User Guide Keyframe Animation 2.0

Toolbar and Menu

The main features of Keyframe Animation 2.0 are conveniently located on the toolbar to facilitate your workflow.

The main menu is at Plugins/Extensions > Keyframe Animation.

Creating an Animation

There are seven easy steps to set up an animation and get your objects moving.

Step 1 - Group Geometry

Convert any geometry that you want to animate into groups or components. Loose geometry can not be animated.

To check the type of something, select it, right-click, and choose Entity Info (context menu right-click > Entity Info)

It doesn't make any difference, for animation purposes, whether something is a group or a component. So, we will refer to them generically as objects.

Step 2 - Add Scenes

Add some scenes. You can use the Scenes Manager for this (menu item Window > Scenes).

Each scene is essentially a keyframe. You can add more scenes later, delete scenes, or change their order. To run an animation in reverse, just reverse the order of the scenes.

SketchUp will animate the properties saved with a scene. Keyframe Animation will animate the objects that are recorded on a scene.

Keyframe Animation 2.0 is compatible with all the scene properties:

• Camera Location
• Hidden Geometry
• Visible Layers
• Section Planes
• Style and Fog
• Shadow Settings

You can combine SketchUp's built-in animation of any scene property, with Keyframe's object animation, and export it all to a video.

Step 3 - Select a Scene

Select the first scene by clicking on the scene tab. The tab becomes highlighted.

The scene with a highlighted tab is referred to as the current scene.

You can change which scene is the current one by clicking on different tabs, or by double-clicking on the scene name in the Scenes Manager.

Step 4 - Position Objects

Now use the Move Tool , the Rotation Tool , or the Scale Tool , to position and/or resize the objects on the current scene.

Step 5 - Record Objects

Click the Record Button on the toolbar to save the position data of objects on the current scene.

It doesn't make any difference whether the Play button is toggled on or off. A bell will ring, and the objects that were recorded will remain selected afterward, so you can see which ones they are. A plop sound indicates that no objects were recorded.

The record feature works slightly different in version 2.0. We think this logic is more intuitive and functional.

• If any objects are selected when you click the Record button, then only those objects will be recorded. This approach gives you the most control.
• If nothing is selected when you click Record, then all moving objects (i.e. objects that have position data saved for any scene) will be recorded. This approach saves time.

Re-recording an object updates its position data. To revise an animation, simply move the objects to new positions and re-record.

The Erase Button is kind of the opposite of Record. It deletes the position data of all selected objects on every scene. It is useful if you want to take a moving object out of the animation and make it stationary.

Step 6 - Repeat for each Scene

That is the basic workflow. Just repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 for each scene.

Step 7 - Play the Animation

The Play Button on the toolbar toggles Object Animation on or off. When toggled on, objects will automatically move to their recorded positions during each scene transition.

When the Play button is toggled off, the objects won't move. Object animation is turned off by default when SketchUp first opens.

You can test out the animation by selecting one scene at a time to initiate each scene transition. Or run a slideshow of the whole animation (View > Animation > Play).

If an object is open for editing, the Object Animation will still proceed, but it is restricted to the moving objects that are contained in the active context.

Types of Interpolation

There are three types of interpolation depending on whether you Move , Rotate , or Scale the objects. Things can get more complicated if you combine the operations.

Note that Rotations are always interpolated through the smallest angle between the object's orientation on one scene and the next. So, the angle will always be less than or equal to 180 degrees. If the angle is exactly 180 degrees, the direction is ambiguous, so the object could rotate either way.

A scale will interpolate the size of objects, for any positive or negative scale factor, along any component axis (red, green, or blue).

A rotation and a translation can not be combined, in general. However, if the translation is parallel to the axis of rotation, then Keyframe Animation will interpolate it correctly. For the other situations, it is possible to combine a translation with a rotation by animating nested objects.

You can translate and scale an object at the same time. Keyframe Animation will always interpolate this correctly.

A scale and a rotation can usually be combined. If the point scaled about lies on the axis of rotation, then Keyframe Animation will interpolate it correctly. If they are different, the interpolation will use a fixed point in between to both rotate and scale about. If you want to scale about one point, while rotating about a different point, you can do that by animating nested objects.

Animating Nested Objects

Keyframe Animation allows you to animate subgroups (or subcomponents) to any depth. Subgroups (subcomponents) move relative to their parent. They inherit their parent's motion, and then apply their own movement relative to it. This allows you to compose translations, rotations, and scaling operations, in order to create more complex types of motion.

To record a subgroup (subcomponent), select it first, then click the Record button. Usually, the easiest way to select a nested object is with Outliner. The other way is to open the objects that contain it by successively double-clicking on them, until you can select the nested object.

Time Settings

Click the Time Settings Button on the toolbar to display the Scene Time Settings window. This interface allows you to set the transition time and delay time for each scene. The time is rounded to half-second intervals.

The transition time is the number of seconds it takes for the animated objects to move to their recorded positions. It is also the time it takes for scene properties -- like camera location, or shadow settings -- to transition to the value saved with the scene. A negative value will use the default transition time.

The delay time is the number of seconds the animation will wait before beginning the transition to the next scene. A negative value will use the default delay time.

All settings are saved as soon as the textbox loses focus. A bell will ring to indicate the value has changed.

Exporting the Animation

Once your animation is set up, you can export it to a standard video, custom video, or an image sequence. SketchUp has a utility to export animations, but it only exports its own built-in animation of the scene properties, and ignores the object animation. However, Keyframe Animation 2.0 has a utility to export both the scene animation and the object animation, to a video or image sequence.

This also means that Keyframe Animation now plays nice with all the scene properties.

• Camera Location
• Hidden Geometry
• Visible Layers
• Section Planes
• Style and Fog
• Shadow Settings

Exporting a Standard Video   (PC only)

Click the Export Video Button on the toolbar to export the animation as a video with standard settings. (Currently this only supported on the PC, not the Mac.)

The menu access is at Export Animation > Standard Video...

You can quickly choose from over a dozen common frame sizes having a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio.

There are several video codecs and formats that are new in version 2.0.

• H.264 codec (.mp4)
• VP8 codec (.webm)
• VP9 codec (.webm)
• Theora codec (.ogg)
• Animated GIF (.gif)
• Windows Media Video (.wmv)
• Microsoft MPEG-4 v2 (.avi)
• Lossless (.avi)
• Uncompressed (.avi)

Exporting a Custom Video   (PC only)

Access the menu item Export Animation > Custom Video... to export the animation as a video with custom settings. (Currently this only supported on the PC, not the Mac.)

The Frame Rate can go from 1 to 60 frames per second.

The Frame Size can go from 8x8 to 3840x2160 pixels.

The Video Encoding-Format options are the same as the Standard Video export.

Exporting an Image Sequence   (PC and Mac)

Access the menu item Export Animation > Image Sequence... to export the animation as a sequence of image files.

The Frame Rate can go from 1 to 60 frames per second.

The Frame Size can go from 8x8 to 3840x2160 pixels.

The Image Format has a drop-down list to choose from JPG, PNG, TIF, or BMP.

The Background is always opaque for .jpg, .tif, and .bmp image types. However, if you are exporting .png type images, then the background can be either opaque or transparent.

The Export Process

There is a new Progress Bar in version 2.0. It displays the time elapsed and the estimated time remaining, and generally makes the export process more user friendly.

The export process is also much more controlled. SketchUp no longer hangs forever while you watch the spinning ball, as was the case when generating the tweens. Click the Stop Export button to interrupt the frame processing at any time. You can resume it later, or stop and quit.

If you quit, the frames that have already been generated are saved in a folder. The next time you export the animation, with the same settings, you can reuse those frames.

You can even export half the frames one day, quit, close SketchUp, reopen it some other day, and pick up where you left off.

The frame folder is given a name based on the model name, the frame rate, the frame size, and the type of images exported. The folder is located in the same directory as the SketchUp model.

A typical frame folder name is, myModel - 24fps 640x360 jpg.

If you are exporting an image sequence, once the frame export is complete, that is the end of the process. Close the Progress Bar window.

If you are exporting a video, there will be an Export Video button. Click it to run a program that compresses the frames into a video with the encoding and format that were selected.

The video file is given a name based on the model name, the frame rate, and the frame size. It is located in the same folder as the SketchUp model.

A typical video file name is, myModel - 24fps 640x360.mp4.

Once the video is created, the Progress Bar window displays the name of the video file and the frames folder.

If you don't need the frames for anything else, you can delete them and the folder by clicking the Delete Frames button.

And that's it; the animation is exported. Much more simple than the old way of generating all those tweens. The animations can probably be much longer with this new approach too.

Caveat (Mac only)

Exporting the animation to a video is not yet supported on the Mac. Currently, the only way to export the animation on the Mac is as an image sequence. A video can be created from the image sequence using third-party software. Another possibility is, you could use Quicktime to capture a screencast of the animation. We hope to add video export support to the Mac soon -- like this year, 2017.

Backward Compatibility with Version 1.9

A grayed out toolbar means your model has position data recorded in version 1.9 format. What is going on under the hood in version 2.0 is so different that your version 1.x animation will not run. Basically, if you open a model with version 1.x position data, all of the commands on the toolbar and menu will be disabled.

However, there is a quick and easy solution. There is a utility that will convert a 1.x animation to version 2.x format. Access is from the menu item, Keyframe Animation > Convert v1 to v2.

The Keyframe 2.x compatible animation is created in a new model. You can save it with any name you want. The original model is NOT modified.

Once the new model is open, your old animation will work in Keyframe Animation 2.x, and all the toolbar buttons and menu items will be enabled normally.

This feature does require SketchUp 2014 or newer.