Best Practice Advice - Sequencing

[AndyWalker]

Hello everyone,

Hoping for some advice.

Just about to start preparing a model we have made to animate the construction / installation sequence.

The model is complete with all components in their final resting place and imported into navisworks.

Do you typically - animate the sequence of events in reverse then play it backwards? ie remove the roof, remove the walls, un-prep the ground?

OR

do you move all your pieces off to the side into a staging area then bring them back in one by one, ie prep ground add walls add roof???

Im not sure what the norm is? i think it would be more difficult to have all the "bits" in a pile - how will you know exactly where they go? and you have already gone to all the trouble of assembling them

Any advice would be much appreicated.

[dgorsman · Accepted solution]

Depends what works best.  Animating in reverse is a neat trick but after reversing it can look a little strange (ie. it will look like its playing backwards) if you don't get all the timing right.  Going forward also mimicks the natural construction cycle which can help spot potential problems.  And don't forget you can set object animation to have parts off screen or invisible (if you aren't using full materials) and move back to their "natural" position.

As for losing track of what goes where, don't work with individual objects.  Use well-named sets to manage what you are working with.

[AndyWalker]

ok ill have a play around and see what works.

i meant how do you place it exactly correct in space rather than in what order. ive spent alot of time on my model positioning, its seems crazy to to completley explode it move all the pieces off to the side out of frame then bring them back in as required, how can i easily control where to put them back to the same place?

how do you tackle this?

Another question if you would be so kind, i have seen many videos showing concrete being poured or rather "filling up" a void.

or like a slab transitioning in from left to right?

how is this achieved?

Many thanks again for your well apprciated advice

[dgorsman]

Thats what I meant by moving objects to their "natural" position.  You animate the object movement by controlling their displacement from as your model normally is (as-built or "natural" state).  Objects start the animation with some degree of displacement which is gradually reduced, with an end displacement of 0.  Object animation is cumulative so you can have several separate pieces get pulled together into a sub-assembly then have the entire sub-assembly move together into its final position.

Simulating liquid movement (or like activiities like adding earth fill) is kind of tricky and not all solutions work in all circumstances.  In some cases it may be easier or look better to move the concrete object from below grade to its final position.  In others, it may make more sense to animate a change in the scale of one axis.  In others it may make more sense to leave it in place and animate a change in transparency from fully transparent to fully opaque.

[AndyWalker]

That is spot on. Makes perfect sense. Thanks very much.