SW Animator is ANNOYING!!! 1

[SBaugh]

Why when I have an assembly and all the mates work fine everything moves fine. I got to animator and I get the message saying that the basically because of hte changes I made the locations of the assemblies cannot be met... If I click "NO" they don't move, but they also don't work right when making the animation. If I select "YES" then it moves the assemblies and all of sudden I have erros through my mates.

I have 3 sub assemblies one flexible to make everything play nice. 2 of the floating subs have limit mates on them so they can only travel to a certain distance, but came back to 0 and the 3rd is fixed. As soon as I click over to Animator it immediately gives that message and I have it update and then I just one mate error after another. I just started deleting them and now none of my parts follow the sub-assembly, yet I still have errors.... This add-in really sucks and need an overhaul again. I have never had more frustration in SW than I am right now with Animator.

I don't know if I am asking a question here or blowing off the steam for the last 2 wasted days of my life.

Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[Theophilus]

You don't mean this is happening in v2011, do you?

One thing--in case you've not yet tried it--rebuild the animation frequently as you go along, or else you'll see exactly what you're describing. And I DON'T mean rebuild the assembly, but only the animation itself (down in the time-line window--and icon somewhere). Try that and see if it works.

Otherwise, yes, I agree--that's what all my bitching has been about so often in the past. Animator has never been a stable component of SolidWorks. However, I tried the above method in v2010 and had decent results (meaning what I could do in SolidWorks often behaved similarly in Animator if I rebuilt the animation frequently along the way).



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[SBaugh]

No this is in 2010, not at 2011 yet.

I have tried the rebuilding frequently, even after each change in the process and I keep getting the same problem every time.

I just let the assembly sit while I was talking on the phone and the timeline is not red and all my yellow lines that were causing a problem are gone as well.... not sure what the heck happened, but the time line looks good now.

But you know that not the case. When I save out the AVI file the time when the mold should be closed its hanging half way open and there is no line indicating that its going to be in that position... that makes absolutely NO SENSE.

I when through every second and dragged it back to its home location (I should not have to do that), but that seems to have worked for this session. I expect it to change next time I open it.

After the animation finished its pretty close to being correct, but now when I select back to the animation I am getting the message that since the model changed it needs to change the assemblies locations... what the heck does this window mean?

I am probably going to give myself a heart attack today!

Thanks for your reply Jeff!

Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[Theophilus]

Unfortunately, walking the assembly all the way through the animation--slowly--is best practice. Odd how doing this helps the computer (or software) really digest what's happening in the assembly/animation.

Instead of saving to an AVI file, I recommend saving out to individual frames (such as Targa format) and then using video software to stitch together the frames into a video format. (I use the effective, easy-to-learn Virtual Dub, which is also free.) The huge advantage of this practice is that if part of the animation doesn't work, you can re-render (or re-animate) the specific time that didn't work out and then patch in those new, unflawed frames. This really works well when you've got a long animation that's prone to crashing or visual flaws or animation quirks.

One other thing--I'm not sure having flexible sub-assemblies is very stable. In my experience, I'm ahead if I create an assembly with the specific purpose of animation. Assemblies for engineering have more potential options for motion, and with Animator, you really want to limit ALL forms of motion to ONLY that which you need in the animation. There are all sorts of tricks for lightening the burden on the software (and hardware). One such trick is to save out all sub-assemblies as a part file, export to parasolid, then re-import as a single, dumb-solid part. Use this in the assembly instead of active, parametric sub-assembly stuff. Much faster, much less load to manage in memory, no chance of any of the solid bodies being tempted to move around arbitrarily, since all that stuff is seen as a single part. If it doesn't move, use this method. Then insert (as a similar method) all chunks of parts that need to move using the same method. If it moves as a single piece, make it a single piece.

Yes, this is annoying, but in the end--if you're serious about getting good, reliable results--this is good practice.

Good luck.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[SBaugh]

Thanks Jeff!!! I finally got it to work, but the cost of this learning experience was expensive.

Your technique works well, using the TARGA files... much. much smoother.

I did get rid of flexible assembly this morning and moved it to the top assembly worked a lot better.

Well I didn't have a stroke... yet, and its pretty much done. Now I have 1000+ part assembly they want me to animate. I don't think this is going to go very well.



Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[Theophilus]

Great news.

I'll bet your 1,000+ part assembly only has a few moving parts. Use the method I mentioned above to turn all those individual parts into single parts and things will go much better. The general rule is to make everything that moves (or stays still) together a single part, and this will greatly reduce complexity.

Good luck!



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[EEnd]

I recently used Theophilus's suggestion of saving groups of components that move together out as part files and building a custom assembly from those. It made a big difference in performance. Before it seemed to take a minute to recalculate and after it seemed instantaneous. I believe that it also helped stability.

I did discover that save as part only saves visible geometry, so I was able to work in the top level assembly and use hide to select just the parts that were in each moving group. This helped group things that were in separate subassemblies and split flexible assemblies which did not move as a group.

If I wanted / needed to update the animation as the design evolved, I probably would create display states in the design assemblies which would make it easier to repeat the save as part steps.

Eric

 

[SBaugh]

You can save your assembly as a part and have all the components saved, its an option you can select.

My problem is not this any longer, now its the Event Based Motion, see my more recent issue per the new thread I posted.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer
GEASWUG Greater Evansville Area SWUG Leader

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[gwubs]

Hey Scott,
Maybe the near heart attack was because of "erros" (eros) with your mates (first post).