SU Animate

Keyframe and path animation in SketchUp

SU Animate is a non photo-realistic animation plugin for SketchUp 8 thru 2022, Windows or Mac.

 

The extension works entirely inside SketchUp Pro or Make, and automatically creates scenes that you can play as an animation in SketchUp or export to an AVI or MOV video file.

 

SU Animate will create "frame" like animations where SketchUp objects move along a path or walkthrough type animations where the camera moves along a path while focused on one or more targets.

• Key frames and path methods to create animations within SketchUp
• Camera, Object, Layer, Spiral, Shadow animations
• Key frames and path methods to create animations within SketchUp
• EditInPlace and Grid included with each license of SU Animate

 

Features:

 

Object Animation in SketchUp:

Create object animations of your SketchUp model to illustrate the motion of groups and components. The motion can be as simple as a single object—like a crane— rotating in an arc. Or, complexity can be added to create more sophisticated, layered motion —a crane rotating and rising vertically at the same time, for example. SU Animate can also create an assembly of motions, such as a step by step assembly of furniture, or incremental progress on a construction site.

 

Camera animation to create walk-throughs:

Use motion paths or keyframes to animate the SketchUp camera and create a fly-through animation of your scene. Camera animation from SU Animate can easily be sent to Podium Walker or SU Walk, for more realistic rendering.

 

Set keyframes for object and camera animations:

Set your keyframes and let SU Animate do the heavy lifting. SU Animate can interpolate motion between keyframes to produce smooth, fluid animation with very little work. For example—to animate an opening door, simply set a keyframe with the door closed, and a second keyframe with the door open and SU Animate will calculate the position of the door for all frames in between. Animating in SketchUp has never been so easy.

 

Before you start creating the keyframe or path animation, make sure that there are no existing scenes in your SketchUp model.

A key frame animation the simplest way to create a camera or object animation. It is new to SU Animate 4. It is simply a sequence of "snapshots" of your model. The position of the selected groups and component instances in the model, the camera orientation, and the visibility of all layers is captured with each snapshot. You can move and/or rotate objects, or pan, zoom and tilt the camera, and turn layers on and off between frames.

 

Before capturing frame information, you must select any objects (groups and component instances) that you want to animate. You can make the selection before invoking the Key Frame Animation dialog, or by using the Add/Remove Objects button on that dialog.

 

Click the "Capture" button to capture a frame. The frames you capture are the key frames. If you specify more frames in the Frames input box than the number of key frames you create, then SU Animate will insert additional frames, smoothing out the motions of objects and camera.

 

Layer animation to capture time:

Set keyframes on different layers to illustrate the passage of time—show the construction progress at a building site, or the phased timeline of a planned development. Demonstrate the assembly of a piece of furniture, or the manufacturing steps for a design project.

 

Works with Podium Walker and SU Walk for photorealistic rendering

Turn your animations into photo-realistic animations by exporting to Podium Walker or SU Walk, or render in SU Podium using RenderAll.