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SW Animations Posted

SW Animations Posted

SW Animations Posted

(OP)
My client has posted their updated web site with the new layout and added animations.  There are nine animations, all done in SolidWorks 2007 using Animator, rendered with PhotoWorks.  The animations are compressed rather heavily for quick web viewing, but you'll get the idea.

Some were fairly complicated, and some were relatively simple--in terms of motion paths.  All were much more complicated than they appear, since I had to use many more subassemblies (alternately hiding or showing them) to get the appearance of fluid motion whenever the basic motion path changed.  (For instance, flipping a tailgate down and then running it down to the ground required two tailgates with a well-timed hide/show operation to hide that fact.)

One thing that would have really helped is the ability to fade-in or fade-out parts that use PhotoWorks materials.  You have to choose to use PhotoWorks materials and have no fade-in/out or to use only SolidWorks materials and get the fade-in/out.  I chose to use PhotoWorks materials, since the tread-plate, chrome (where it exists) and other materials were important in communicating the concepts for these animations.  The SolidWorks "equivalents" just don't look as convincing--so no fade-in/out for the chains, for example.  (Bummer!  That would have been a lot more cool.  ER! ER!)

So Animator has its limits, but some creative problem solving enabled some fairly complex motion paths--particularly for the Rail Gate type.

Hit the Liftgates In Action link at the Tommy Gate site:
http://www.tommygate.com/

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: SW Animations Posted

Jeff,

Those are some great animations that you did. Did you have to model all the components or were they already in a usable format? Also how long did it take to do all the animations? Really great job!!!

Best Regards,
Jon Knabenschuh

Gemini CAD Solutions
http://www.geminicadworks.com

Challenges are what makes life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Solidworks 2006 SP5.0

RE: SW Animations Posted

(OP)
Thanks, Jon!

Almost all the part files were supplied as-is by Tommy Gate.  The assemblies, however, had to be totally rebuilt.  That's from a combination of the assemblies being built for engineering (different purpose and methods) to putting almost every piece in the top-level assembly (which drove me nuts).  Many of the parts were imported dumb solids, evidence of a recent transition of CAD packages, so I'd say they're still picking up SolidWorks as they go.  Also, the deadlines were very tight and they probably threw the parts into assemblies as best/quickly as possible to get something to me to go.

Some of the parts had to be redone to get what we needed.  Most notably, the curly cord to the remote of the 650.  That sort of modeling isn't widely done in typical engineering models I receive, so was an interesting twist and fun to make.  I also created the decals and license plate to add some color/context to the otherwise gray/black world.

I started the actual animation stuff mid-September and had things wrapped up in mid-October to get ready for the web site release (a bit tight, considering rendering the animations took 9 - 16 hours each with the AMD FX-60).  One final animation was done after that in about three days--had to get the proper CAD files on that last one before getting it completed.

The biggest problem I encountered (which gave me far too many 18-hour days) was moving to SW 2007, SP 0 to get the animations to smooth out.  It worked well in smoothing out the animations, but it also corrupted several assemblies I'd rebuilt--so they had to be trashed and I had to start over.  That was a REAL pain, and I certainly cannot charge a client for that sort of garbage, so it came out of my sleep and pay.  After getting a clean reinstall done when SP 1 came out, most of the nonsense simmered down (everything except the bizarre quirks of Animator that we've come to know and love).

Tommy Gate proved to be an excellent client through the whole thing, too, and continually tells me how much the animations have helped their sales force in explaining the different features among gates.  We've yet to see what the "customers" think--the site's fairly new.

I also did a hight-resolution rendering of the G2 with some see-through areas to show off the piston/arm design as a prime feature of that gate.

What's interesting is that this sort of animation/rendering is now much less expensive (provided we have a CAD database to start with) than getting a film crew and all circumstances to line up for a good explanatory video.  So suddenly this sort of thing has gone from obscure to viable and I think we'll see lots more of it with companies showing things on their web sites (now that bandwidth is cheap).

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: SW Animations Posted

(OP)
Oh yeah, I also modeled the recycle carts, boxes, and other visual props.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: SW Animations Posted

Nice job! Great work!
I'm trying to find time to get caught up with animations. You do great work!

Chris
SolidWorks 06 5.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

RE: SW Animations Posted

Jeff,

How do you typically charge for doing animation work since sometimes it is trial and error? Do you charge a flat rate per animation or an hourly rate? I'm curiously interested.

Best Regards,
Jon Knabenschuh

Gemini CAD Solutions
http://www.geminicadworks.com

Challenges are what makes life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Solidworks 2006 SP5.0

RE: SW Animations Posted

(OP)
In this case I did it as a flat rate--which, with the risk aside, is what I prefer to do.  It seems to work better in getting a potential client to fund the project, since they often need to get project budget approval.  Open-ended hourly stuff is usually a red flag.

The trial and error can be hedged a bit with decent experience, although that's certainly not fool-proof.

Chris, thanks for the compliments.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: SW Animations Posted

Beautiful work, Jeff.  Sucks that Animator fought you on the motion of the chain.  I know the files were compressed for the web, but what were your file sizes directly out of Animator?  

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com

RE: SW Animations Posted

(OP)
When I do stuff like this I always save the animation totally uncompressed.  So the animations that were ~45 seconds were about 1GB!  Crazy large.  However, to convert them to web format is a piece of cake without additional software.  I used Windows Movie Maker to import, change format, and export with the compression of my choice.  Much better than pre-compressing the image slightly when creating the animation and then compressing again for optimal web viewing.

I actually don't like the compression on display at Tommy Gate very much.  The best format (quality/size) I've found widely available for view is Windows Media file format.  (OK, that's twice in one post I've endorsed something from Microsoft--let's not let it go to our heads now. ..but this stuff worked great.)

For example, the G2 is posted at my site in Windows Media format and I think the quality is much improved, while perhaps even smaller than at Tommy Gate:
http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com/internet/G2-38-Tommy-Gate.wmv

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: SW Animations Posted

Yes, it looks great! Very clean and smooth.

Chris
SolidWorks 06 5.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

RE: SW Animations Posted

(OP)
The file size is fairly small and it downloads quick, but perhaps the problem is that this file type isn't as universal.  (I don't know.)

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

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