Mechanical Animation (2)

[wockeee]

Hi all,

            I am new to 3d and haven't done much in it. I basically design interfaces and make simple flash based applications. I'm currently involved in a project that requires "Animated Working View of mechanical parts". Can some one suggest a tool that would suit the need?. The tool i'm looking for must have the option to export in various video formats.

[angu]

Are you being provided the parts by an outside program like Pro/E or are you modeling them yourself? Beyond that what kind of texturing are they looking for? The standard flat colors or realism?

I use Maya myself, but that might be a bit daunting if you have a project on the table already. What have you used for 3D already?

[wockeee]

Yes the parts are being provided from an outside program. I'm not modeling it myself. And currently we are looking at flat colors. Can "Working Models" be created using pro-e and directly be exported to a video format?.

PS: Pardon me for these dumb questions.(Noon here)

[angu]

Pro/E can do animations though no one in this office does so, so I can't comment on the ease or quality. I did find this on their site (unimpressive but if you're not looking for anything too fancy it works). If you're looking at doing more of these sorts of animations, you might want to look into a program that produce higher realism (once you've shown an engineer that you can make something shiny, they're usually hooked lol).

If you're already familiar with engineering software Solid Works has good animation controls and Autodesk Inventor seems to be not too shabby. I don't think Inventor can do advanced materials but you'd do best to call one of their sales people.

If you're already familiar with artisan programs, Pro/E can export models as an .obj. Sometimes the faces get a little broken apart, but that's rare and merge-able. From there you can just import into Maya or Max or what have you.

It really depends on your future needs what you go with, as Pro/E can do the job, I'm just not sure how well.

[silverline101]

Most CAD modelers do have some basic rendering and animation tools. However, most animation products are far superior for creating motion and rendering out the results.

I happen to use Softimage XSI, but Maya, 3D Studio and Lightwave could certainly perform similar mechanical animation results.

The biggest issue is having skills with one of these programs. Although, a lot of mechical movement could be done without knowing a lot of the product. If you don't have much time to invest, it might be best to create your animations in the native CAD product you are using.

Fundamentally, any animation you create is going to be made as a series of still images. The next step in the process is to take the still images and compress them into a video file such as an .avi, .mov, .mpg and many others. So you will need to look into video editing software. Adobe Premiere is very common.

The exception to this, is if you are trying to create a Flash vector animation. Then instead of producing a series of still images, you would create a Flash vector movie. This is ideal if you want just the outline of shapes with solid colors. To make Flash movies directly from your animation product you will need a seperate product for this.

Any of the products I have named have 30 day trials.

Hope this helps,
Ohmanoggin

[angu]

QUOTE(Ohmanoggin @ 10/30/06, 06:24 AM) [snapback]251069[/snapback]
Fundamentally, any animation you create is going to be made as a series of still images. The next step in the process is to take the still images and compress them into a video file such as an .avi, .mov, .mpg and many others. So you will need to look into video editing software. Adobe Premiere is very common.

Not so. While rendering sequential images does give the best quality and control, every artisan program I've worked with gives the option to render in multiple movie formats (and I'm willing to bet engineering programs do as well). If his needs are short-term and simplistic, rendering a movie file straight from the program could very well be adequate. It all depends on what he needs.

If there are going to be many of these sorts of animations, then yes, he should look into Premiere or After Effects as well as either an artisan animation program (Maya, Max, so forth) or an engineering animation program (Soft Works or Inventor). If this is a one shot deal, there's no reason to go into such high expenses.

[joojaa]

Well actually it still just renders out a bunch of stills. Its just passed to the cruncher algorithm straight form the renderer. This is in general is not a wise move, since you can easily defer the compression to the time when all frames are done it does not matter you loose nothing (compression softwares are free anyways), in fact you just have to gain by deferring this compression. Since it rarely happens that you pick the best possible size outright, and if your a web animation provider thats about as big of deal as they come.

Se if you render straight to compression you need to re render the stuff for the optimal movie, if not you can test 20 different settings in the time you do re render (easily)

But yeah its not actually common for the engineering softs to render out anything but sequences. But pro-e can actually do pretty decent animations, it basically has all the necessary tools to drive very complex stuff by expressions. In fact pro-e can sometimes even beat both Maya and Houdini in the stuff it can procedurally do!

[angu]

I believe I said that rendering stills was the best for quality and control, but it's not necessary (and I didn't see a reason to confuse a self-professed noob with the technical functions of the program). Also, who's saying he's putting this on the web? Judging by his situation I'm betting this will be shown at a meeting either on its own or put into a Powerpoint type set up. If that's the case then his concerns about compression are all but nill.

If he's going to be doing many of these sorts of animations of course he wants a compositing program, but if this is a one time deal buying one isn't very cost effective.

BTW, I know Solid Works will kick out an .avi. Not sure if it will any other formats but I know it'll render that one.

[wockeee]

Thanks for all the info guys. Actually askaniblue is right. I'm actually going to make this animation a part of a flash presentation and at present i just need a quick fix. But i am also looking for a proper solution because we might be involved in full projects like these in the a couple of months

[joojaa]

In that case you still need to develop pristine compression. because of 2 things.

1) presentation computers are often laptops, and often those that buy these representations are execs. they many times have small relatively low powered laptops, so they do appreciate well packed content, besides thir computers might not be able to do all compressions smoothly. believe or not this actually happens a lot.

2) they may want to share those presentations same as web problems. So the smaller you get the better.

3) they may want to have packers that can equally well go forward as well as backward/ easily timeline shufleable. But because not all packers offer this and those thet do are relatively loosely packed.

4) because its a presentational they might want much more resolution than a web page distributor does, this also means significantly bigger files (yes well people have a tendency to get a fit with 200-300 megabyte files)

5) the exec might want to work for you over the net, because hes on a roadshow and wants a small change, then you must transfer it over the net see 4.

PS. its actually easier to learn the things right as a newbie than learn the sloppy way and wonder later why you render much longer than others,

PPS i did exec presentation exclusively in the early 2000's

[wockeee]

Thanks Joojaa,

 I agree, i'd rather learn it the right way than beat around the bush. Ok here's the scenario. We have pro-e and solid works(standard edition) so the exporting to avi is not available. Now if i were to go for a tool that would let us get started on this sample as well as serve as a learning platform for things to come, what should i go for?. And regarding the animation it will not be too complex at first. its something like the working model of an air-filter or braking system etc. I need to make the right decision coz you know the deal (budgets, approvals etc etc).

I really appreciate the help.

[angu]

If you're looking to do more of these in the future, then a compositing program is a good idea. We use After Effects in my workplace and I think it's better suited to what you need as Premiere has a lot of functions for film that you don't want and After Effects has more text and graphical elements. After Effects can export as a flash file, but I've never had to use it so I'm not sure of the quality.

I'm not as familiar with flash as other people, so I don't know if a Macromedia suite would do you better than After Effects, but I think it's worth you looking into. If nothing else the people at Adobe should be able to give you a good run down of things if you called them.

As for an animation program, you could upgrade your Solid Works, but in my experience engineering programs tend to try to "help" too much. Maya or Max (or the others) offer you a bit more freedom in your animations. We use Maya here and it works just fine for what we need and the standard package of it is cheaper than Max. If you've never used Maya though I suggest you also invest in some training dvds from a good place as its not easy to try and wing it.

There are more simplistic animation packages, but really I think you'd end up wanting something more high quality in the end and would wind up buying a Maya, Max, XSI, ect program anyway and would have to start all over again. I think it would be better to start in a program that might be a little harder but will let you do more in the end.

[wockeee]

Hi all,

     My presentation went well and there were no complaints....But i was not personally satisfied with it. We used solidworks to get the animation and used the not so effective "Windows Movie Maker" to get the voice over (I know....bad idea but hey time was against me!). Anyway i'm gonna do another presentation in about a month or so and i'm going to take all your suggestions into consideration before starting on the sample. Before that here's another noob query.

Apart from the basic animation video i'd like to add some simple effects on top. Example: a smoke effect or a spark effect when 2 components brush against each other. And i'd also like to add callouts/tags if its required askaniblue suggested After Effects, Can AE suit my requirement?

Thanks in advance.

[angu]

While you can add sparks and such with AE, it takes some real know-how to make it look good and to do smoke requires you to have video of actual smoke that you can then over lay the video (unless AE has added something that I haven't heard about). If Solid Works doesn't offer something like that, you might have to get an artisan program like Maya or Max to do those things. (But you might want to call the people that make solid works to be sure there isn't an add on you can buy for sparks and smoke and such.)

AE would be great for your call outs and laying the voice over your animation, though.

[joojaa]

if you want a cheap ass solution use virtual dub for your compression and multiplexing (adding voice over). This way you could save one moths salary which can be big deal if you freelance, if not then ask for your boss to suply the tools fo the trade or stop asking to do stuff taht you dont have tools for. (because if its a real business the price cant really be the object just a asshole for management)

[wockeee]

let me make one thing clear, i'm not looking for some cheap solution. This kinda project is new in my line of work and i'm just particular about getting the right tool.

[joojaa]

In that case you should be looking into getting 1. a comp package and 2. a editting application. (normaly you want both)

Anyway virtualdub is actualy fairly good for the stuff it does.

[wockeee]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 11/20/06, 01:03 PM) [snapback]252824[/snapback]
In that case you should be looking into getting 1. a comp package and 2. a editting application. (normaly you want both)

What would you suggest?.

[silverline101]

Q: "What would you suggest?".

(1) Modeling:
You appear to be getting this from ProE.

(2) Animation, Lighting, Material Creation (Shaders) and Rendering:
If you are going to be doing "professional quality" mechanical animations, you are going to have to import your CAD models into an animation product. I suggest looking at XSI, 3D Studio Max, Maya or Lightwave. There are others, but these will work fine. I use XSI, but I refuse to recommend this over others, because everyone has different tastes and arguing this matter is futile. Any of these products can make smoke and sparks directly withing the 3D environment.

(3) Editing, Compositing, Post Effects:
Adobe Premiere will work fine as a video editor. It is cheap and common, so there is alot of resources to help learn. Depending on what you are doing you may want to look at Adobe After Effects which is a stronger compositor and has more post effects.

If you are going to try and add sparks/smoke in post, then try "Artbeats" they have lots of stock footage of this.

Just my opinion. Hope it helps.
Ohmanoggin

[joojaa]

if you want to use the nurbs derivates take either xsi or maya, maya does come with native under standing of proe files with teh direct connect plug, just make sure you uderstand tesselation.

avoid max and lightwave unless you plan to pre tesselate everything in proe (hardly anybody in cad business knows how to do this porperly, tough proe guys have the easiest here)

for comp i suggets for windows digital fusion, for mac shake (its s cheap its actualy WORTH buying a mac just for it!!)

editor, windows preiere is okay, for mac final cut (again mac is allmost worth buying if you get finalcut, certaily if you get it motion and shake too)