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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
TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager
Status changed to: Future Consideration
 
TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

This is internally logged under: https://jira.autodesk.com/projects/FUPB/summary 

mark2t
Advocate
What does this mean then? I don't have access to that site.
TimeraAutodesk
Community Manager

@mark2t this is our internal tracking system, having this link here let's our users know that we have officially logged it and let's us easily track it's status when that changes to report back to you.

JRKuyper
Contributor

I recently submitted a suggestion for a Rigid Body Solver.  I think this is a good first step in that direction.  The output of the Rigid Body Solver would involve an animation of a dynamic system.

archebyte
Participant

I agree. F360 is an utterly amazing tool, having come from the ground-breaking SolidWorks. I understand the need to charge for motion studies by relegating them to cloud rendering, but not having joint animation in the animation tool for output to the standard video formats is limiting. How about keeping the need for cloud rendering but add constraint/joint-based animation to the Animation tool? Maybe something like only very low resolution or flat rendering for local machine, so we can perform test rendering animations at low-rez, and then send to the cloud for high-quality final renders?  At least this way we could push test renders to see how the motion is working as an illustration that can be saved for later reference for comparison of early motion tests.

 

Thanks and keep up the good work! Looking forward to all that F360 has to offer in the coming years.

 

fourdimensionaldoors
Contributor

It seems intuitive that this would already be the case in animation, a bit of a no-brainier considering that the program already does this in other modes, it seems odd, even silly, that it is disabled in animation mode!  once I finished my model and set all the joints I found myself extremely disappointed that I could not adjust the model position without a whole lot of pain to position multiple parts individually into their various different positions [which took forever for just a single key frame] just to get to the first reference key frame and then of coarse since it doesn't handle the joints nothing moved properly [didn't follow conjoined joint movements] making animation mode just simply USELESS!!!

 

dhfrasher
Participant

Agree with all commenters and would raise the ante: I can't do my job (Advanced Concepts Director for a certain Scandinavian Auto OEM) as well as i'd like if I can't produce a well executed  animation of my complex motion solutions.  As both an aesthetic designer (aka stylist) and an engineer, F 360 is so close to being that incredible  tool with just the right mix of user friendliness and functional prowess. I'd settle for a first phase where a camera view is included in a motion study. If that is already possible please let me know.

 

Thanks, the more I use it the more hooked I get, with the obvious animation exception.

hoegge
Collaborator

Yes - please - this is really something very useful - to animate joints and then to render a moive of that in the render workspace. That is something you want to do so often and with Fusion 360 it would really be a killer feature.

 

hoegge
Collaborator

Please improve this 🙂

 

Combine motion studies, animation and the ability to render those into a single tool. It is really hard / impossible to make nice presentations as it is today

 

Thanks

Aoica113
Observer

I really want this feature...

I just don't understand how this could not be a part of the animation workspace to begin with. Of course when animating multiple objects of an assembly, you'd want to be able to control where every component is at specific times of the animation. I've needed this in a few projects, but I've attached a couple images as an example. I'm animating the construction of a plywood box. The first image shows some of the parts after being cut out from a single sheet of plywood. The second image shows the final position of all the components. This cannot be accomplished by merely moving and rotating individual parts. I need to be able to suppress and unsuppress joints as needed so that the parts will snap to their correct position.

 

All it would take is to have visibility of joints in the tree while in the animation workspace in order to have the ability to suppress and unsuppress them as needed. When will this feature be added to the animation workspace?Screen Shot 2017-12-27 at 8.54.24 PM.pngScreen Shot 2017-12-27 at 9.01.38 PM.png

ben.drexl
Explorer

Wow... I've been so excited with what Fusion has allowed me to simulate with joints, constraints, motion links, etc.  I setup a few motion studies to demonstrate the design, but can't find any way to export the animation?  This is a complex setup, and not possible to keyframe using simple transforms.

tresgian
Participant

Having the moveable joints created in the assembly space active in the animation space would be a massive advantage
Is this being considered ?

pazz18
Community Visitor

Has the been any progress on this, as I need to record some of the animation.

What has happened to the states of https://jira.autodesk.com/projects/FUPB/summary ?

seth_opgenorth
Observer

 This would still be a killer feature for the animations.  I was really surprised when I found out that this wasn't possible today!

josiah
Explorer

This is a massive roadblock in an otherwise fantastic program. I couldn't believe this wasn't a basic feature. How does this not have more upvotes?

amoose136
Explorer

I also would definitely use this feature. Model explosions are nice but really are a lower priority to me than just being able to demonstrate basic kinematic functionality of a design.

hoegge
Collaborator

And the super primitive "motion study" should also be improved and incorporated

mithical1
Observer

I've been burning through tutorials and guides for several days learning Fusion 360 and have been pleasantly surprised how robust it is. But then I decided to make a bar linkage assembly, made all the joints, and went to animate it only to find the animator doesn't recognize joints! From what I understand, the program is consistently being updated but is this not completely ridiculous? I'd really like to know if there is some underlying reason for the lack of this feature, if it somehow got shoved down the priority list, and when it is coming.

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