Animation Tab

Thea is capable of rendering the following types of animation:

• Standard camera animation based on SketchUp scenes; however, Field of view changes won't be applied.
• Object and camera animations based on various SketchUp plug‐ins that display animation when you play SketchUp scene animation. This mode is called 'Generic.'
• SketchyPhysics animations that can be replayed with SketchyReplay
• MSPhysics animations (0.80+)
• Fredo's Animator animations

Animation is exported as a series of numbered images. You will have to convert them into a playable video file using specialized software. VirtualDub is a free, open source example.

The animation tab controls the following parameters:
Animate camera: specifies whether camera movement will be animated.
Animate objects: specifies whether object movement will be animated. It requires an animation plug‐in, because SketchUp itself doesn't animate objects.
Frames per second (fps): controls fluidity. How many animation frames will be played per second. Standard values are 24 or 25 fps.
Plug‐in: Generic, SketchyPhysics, MSPhysics, Fredo's Animator. The selection defines what plug‐in will be responsible for object movement.
Render Frames: All, Selected. Specifies whether Thea should render all specified frames in a field below. You can enter single frame values or frame ranges, separated by commas (e.g., 15,30‐45,60).
Network cooperation: Frame, Bucket|Pixels. This is only used when rendering is performed through a network using nodes. It controls whether computers in the network will render whole frames independently (Frame) or contribute to each frame (Bucket|Pixels). We recommend using Bucket|Pixels, because this minimizes the network bandwidth needed to send whole frames from the nodes to the server. It is also more efficient when computers of varying performance are in the network.

When you click the "Render Animation" button, you will be asked to select a folder and specify a file name. Frame numbers will be appended automatically to the file name (Animation000.png, Animation001.png, etc.).

Please note that for the time being, Thea For SketchUp doesn't animate standard lights. Fredo's Animator can animate standard lights, if you start rendering the animation from the Animator instead of Thea.