jeffgrune Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Is it possible to animate the visibility (or anything else) of groups and components? I'm doing an animated building under construction and the client wants to do a time-lapse effect of window panels being applied. The window modules are components. Dragging the component and its contents into the animation timeline makes it animatable by transformations, but I don't see where visibility keys can be applied to groups or components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsiggia Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Should be able to animate transparency in the materials dialog. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffgrune Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 Transparency would be a global change to every instance if I'm changing it in the materials. I want each instance to show up at a prescribed time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Hi Jeff, You can animate the visibility of objects, but not currently the visibility of groups or components. We will need to add that capability for the future. To do that now, you will need to Explode or Ungroup your objects, and then you can animate the visibility of as many of them as you would like at once. Just use the KeyFrame tool with the User Selected Tracks, and add an Object Visibility track: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffgrune Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 Glad I didn't spend any more time looking for a way to keyframe components, since it can't be done yet. I exploded the components, then joined so they are one object. It loses the component flexibility but is possible as a single object to keyframe its visibility. I have about 100 of these window modules to animate. I don't want to have to go into the 3-4 separate parts of each of the units to keyframe each element. That would add up to about 300-400 objects to keyframe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Yes, Joining (or making a Reference Object) can simplify the task. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffgrune Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 Did all that. Now trying to animate visibility-invisibility on the timeline. Set up the object for visibility track. Set keyframe at beginning to invisible. Advanced timeline, set visibility to visible, the change showed on the timeline. Scrubbed timeline to see it appear and disappear at the keyframes. It changed visibility at the keyframe, but didn't return when cursor went over it again. Doesn't render either, so it's not just a GL issue. File attached Disappearing-reappearing object.fmz.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Hi Jeff, Yes, it does appear that there are issues animating the visibility of objects. For now, perhaps the best bet is to back save the file and generate the animation portion of the project in v6.7.3. Thanks for your report, we will get this corrected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffgrune Posted November 14, 2014 Author Share Posted November 14, 2014 It worked as expected in 6.6, but I found a different way to achieve the effect this time, in Photoshop. Every one of the 400 panels would need to be set up in the timeline and the Animation Editor in 6.6 isn't as versatile as the one in 7.3.4. There's no way to hide tracks, so it becomes overly complex when every item is set up.The palette extends to the bottom of the screen and beyond and there's no way to resize it because the bottom of the palette where the handles are is below the bottom of the screen. It doesn't have any of the fit tools in 7.3.4 either, so it's easy to get lost in the palette. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Hi Jeff, You can hide tracks and fit in v6, but admittedly it is nicer in general in v7 and v8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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