Will we ever get simple animations and component dragging in Creo?

[DamianCastillo]

SolidWorks has the ability to create simple animations and drag components in an assembly out of the box for years.

Will PTC ever add this to Creo?

So many companies can benefit from creating simple animations and the ability to drag the components in your assembly to see how things work together. We should not need some expensive extension to do this. It's a fundamental process of design validation and communication if you ask me.

Why can't we get this functionality in the core license while providing an extension for people that want to do far more complicated things with animations?

What are the communities thoughts on this? Is there a TC group already asking PTC about this core functionality?

Thanks

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[Patriot_1776]

I agree. There's an assembly I've tried to animate in Mechanism, and it gives an error. It's pretty simple, and should not be giving me issues, but Mechanism is obviously not very robust.

[KrisR]

Or robustly buggy

[s.iyer]

Dragging a component in a mechanism to create motion has been around since WF4 or WF5 (Look for the Hand icon at the top). Before that one could define motors and run an analysis to give motion to the mechanism. As for robustness, I never faced any problems. I have used almost all the mechanism joints except lift off.

[DamianCastillo]

s.iyer

Thank you for the input but you are not understanding the core issue here. I am saying that PTC needs the ability to EASILY move components in an Assembly and the ability to EASILY create Animations on the core license, without additional extensions or purchases.

SolidWorks provides this out of the box. In SolidWorks, when you create an assembly and contraint the components like you would in Creo, you can drag them around without doing anything extra. It automatically understands how things can move based on stardard contraints without the need for "Mechanisims".

SolidWorks also allows you to quickly and easily create an Animation with no additional software requirements.

It's out of the box and super easy to use.

I don't have a question on what extensions I need to do things like this. I am wanting to know why do we require additional extensions to do something so basic and why does PTC have to make it so difficult to use. I should be able to drag my components around with no additional effort and quickly create animations with an easy to use tool.

Hope that clears things up.

[ReinhardN]

Damian,

I dont understand your complaint. MDX is part of the standard Creo edition, you only have to use it.

Reinhard

[TomD.inPDX]

What is MDX?

[Kevin]

Mechanism Design Extension.

[DamianCastillo]

MDX is not part of the core license because we can't run it on any but one. Our license file show we have one license of MDX.

Even if MDX was part of all licenses which may be possible but just does not work for us, we still think its horrible. When it comes to creating simple animations, MDX is an overkill and only animates things based on the mechanism you setup for it.

Animation software is different. I simply move a component from one start point to the end point and it creates all the frames in the middle. You can quickly add multiple tracks to make some really great animations that show many moving parts doing various things while the camera also zooms, pans, turns just how I told it too.

Other CAD software provides this out of the box and super easy to use. PTC does not, unless someone can show me where I am confused or just not getting it.

I have many responses by email confirming what I am saying and all of them are wanting the same thing.

We did try using MDX to do what we wanted with our one license and it is horrible as an animation tool. In the end we could not accomplish what we wanted after 2 hours. In Maya, I would do this in 15 minutes.

[s.iyer]

The best way I can think of is to use Camstudio. It is a free screen capturing software. The below video is done using the same.

[s.iyer]

What you describe as your requirement is exactly available from within the assembly. Look for the hand icon. The video uploaded below shows a 4 bar mechanism. You would notice that I am using the Standard module.

Video Link : 3171

[BrianMartin]

Re: S.Iyer... we've had the ability to use the "hand" icon to drag at least since WF2.

And HI again Damian! I wholeheartedly agree with you that animations should be much easier in Creo. I have asked about this. I believe we're heading for some new animation modifications. After discussing this on the PTC/User exploder, I remembered a conversation I had with one of the PTC reps. We discussed how great Creo View animations were in comparison to the old "Pro/ANIMATE" animations. I don't have definitive proof but I believe the indication was that the animation package would also be getting an upgrade soon.

If you were able to finally get Crew View Standard (the MCAD license), you would be able to make super quick drag and drop style animations on the fly while spinning. I really hope we see this soon in the base product.

But we've covered most of that in the PTC/User thread. I do have something new to add. If you go to View->Model Setup->Perspective Settings and you change the drop-down "Type" to Fly-Through, you can record a pretty cool animation as you navigate through your model. This is similar to the old VRML viewers in the late 1990's. Pro/E has had this Fly-Through capability for at least 15 years. Until Wildfire, it was actually an add-on package. Once Wildfire came along, it was added inside the Perspective controls.

Most people don't know about it. Solidworks only got this capability in 2010 (at least it was announced at their Solidworks 2010 World Event).

Good luck!

-Brian

[TomD.inPDX]

I've been racking my brain as to how I animated the little Lucy steam engine in Pro/E 2000i and finally remembered that all I did was play a trial file. Of course, it crashed Pro/E quite often, but the trail file running through a regen/relation change/regen/rel change... did the same thing. You just need a capture device.

[BrianMartin]

Yep Antonius... that's SUPER old school. Back in the days when you animated by trail file... or by using a relation that automatically incremented a dimension to simulate motion.

One time I created an animation that was set to run on the Discovery Channel by moving the model using the rotation tool (the old "thermometer" style controls), taking a JPEG snapshot, and then moving it again. I couldn't believe they were really going to use it! I was relieved when it was cut.

[DamianCastillo]

I appreciate all the replies, suggestions and tricks.

I hope everyone by now understands what I am asking for. I don't want to create mechanisms to animate something. I want to simple grab an assembly and drag it's components around like in SolidWorks with no mechanisims needed. I also want to open a simple animation tool that let's me create animations based on what I want and not what I have predefined through some mechanisim.

One example of what I am doing is to simulate the up and down vibration of a part that can't be defined by a mechanisim because it's not a standard motion of the part. It's simulating what can happen in the field. With a simple animation tool, I can easily move the component up, capture a keyframe, move it down and capture another keyframe and have a simple animation runing. Then I want to animate an interior pin to simulate it rotating during this process and becoming loose. Again, this is not an intended motion for the pin, but simply showing an example of what can happen in the field. This is what simple animation software allows you to do.

If I wanted to animate a product dropping and breaking into different parts and bouncing all over the place, I should be able to do this just like in any simple Animation software.

I can't use a screen recording to do this. I use Camtasia Studio all the time to create training videos and demos. This is not the tool for this. I need simple animations, not mechanisims because I may want to animate something that has nothing to do with the motion of the components.

Bottom line is. We don't have the tool but PTC has shown they are capable of it with Creow View and Creo Illustrate. This should be a core feature in Creo Parametric. Solidworks offers it, Catia offers it and some others.

[HugoBarosa]

Hello Damian,

I make several animations many times, i do it with explode option, you can drag several components, one component, follow explode sequences and even control explode time. I sugest all people that didn't try the new features in explode to give it a try.

Hugo

[DamianCastillo]

Hugo,

I have played with this as well. It still does not solve the problem. Creo Parametric does not have easy animations out of the box and also does not allow dragging of components with standard constraints out of the box. Just hope it happens one day is all.

For now we are taking our assemblies to external software to create our animations. Which also points out another major dissapointment in Creo Parametric, which is rendering. I should not have to pay money to get good rendering options, The default rendering should have all the features found in the "Advanced Rendering Extension".

These are all core parts of CAD and competitors are providing them out of the box.