More intuitive animation tool

[P Retondo]

It's pretty difficult and frustrating to set up an animation in VW. Been basically unchanged for years. I wish I could do the following: do a walkthrough onscreen in OpenGL, save the path - including stops, rotation of viewpoint, and spins - then have that path generated in a list and be intuitively editable to tweak the speed, duration of various events, viewer height, etc. Then an easy setup for type of rendering and a quick preview capability, and, of course, faster multi-processor capability for rendering! With reliable and stable progress updates, and the ability to stop and start processing at any point in the rendering.

[PVA - Admin]

Agreed. The good news is that this is already on the list of things that are almost assuredly going to be updated, but it won't be in 2017 specifically.

What you recommend is basically what I proposed, with the added caveat that "recording" your movements in this way should create an actual object that shows the 3D path of the camera with widgets along that 3D path showing where the camera is facing at any given time along that path, letting the user tweak angles and directions as well as the speed and movement curve (acceleration/deceleration curves, I mean) between each widget/view.

With the advent of the Gaming mode controls for walkthrough and the 3DConnexion becoming more widely used, recording the users walkthrough path becomes a logical next step for animations.

[Jonathan Pickup]

Jim,

with Animationworks already out there and very capable, why not just add that to Vectorworks. Some of us already know how to use it (it comes with Vectorworks in Australia and NZ).

[Benson Shaw]

+1 to the wish

+1 to creation of path object.

+1 to Jonathan's suggestion assuming the AW purchase is feasible path to the wished result.

-B

[PVA - Admin]

Animationworks is what I would want as well, made by OzCAD who also make the lovely Windoor!

http://www.ozcad.com.au/products/animationworks.php

Don't know why things like this arent simply bought and bundled in more often, but it might become a more common practice going forward. It certainly makes sense to quickly get functionality in that has already been established and polished for years.