Setting Up a Snapshot Animation
After you have created your animation, follow this procedure to define the way in which the elements of a snapshot animation will move.
1. Check the body definitions:
a. Click
Body Definition. The
Bodies dialog box opens.
b. If you are working with a standard assembly, you must define the bodies so the assembly moves the way it should. Select One Part per Body, and then select a body and assign an appropriate group to each part. Since One Part per Body empties the ground body of parts, make sure to edit the ground body and reassign ground parts to it.
c. If you are working with a Mechanism Design assembly, the bodies should already have been defined. Click each body and review the body assignments to ensure that they are correct.
d. If you plan to use a Mechanism playback file as the basis for the animation, make sure to run it before you set up the animation.
2. Define the animation components:
◦ Click
Key Frame Sequence to create key frame sequences and define general movement.
◦ Click
Drag Components to manually drag bodies to specific positions, and then take snapshots. The key frames are automatically interpolated to produce a smooth animation.
◦ Click
Servo Motors to define servo motors and create specific movement between bodies connected by motion axes or other geometric entities.
3. Add body locking, events, or connection status to the timeline:
◦ Click
Lock Bodies to define the position of a group of bodies relative to each other for a specific segment of the animation.
◦ To facilitate model assembly or disassembly when working with key frame sequences, click
Drag Components to change the connection status of selected bodies, then drag the bodies into new positions and take snapshots.
◦ The components that appear on the timeline are the basis of the animation. You can edit the timeline length and increments, the length of a servo motor or a key frame sequence, and the relative timing of all components in the timeline. Click
Selected to edit or add selected servo motors and key frame sequences.
◦ Click
Connection Status to edit servo motors.
◦ Click
Event to define a sequence of events.
4. Click
to run the animation.