Timeliner + Animation

[OcciMO]

There's lots of unanswered posts about this particular animation issue in Timeliner, so I would like to ask the root question of why.

It seems we are able to get right up to the point where we can get Timeliner to sequence according to a schedule, while including those impressive animations where objects grow out of the ground or fall out of the sky. It sorta/kinda works, just not consistantly. Objects keep falling out, or the animation series craps out half way through the sequence, even though it works perfectly through Animator. 

So what I would like someone to answer honestly is why this isn't part of the working features of Navisworks? If someone bothered to add a place in Timeliner to add a script or animation at all, shouldn't it work? It "sort of" works, "sometimes," so that makes me think it really is supposed to. I don't THINK it's something I'm doing or not doing (certainly possible) or hardware, but so far I haven't found a RECENT, solid answer in any industry forum to those asking for help for this very specific topic. I saw a post from 2011 saying it "wasn't possible" yet all the means seem to be right there.

Will any experts weigh in?

[dgorsman]

I've been playing with the Timeliner and Animator for the past few days.  It has its quirks, but it does do what I'm expecting it to do.  It certainly wasn't a click-click-done procedure, it takes some work to suss everything out.  I'm quite good at such things and it took a day or two.  I would expect others who don't have an affinity or the time for working out procedural steps may take a week or more to get consistently good results.

Some of the reluctance to post may simply be avoiding conflict-of-interest: handing off hard-won knowledge to others who then use it to compete with little investment can stay many hands.  Ultimately it is a volunteer forum for sharing information.  Replying isn't mandatory, even for AutoDesk staff.

[Logos_Atum]

I managed to handle Timeliner after a few tries too. It´s not self explanatory as it should be,

yet given you have a look at the wikihelp it almost does all it ought to with little to no extra

work.

I had a hard time when I thought about not using revit files as an input. I used Inventor assem-

blies and I soon got to know that it´s helpful to name the groups built  in Inventor according

to the order you like them to appear. Shelve one, two, three ect. Given you consider this

it´s just one click to get Navisworks to key their construction. I love to share 🙂

Spoken of support, its a little shallow I guess. Sure it´s a pro bono forum, yet Autodesk should at

least tell the people if there is a solution. If this solution has to be bought, well that´s how it is.

But if there is no solution at all, each minute saved waiting for an answer means a minute dedi-

cated to a different solution is won.

I tried to find details on a Navisworks script exporting Timeliner to MAX. I know there´s a solution.

But it disappeared with the guy that wrote the script in 2011. The AU class overview has been pre-

serverd, but nothing on the script. On top of this, the guy does not work for his old employer any-

more and the people there don´t have an address where to forward my request to.

At least I know it can be done and I will have a look at how scripts in Navisworks work. Perhaps I

can even team up with those looking for the same stuff. As I don´t have a copy of Revit available

I can´t look up the data structure just like that to see how to rearrange Navisworks output to fit the

Revit pattern. I think it is as simple as reformatting a Text, but I don´t have had the time yet.

Just the linking of a Navisworks FBX which is imported to MAX to a Revit file based on the CSV

for Navisworks I guess. As soon as it´s saved to a computer it can be done.

Good post though 🙂

Kind regards

Daniel