Regular Polygon News

Three Animation Plugins Compared

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 01:00:00 -0700

In the world of SketchUp Animation Plugins, there has been two main approaches. Proper Animation and Keyframe Animation both use what might be called a key frame based approach. SU Animate, on the other hand, has always used a path based approach. However, in a sort of turnabout, SU Animate just announced support for "Key Frame Animations" in version 4.0. Well, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The problem is, it does make things more confusing. If all these plugins have key frame functionality, then are they all the same, and if not, then what are the differences? So, that is what I would like to clarify in this animation plugin review. The following table summarizes how these three plugins compare for eight basic key frame features.

Read the whole review...

Update: Keyframe Animation 1.6

Fri, 2 Dec 2011 01:00:00 -0700

Version 1.6 has a new feature that lets you control the visibility of objects in your animation. Objects can be made visible or hidden by putting them on layers, and then turning those layers on or off for each key frame. This allows you to make objects appear or disappear at any point in the animation. The tweens generate the objects with the same visibility that they had on the key frames. The animation can then be exported to a movie.

This feature is useful for animating a construction process. The demo below shows how parts are assembled to construct a bookcase. Initially, the parts are hidden. Each part stays hidden until it is required for assembly. Then its visibility is turned on, and it stays visible for the rest of the animation.

There are a few other improvements. I found a way to reduce the size of the tweens model by about 25%. Also, now you can generate tweens that don't save the camera property. It happens automatically if you don't save the camera property for the key frames. This lets you change the camera location for all of the tweens, on the fly, without having to regenerate the tweens first. You can also change the shadow settings, and the style settings, for all of the tweeens at once, without having to regenerate them. Finally, this update fixes a compatibility issue with Shaderlight V2.

You can get version 1.6 on the Download page.

Keyframe makes the Official Plugins Page

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 15:00:00 -0700

I just wanted to announce that Keyframe Animation is now listed on the Google SketchUp Plugins page, http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/download/plugins.html. This is Google's official listing of popular SketchUp plugins.

So, that is a milestone reached. Whew! Development on Keyframe Animation will, of course, continue. Hope to have some new updates for you soon.

Introductory Price Ends Soon

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:00:00 -0700

Keyframe Animation has been selling for $19 since it was first released over nine months ago. The plugin has gone through five revisions to perfect the workflow and optimize the code. At this point, I think the basic design is about as simple as it can get, and the code is efficient and stable. Seeing as how the application has matured, it is about time for the introductory price to end.

The new price for Keyframe Animation will be $24 per user license. It will go into effect on Monday, October 3. So, there is one more week to purchase Keyframe Animation for $19.

As described in the License Agreement, all updates are free, even if the price goes up. So, another reason to buy a user license now is that it will protect you against any future price increases.

Update: Keyframe Animation 1.5

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:00:00 -0700

In version 1.5, the record feature takes a more selective approach. Only the instances in the active model, group, or component, are recorded. For example, if the model is active, then all the instances in the model will be recorded, but not their subcomponents.

To record the subcomponents, just open the parent component for editing by double-clicking on it. That makes it the active component. Now, when you click the record button, all of the subcomponents will be recorded. You can open a series of nested components to record the subcomponents at any depth.

This seems like a more sensible workflow for animating subcomponents because now you can record them, right after you move them, while the parent component is open for editing. Instances outside of the active context are not recorded, which is probably what you would want, since you can't move them anyway.

With this new approach, far fewer instances are recorded and tracked, which improves the performance. This resolves a rare issue, for very large models, that caused the application to hang when it tried to record the position data. The animations may appear smoother now because fewer instances have to be processed. Finally, if you save your old animations after opening them in version 1.5, the file size will be smaller.

New Blog for Regular Polygon

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:38:57 -0400

Now there is a new blog, located on the new website, and this is the first post! The new URL is http://regularpolygon.org/news/. Check back here often to find out about the latest SketchUp plugin releases, updates, and other news.

Like any decent blog, there is a feed, http://feeds.feedburner.com/RegularPolygonNews. Simply follow the link to subscribe. If you subscribed to the old feed, then you have been redirected to the new feed already, so you're all set.

I won't be posting to the old blog anymore, but it will stick around to redirect traffic to the new website. Once the PageRank drops to zero, I will delete it. Not sure how long that will take, but I have this theory that the PageRank will never go down, even if you do nothing, so now I can test it out. Stay tuned.