A New Ruby Sketchup Plugin - Keyframe Animation

In Trimble Sketchup plugin list, a new ruby plugin has been added which runs on both Windows and Mac smoothly. The plugin comes with version – one is for free and other is for paid i.e. – pro. The newly animation plugin allow users to quickly ad movements to any numbers of objects in your models. Now creating an animation is as simple as placing the objects where you want it to be on each scene. It moves along straight line, rotate about and moving camera is so simple too. The animation created by you can be exported to a movie directly from Sketchup is best part of this plugin.



By using simple Sketchup scenes, Keyframe Animation works which act as key frames. It very simple to put each object where you want them to be and simply clicking the record button will record their position on each scene. Now when a scene is selected, the objects move according to the recorded positions and if you run Sketchup animation utility, it will not only does the camera move but now the objects will move during the animation too as if by magic.

The overview of main feature of Sketchup plugin Keyframe Animation can be observed that includes:

• Interpolate Translations
• Interpolate Rotations
• Animate Subgroups/Subcomponents
• Assign Key Frame Transition Times
• Add Pauses between Key Frames
• Insert/Reorder Key Frames
• Animate Visibility by Layers
• Animate Visibility by Layers

One can go through the Demos of animation that were made with this plugin. The developer of the plugin has shown simple and complex examples as well for the Demos in their official Keyframe Animation demo page. They have made few video tutorials to watch & understand prior to quick start.