yang686526

anmimation best practice/options
i all
i need to make a presentation of a pv power plant. i am using animation with a floating camera to "walk through" the plant. i am new to this task. i am using sw2008 sp4.0 and animation in realview mode (i am not using photoworks).
i looks great, but i am experiencing some anoying problems that can ruin an otherwise great presentation:
- detail missing: some details are missing (some small parts or subassemblies) and it seems that sw takes total control over it without rules (some parts are missing in one animation and are present in other). is there a place where i can control it ?(like the level of detail in assemblies?) is it related to graphics card?(please note thate these missing details are set to be visible, even if they don't show)
- details sudenly missing: when walking arrond, there are details (parts and sub assemblies) that are sudenly missing and reapear a few seconds later (between 2 key points). i think it can be related with the distance between camera's lense and bodys. but i can't realy discover a cause/effect relation (having a higher distance does not allways solve). can i realy control this? again, can it be graphics card related? (please note thate these missing details are set to be visible, even when they disapear)
- tilting camera: in some cases (again, i can't find a cause) the carmera tilts 90 degrees between 2 key points, neither of them with tilting angles. i can usualy control this issue by changing a litle bit the walking path.
so, can you help giving me hints about solving these problems and about using best practices for animation? do you know any toturials?
regards

eng-tips forums is member supported.
what are your video card/ram/os/etc specs?
chris
solidworks/pdmworks 08 3.1
autocad 08
os - xp pro x64 sp2
pc - hp xw4400 workstation (intel 6320@1,86ghz)
ram -3gb
vc - ati fire gl v3350
i know the video card it's not an high end card, but it's being performing well designing parts or assemblies, with no noticeable problems.
regards
check your vc driver listed here. maybe you need to update it?
yes, it′s listed. but i am going to install a newer one (this one not listed) and give it a try.
so, in your opinion, can the problems be vc related?
regards

i think either vc or ram...or both.
bad news. i disagree. animator has huge bugs in this area. which version of sw are you using? i'm up to v2007 and have problems like this, particularly when not using photoworks. maybe it has something to do with graphics card issues, but nothing i've done has been able to correct it.
try this. before saving your animation, gently hold your animation's hand by dragging the time bar through the whole thing very slowly. back up if parts are missing and then move forward again. this has helped me in the past. speak nicely to animator. when you're about to lose your temper, do it in the other room, where animator cannot hear what you say or the dog yelping when you kick him. after moving the time bar through the whole animation, place it back where you need to start the animation and then save it to a file (allowing it to run). i think this works because animator is very forgetful and cannot re
thanks jeff!
chris
solidworks/pdmworks 08 3.1
autocad 08
theophilus
thanks for yor advice! it is strange, but i will give it a try.
you are right about the vandal thing (now i am whispering into your ear so animation wont ear me): i tryied to run the same model in another pc (nothing was changed) and, suddenly, the camera was boldly going where no camera as gone before!
i'm with 2008sp4.0, so it seems that there's no improvments. but from your words, i understand that the behaviour using photoworks will be better: am i right?
regards
i'm taking a big risk here, with another reply, considering i've got another big job coming up that will involve animator--so let's keep this confidential.
the behavior will be better on a per-frame basis using photoworks (it seems to keep everything in the scene and render it), but we have another problem with that whole thing (unless this was changed in 2008, but i don't think it was). the problem is that your materials may render totally differently in photoworks than whatever you're happy with in realview. (the other problem is going the other direction--you cannot use photoworks materials and fade-in, fade-out parts. how stunningly limited is that?)
for your camera, i suggest adding a path and creating a "sled" part with a point in a sketch to constrain it to the fly-through path. mount your camera to this sled part. now, when you move your sled part, your camera moves. the best reason for using this method is that you can better constrain motion. so if you don't want your camera tilting, assign a perpendicular mate between your camera sled and the top plane of your assembly--and then pray animator will still let you move the sled at all. it will move fine in regular solidworks, but animator will probably have an unpredictable fit. (the difficulty with animator lies in discovering all the undisclosed, quite-well-hidden rules--since it does not behave with the same rules of motion as regular solidworks.)
another issue with the camera path--make sure the entire path is a single segment of sketch entities, or you'll be stuck on a single straight line or arc. you need to do whatever works to get there--kludge together a series of 3d or 2d sketches and then use either the compound curve to create a single curve or the fit spline feature to convert all the entities to a single spline feature. i seem to re
the photoworks and animator gods see all and know all ... you are doomed, doomed, doomed!
it's a real pity ... your contributions here will be greatly missed.