers - The Head

The head is a set of arrows radiating from the top of the body with extra dashed lines forming a handy circular perimeter. They are a separate group within the component allowing them to be scaled.

04

Using the Helpers to draw Bezier curves.

Access the bezier tool in the Draw menu. Click on the first marker (this is very important - you must always draw the bezier curves in animation order, from the first marker to the last), then click on the next. Now we can move the bezier handle for the first point using the helper head to snap the handle to. If the camera is on a flat surface you don't need to move these handles from the vertically central 'circle' of arrowpoints and dashes.

05

Using the Helpers to draw Bezier curves.

In this image we can see the second helper head has been scaled up to allow for a larger curve, and that the second bezier handle has been raised on one of the arrows - giving the curve a bell form. By predicting where the curve must go next we can place these handles correctly to give the smoothest animation path as possible.

06

Example - Place the FlightMarker helpers.

07

Example - Scale the FlightMarker heads.

The larger the turn the larger the head - in this image the orange yellow and bright green helpers have been made much larger than the others.

08

Example - Draw the FlightMarker bezier curves.

Draw a series of curves joining up the helpers from start to finish - drawing in order ensures that there is no need for reversing the flightpath animations later. Once you have drawn the curve, hide everything else and see where any sharp corners appear in the curve - unhide the helpers and correct the curve.

09

Example - The FlightSight bezier curves.

Repeat steps 6,7, and 8 using the FlightSight helpers. Place the FlightSight helpers were you wish the camera to look from the corresponding coloured FlightMarker helper. From the image it is easy to see where the camera will be looking by matching up the coloured markers.

10

Animate!

There are a few things we should do before going any further!

1, Save!

2, Delete all pages you have in the scene so far.

3, Ignoring the helpers and the bezier curves - hide what you want hidden in the animation.

4, Change all of the visual settings to how you want them to be in the animation - eg. time of day, sky colour, line colour, etc. Shadows are generally left off for interior animations.

5, Change the Tourguide settings in the View menu to 'enable page transitions' (pick a transition that you think is about right, remembering there are 20 pages created for each bezier curve), and a 'page delay' of zero.

6, Save it again with another name!

Now we can animate! Select the first FlightMarker curve - in my example it is between the dark and bright red markers. Right click, click the excellent Smustard FlightPath2 tool and use the Target:Path option.

11

Animate!!

Now sketchup is demanding that you select a path - find the FlightSight curve between the dark and bright red helpers and click that - in the image you can see a bloody big red arrow pointing at it. Choose your flythrough rate and field of view (FOV) angle - my rule of thumb is 30-40 for exteriors and 40-60 for interiors. Click 'No' on the next prompt - there should be no need to reverse the path.

The 'used' curves both cleverly disappear onto a hidden layer called FlightPath - so it is easy to see which FlightMarker path to right click onto next. It should be obvious if you should have reversed the path as you'll be looking the wrong way - undo and delete the last 20 pages from the page window. Carry on setting the flightpaths, in the right order, til finished.

12

Smooth the Animation

Use the page transition smoother, courtesy of the mighty Smustard, to ensure an even as possible animation speed. If there are still jolts in the animation (due to the bezier curves not continuing smoothly from one to the next) - find the offending page and delete it (and maybe one or two of pages either side), and run the page smoother again.

Hide the helpers.

Export movie.

FIN

13

Example Movie.

Just a quick movie made doing the example - it's not perfect as it was mainly diagrammatic - but hopefully it's better than possible before. Please note that although the example is a simple terrain, this system was devised for interior animations.

Vedon.mov

(8/1/21 edit: This .MOV file was made in a Mac. To view in Windows, add a codec pack, like K-Lite Codec Pack or use the VLC Media Player, which comes with its own codecs. I'd recommend VLC.)

Just found out that macs DO have a zip function. . . .. DOH!

000-FlightMarker.zip

Feedback and comments welcome!

Hope it works for you!

Thanks,

Marc.

000-FlightSight.zip

Thanks marc, this looks interesting, although I must admit that I'm skimming over it (been sitting in front of an SU screen for 16 hours!).

Is there any chance you (or someone else) could record a video demonstrating the setup procedure?

I've done this for me, and for anyone with half a brain who can see how this might be a good method.. .. and for anyone who needs something like this in the future and can type "smooth animation" into the search field. It's not a very interesting post - until someone wants to do a smooth bezier curve animation in sketchup (god knows it's 5 billion times easier to make an animation like this is any other f**king program) - which isn't made from points drawn on terrain, or from a circle, or with the camera looking ahead along the spline or made between jerkily snapping pages. Best of luck.

So Marc, the Vedon marker system is the markers that you use right? And you changhe their size and they help you to create smooth beziers, right? I'm just trying to get a handle on the information here and it looks like the markers used are helpful to create beziers that mett up correctly with eachother so that you can have a nice long smooth bezier curve for use with the flightpath plugin. Is that about right?

Chris

Depositing Vedon trees is a more tidy and graceful option than the randon line forests and assorted scafolding structures I have created on the occasions that needed free-space formed beziers.

Thanks for posting marcinplymouth.

well, this sure looks interesting.

I was just telling a client yesterday that I spend 25% of my time just keeping up with advancing technology.

And then this shows up LOL.

Thanks for the hard work Marc; I look forward to giving this system a whirl.

Cheers, Chuck