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Allow joints to constrain animations

Allow joints to constrain animations

The ability to create motion studies is powerful, but not intuitive to use for creating and exploring complex motions that want to be documented in an animation. Animation right now seems to be geared to making exploded views and does not take advantage of the joints in an assembly. We need to combine these two in the Animation workspace; the constraints of motion provided by the joints, and the ease of setting positions and keyframes in animation. I don't want to have to guess at how many degrees I want a joint to move in relation to another joint that is also moving; I want to drag the parts and have them constrained by the joints to the point in time and position I want to get to, and then capture that in the keyframe. Dragging constrained parts would save alot of time setting up not only a motion study, but allowing it in the animation space would let you save it as video also. 

41 Comments
merocle
Explorer

 the lack of this feature is surprising.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Is the Jira of F360 open to public ?

TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

@Anonymous no, it is not. We have this issue logged and hope to get to it in the future.

Emil.Latypov
Advocate

it is a must-have feature in such kind of CAD software, looking forward to see it in further updates, thx 

oyvindTMNSU
Advocate

@TimeraAutodesk  is there a plan to implement this in near future? I use fusion360 every day in my working and this is a HUGE road blocker! I think this should be at the highest priority!

TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

@oyvindTMNSU  Thanks for following up with me on this request. I know that this is a big road-blocker for those of you using the Animations workspace, and I can assure you that when the Animations workspace is funded again this will be top priority. At the moment, the teams are tasked with focusing on core modeling projects and in completing the drawings workspace, so we have not been able to focus on improving the animations workspace. I will definitely update this thread when that changes and we're able to fund this project so that you can be aware. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding in the meantime. 

 

Best,

Timera

Anonymous
Not applicable

This is a bit of a joke.... This surely can't be a huge feature to add (relative to others in fusion). It'll take years for 'core modelling and drawing' functionality to be at a 'completed stage'. A bit of a deal breaker for me  - just a shame I had to complete modelling in Fusion before realizing that a must have feature wasn't included. Hopefully a product manager looks into this quickly...    

TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

@Anonymous I understand your frustration, as I am the product manager who owns Animations (as well as Drawings) and I'd love to see this get implemented as well - and it will in time I'm sure of it. Have you tried using Motion Studies as an alternative in the meantime? It does a good job of simulating joints in motion, and using a free screen-recording app like Quicktime you can pull out an .mp4 or other video format for sharing like you would via publishing a video from Animations. It's definitely not perfect, but it could be a useful alternative.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks for your reply. Animations are generally used for presentation
purposes so they need to look slick. The motion study method is ok for
design purposes just not presentation so for now a different software is
needed.
three.amigos.john
Participant

Hey guys,

I have been using CAD software for many years, but I do not know enough about "joints" and "animation" in Fushion 360. I have modeled a simple mold with a cylinder, with several pivots points involved. At the end of the motion sequence everything is aligned but during that 20 second sequence the pivot point and other joints do not look as though they are following the rules.

I know I do not have the joints correct because; obviously, this would not be happening.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

PS I can post the model for your consideration on this matter

Anonymous
Not applicable

What is the point of links and motion study if you cant save the animation? This would be very helpful please consider adding it to your development.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Still no advance on allowing joints to constrain animations ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

sjeffff
Enthusiast

I am surprised to see, that it takes over 3 years to pick up a feature and start working on it. Pretty curious to see what does is implemented over the last 3 years. Have been using this software for over a year and have never seen a single update 🤷‍♂️.

So I took a look, https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/june-24-2019-product-update-whats-new/. And the problem is not that nothing happened. Just nothing happened relevant to me. I do not manufacture any of my designs. Nor do I work in a team. For the parts which I do 3D print or CNC cut. I use the manufacturer software to prepare my model, instead of Fusion 360. 

I know it is a bit off-topic. But is there some sort of roadmap publicly available?

 
oyvindTMNSU
Advocate

@TimeraAutodesk   Still not any news on this? Are we talking years ahead?

TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

@sjeffff - we are working on an updated public roadmap at the moment, so keep your eyes on the Blog to check it out as soon as it gets posted

 

@oyvindTMNSU  unfortunately, we have not been able to fund this project yet I'm sorry to say. The team has been very focused on manufacturing workflows, but we do anticipate circling back to this once those reach a better level of maturity there. I don't have a timeline for you yet, but we really do appreciate your patience.

oyvindTMNSU
Advocate

@TimeraAutodesk  thanks for the answer. Sad to hear that you have not been able to fund the project.
Do you have any recommendation for program to use to be able to animate the models from Fusion. Need to be able to animate the complete function of a product. Not only seperate motion links.

info7JY2S
Advocate

So all the SLOOOWWW progress in upgrading Fusion 360 to a reasonable working cad program is caused by budget problems... Maybe if more people where happy with Fusion, there would be more budget available...

 

my 10 cents on this is that when Autodesk would make some really BASIC functionalities work better (like a decent drawing workspace, better animations, welding icons, better BOM (without QTY errors), local storage, better DXF export etc.) the budget problem would solve itself. 

 

And after solving these basic issues there's plenty of room for improvement to make Fusion THE 3D CAD Standard. 

It has that much potention...

 

But right now, because of the lack of progress, I'm in very much doubt if I should renew my payed subscription for another year or just take my losses and invest in other (non Autodesk) cad software... Personally causing your budget to further dwindle..

 

A real shame...

OshanaHaydn
Participant

Another alternative is to use local renderings to create stacks of images, driving joints just a little each time, then make a gif... ten years later, of course, but if you require quality it's the only way?

 

A thought on funding: imagine the immediate cloud revenue from animations. Might even be enough to finish drawing 😉

omdowcett
Explorer

Hello @TimeraAutodesk,

 

Would it be possible to get an update on this suggestion? I'm a fairly new user of F360 and agree that this capability would be an excellent addition to the animation feature. Does it look like this feature will be a part of the Fusion Roadmap for 2020?

TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

Hey @omdowcett , thanks for following up with me on this. Unfortunately, as much as I wish we could tackle this ASAP, the teams are going to be focused on core modeling functionality and finishing out the Drawings workspace in 2020. We anticipate that after we finish those foundational tools / projects that we'll be able to circle back on some animation / rendering enhancements like these. Thanks so much for your patience and understanding.

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