Animation tab. opacity/transparancy problem.

[mukha521]

Hello!

I have some weird problem with opacity in animation. It happened on it's own and I don't know why. Components are just not fully opaque for no reason.

I made a little screencast to show the issue

Can somebody help?

[paul.clauss]

Hi @mukha521

Thanks for posting. I saw another strange issue earlier this week in which the bodies in an assembly file were somehow made transparent - this was discussed on this thread. 

Does the model appear as transparent in the Model workspace as well?

You may be able to correct this problem in your model by using the fix described in the other thread - right click each body and change the opacity to 100%. Please let me know if this works for you.

I hope this helps! I'd like to get a copy of your design in the problem state if possible to look further into this issue, as we've seen it twice now - would you mind sharing a copy of the design file with me? 

[mukha521]

Hello! Thanks for the answer.

The problem is only in animation tab. There are no issues in modeling one.

I've tried to change opacity of one of the components, then updated links in assembly design and the bodies became normal. But only until I hit play button to watch the animation. It played once with normal opacity and second time components are again transparent. This time even more transparent.

Here is the link for the design: https://a360.co/2H9LtAl

[paul.clauss]

Hi @mukha521

Thanks for posting! I had a look at your file today and found that I received the same results you described - I've reached out to some of our Animation experts for more ideas on what may be happening here. I'll reach out as soon as I have more information to share.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

[paul.clauss]

Hi @mukha521

Thanks again for posting! I've confirmed that this is a bug and have logged a ticket for further investigation with our development team (internal reference FUS-39521). 

Unfortunately, I've been unable to find a way to fix this problem behavior in your file - even a new storyboard showed the same opacity problem. I did find that I was able to export the assembly file in STEP format and then open the copy in a new file to work around this behavior. This will require you to recreate the video - I apologize for any inconveniences this may cause you.

[carldorsch]

I seem to have the same problem as mukha. I've been working with animations with Fusion 360 for over a year, and in the past two weeks, this transparency problem has suddenly appeared, destroying the value of my animation work.

Things always look fine in the Model Tab, where everything is 100% opaque, and with the Visual Style set to shaded with visible lines. But in the Animation Tab, the opacity of parts would fall off, or they might start out right, but then go transparent - often within seconds of running a storyboard. If I publish the animation, the transparency problems show up there as well.

An AutoDesk person looked at my site (Windows 10), and thought the problem wasn't my graphics card. I have an Intel(R) HD Graphics, 32 MB Integrated card. The GPU Driver API is a DirectX 9.0, the GPU Driver Version is 9.17.10.4459, and the driver date is 03/09/2017. The Anti Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion, Object Shadow, Ground Shadow, Ground Reflection are all set to Off. The Selection Display Style is set to "Simple" and the Transparency Effect is set to "Better Performance."

I tried clearing out the cache, turning off the computer, or switching back and forth to wireframe, or shaded, but with no visible lines. Often my attempts at fixes seemed to accomplish something, and but then the problem would quickly return, making the animation virtually worthless.

If anyone wishes to take a look, I have a shared public link of one such animation: a360.co/2JH8Q4w  

[carldorsch]

I can't speak authoritatively on this, but I think I found the action that triggered my opacity/transparency troubles within the Animation tab.

As background information, I've created a dozen or so animations, and have had no particular problems with them - until about ten days ago, when major transparency problems surfaced within my most recent one. Because this animation became so messed up (including when I published it), I was too scared to pull up any of my previous ones, fearing I might corrupt them. Since recreating any of them would involve hours of work (if indeed they could be recreated), I was naturally hesitant to touch them. All the same, I finally summoned the nerve, and pulled one up - happily finding no issues. I played with it a good deal and the transparency problem never appeared. As I've mentioned before, the transparency problem would often remain hidden within the troubled animation for a period of time, and then gradually present itself with the moving of the timeline. But I found the issue never appeared with my older animations. That told me I had done something different with this latest animation.

In thinking it thru, I could only think of one thing different that I had done with this troubled animation. At one point, within the Model tab, before any problems appeared, I had altered the Display Settings, going from my usual Shaded with Visible Edges Only, to Wireframe with Visible Edges Only. I then switched to the Animation Tab and published the animation. After deciding I didn't like the look of the wireframe animation (the edge lines were too thin), I went back to the Model Tab, and switched back to Shaded with Visible Edges Only. That's when the transparency problem started popping up in the Animation Tab (note, things have always looked fine in the Model Tab). I'll point out that once the problems appeared, I tried creating new storyboards in the same animation, and duplicated that same inital Shade-to-Wireframe switch, back and forth, several times (along with every other option that came to mind). But no matter what, I couldn't get rid of the transparency problems.

So that's my warning: if you're going to created animations, don't switch the Display Settings over from Shaded to Wireframe. I could be all wet - but that's the only thing I could narrow my problems down to. The transparency bug is apparency triggered by that Wireframe setting.

[carldorsch]

To test things out, I created a new file, totally empty, but dragged my problem file into it as a part. So as a component of the new file, the problem model (which includes a couple dozen separate bodies) is still linked to the existing old file. I then created an animation with this new file and found no transparency problems with it.

I then tried to see if I could trigger the same kind of transparency problems as I had encountered with the initial file. I changed the Display Setting from the Shaded to the Wirefame, and published an animation. It published correctly (although again, the lines are too thin). I then switched back to Shading with Visual Edges, but this time I couldn't get any transparency problems to arise. The animation again looks right, and publishes correctly. Still if I go back to the initial file, the transparency problems are still there. So maybe my theory was wrong, and the problem wasn't triggered by switching from shaded to wireframe.

[carldorsch]

Alright, now I'm certain where the bug creeps in.

I took the same assembly of parts and did an animation of them, and published them - and there were no transparency problems in the animation or in the published AVI file. But this time I did one key thing differently. Before, in my problem animations, I started with most of the components invisible, and then brought them each into visibility, one at a time. But in doing so, I would alter the fade-in, by extending it to perhaps one second, as opposed to allowing a quick off-to-on. Making that brief extended fade-in has apparently been the trigger for my transparency problems.

In this new animation, I didn't do any extended fade-in's in making the components visible(the "duration" of each was the default 0.5 seconds). This makes the animation less pleasing to look at; with all the suddenly appearing parts. But there were no transparency problems. 

I then took the no-problem file, and made a copy of it by doing a save-as. I then changed the duration of several of the parts, from the default 0.5 seconds to 1.0 seconds. Just by doing that, I instantly had transparency problems in the animation and the publishing. I made another save-as copy from the no-problem file, and tried changing the duration of the fade-in's from 0.5 seconds to 0.7 seconds. Again, I came up with transparency problems. 

I then took the failed animation, with the fade-in durations set to 0.7 seconds, and set them all back to 0.5 seconds. It didn't matter - I still had transparency problems. Once you change the visibility duration of any component, everything stays messed up, and apparently can't be set right.

I don't know why this is happening now - especially since it didn't happen to me in the past with animations - and I constantly used extended fade-in's.  But that's the problem I'm seeing now - and I sure would like the Fusion 360 team to fix this bug.

[paul.clauss]

Hi @carldorsch

Thanks for posting - we appreciate you delving into this problem. I've let the development team know about your observations in the ticket logged for this behavior. The team doesn't have a fix for this behavior yet, but feel free to reach out on this thread whenever you would like an update.

[rokaskey]

This post may be a little old, but maybe any progress has been made with this issue?

I still encounter this issue when trying to animate. 
Several objects in my animation have become transparent throughout the whole animation, and only show glimpses of color when they are refading into invisible form.

Several months have passed and the issue doesn't seem to be fixed.

[carldorsch]

I haven't heard of any progress being made on this issue. I'm constantly working on animations, and absolutely avoid changing the duration of any "image on" or "image off" that I use in an animation. As long as I don't edit any of the images on or off, then I don't run into any transparency problems. I can delete on or off images, or slide them about on the timeline - but I can't lengthen or shorten them without incurring problems.

It's regretable that I no longer can fade parts in on out in a more gradual fashion - just as I used to be able to do until something unknown happening with Fusion 360 some months ago (and I have plenty of animations to prove that I could).

I only have one work-around if I wish to avoid showing a "hard cut" in my animations, that is, with a component suddenly popping in or out. What I do is to "publish" multiple animation segments, using different storyboards, and then fade the transitions between the different segments using my video software (I work with the free version of Adobe Premier Elements). But since it's time consuming, I only do this between cuts where I'm bringing in one large assembly into view with another one.

So in summary, yes, I surely hope the Autodesk people will get this particular Fusion 360 issue fixed.

[corsair2014]

Having the exact same issues as above, and really frustrated because this is "basic" functionality of the animation workspace that should be working. Has anyone figured out a fix? Latest August 22nd update doesn't seem to have fixed it

[Anonymous]

I'm having this exact same problem and I also switched the view setting and I have all components fade in with a 1s transition.

Removing the transitions doesn't help... Animation unusable to me 😞

[cad_munkie]

@paul.clauss any update on this issue?  The bug still exists in the latest update.

[jhVWRLB]

As of the January 2019 update, problem still exists [ and possibly WORSE than earlier ].  The original poster went to great lengths to define the problem, and it is hard to see why the dev team cannot nail it.  In my experience, it is virtually impossible to use visibility fade without ending up with some ugly wire-frame overlays.  I find temporary switch to Model mode and then back, sometimes fixes the problem, but it quickly returns at any attempt to change the storyboard.   PPLLEEASE give a fix for this problem a higher priority than it seems to have at the moment.

[jhVWRLB]

I noticed in another thread that the dev team is working on this problem.  Dunno if it helps, but there is a workaround I've used which seems to be reliable.  Around each component that I want to fade I put a dummy component that contains nothing other than the original component.  I add visibility-switch to the upper component with no fade, and add the fade to the inner component ending at the same time as the visibility-switch on the containing component.  A bit messy, but it helped me when I really needed this feature.

[T3H]

Tried exporting to step and recreating the video. Doesn't work, same thing.

[T3H]

Finally got it to work by exporting to step and not fading the components. As soon as I touch the fade it goes haywire.

[mda]

Yeah, maybe this kind of thing works for simple assemblies but I'm working with assemblies of more than 1000 parts.  I don't have time for this kind of thing.  Can you imagine the mess my storyboard would be in?  It's March of 2019 and this problem still persists.  In my opinion, Fusion just isn't worth bothering with if you need to produce anything more than basic animations.  So disappointing.  It's most likely that since this bug wasn't always present, that the fusion team somehow introduced it themselves when applying some update or other to the software.