Sequence Animation

The Sequence Animation App is located in the Content tab of the Fuzor App Menu. Sequence Animations can be used to make complex animations of any model that has been imported into Fuzor. They can also be bound to tasks to work as part of a Construction Simulation. For more information see Object Assignment.

You can select a sequence animation by clicking on it in the Sequence Animation List, when you do this the Key Frame editor is opened allowing you to edit frame by frame.

The Create button creates a new sequence animation of selected objects.

The Clone button duplicates the sequence animation.

The Import button opens a file browser for you to import a saved animation.

The Create Explosion Diagram button creates an explosion diagram with the selected object. The Explosion Diagram is added as a sequence animation.

The Add Object(s) button adds selected objects to the selected sequence animation.

The Remove Objects(s) button removes selected objects from the selected sequence animation.

The Grab Objects button prompts you to select objects to be temporarily added at the current keyframe

The Release Object button prompts you to select an object to be removed from the animation.

To improve the workflow the Sequence Animation app includes two checkboxes that change the way box select works.

The Restrict Box Select to Animation checkbox ensures that objects selected with box select belong to the animation

The Restrict Box Selected to Nearest Layer toggles whether objects that are behind other objects are selected during box select. This allows you to select encapsulating objects like walls or curtain panels without selecting the contents of the building. The Tolerance determines how precise of a calculation is used to determine what is in the first layer of a selection. A lower tolerance will be more precise but will take longer to compute.

Removes the associated sequence animation.

The key frame editor keeps track of your different key frames within your sequence animation. To edit a selected key frame, move objects with the keyframe selected.

Drag the slider to transition through the all the key frames. Keyframes can be dragged and dropped in the list to rearrange the order. When a Keyframe is selected any objects that are moved within that keyframe are automatically selected. All other objects are deselected unless no objects are moving during the Keyframe. Any Custom Pivots that are created with the Refit Tool are saved to the Keyframe they are created in.

The Insert Key Frame button creates a new keyframe after the selected keyframe.

The Insert Last Key frame button creates a new keyframe at the end of your sequence animation.

The Reverse Playback check box Reverses the order your keyframes are played through.

Plays the sequence animation.

Stops the sequence animation.

The Apply Settings to All Keyframes checkbox toggles whether Smoothing and Acceleration settings are applied to each keyframe in the animation

The Use Smoothing checkbox toggles whether the animation is smoothed between frames

The Use Acceleration checkbox toggles whether the animation is accelerated between frames.

The Export to File button exports the animation as an .fsa

The Convert to Multitrack button converts your sequence animation to a multi-track sequence animation.

The Move Animation button moves the entire object and all keyframes. For a multitrack animation only the keyframes in the selected track are changed.

You can also temporarily add objects to animations to simulate a grab effect and control which frames their position is dependent upon the animation. The position of the grabbed object is dependent on the sequence animation until released.

When you select an object to be released you will be prompted by the Drop location window. Hold shift to grab or release multiple objects.

The Original drop type drops the object back at its original location

The Current drop type leaves the object where it was placed

The Custom drop type prompts you to pick a custom drop location

The Staging button releases the object in the staging location

The Cancel button cancels the operation

When the Create Explosion Diagram button is used an additional window is opened in the Sequence Animation App that allows the user to control parameters of the explosion Diagram. Explosion Diagrams are designed to demonstrate how objects are related to each other.

Explosion Diagrams offer two general patterns with different settings. Use the associated radio buttons to change between the explosion diagram types.

The 2D Planar Explosion Diagram Type spreads the objects over a plane in 3D space.

The Direction dropdown menu specifies a direction to explode along.

The Distance value applies a translation to all objects in their ending position.

The Spread value controls how far apart objects are in their end position.

The Duration textbox controls the duration of the animation.

The 3D All Directions Explosion Diagram Type spreads the objects out across all 3D axes.

The Interleave and Alternating checkboxes apply different patterns for the orientation of objects when exploded.

The Distance value controls the distance between objects.

The Grouping value controls the Distance between Groups. Grouping is affected by the object's position relative to the Origin of the explosion diagram.

The Edit button changes the origin of the explosion diagram and the resulting animation.

The Explode in One Step checkbox toggles whether the created animation has separate keyframes for the translation of each object in the diagram.

The Show Preview checkbox toggles whether a preview is displayed for the animation.

The Apply button applies the above changes to the animation.

The Reset button resets the Animation and the settings.

The Auto Label button applies 3D Markers to notable objects in your diagram.

The Label Settings button opens the Auto-Label Settings. This window displays a list of Available Parameters that can be used to create the 3D Markers. The Default is Category. The BIM property associated with the selected parameter populates the 3D Marker for the associated object.

The Multi Track Animation app is located in the Content Tab of the Fuzor App menu. This app works in conjuncture with the canonical Sequence Animation App and the Vehicle animation tool. Multitrack animations can be used to bind multiple animations to the same object. These animations can be bound to tasks or triggers allowing for active control over objects in your scene.

To create a Multi Track Sequence Animation, convert a sequence animation with the Convert to Multi Track button in the Sequence Animation App. Multiple sequence animations can be selected at once and converted together each as a track in the Multi Track Animation.

The Convert to Multi Track Animation dialog menu prompts you to set a name for the multi-track animation.

Once animations are created they appear in the Multi Track Animations List. For each item in the list there are multiple sequence animations that can be edited separately.

Each sequence animation that is part of the selected multi track animation appears in the Tracks list. Multi track animation tracks do not need to have the same objects attached to them. Selecting a track selects attached objects in the 3D scene.

The Edit button opens that sequence animation track in the Sequence Animation App. Use the Back button in the Sequence Animation App to switch back to the Multi Track Animation quickly.

The Clone button duplicates the currently selected animation track.

The Import button imports a .fsa or .fva.

The Export button exports Multi Track Sequence Animation as a .fsa.

The Add Existing Animation as Track dialog menu displays a list of all sequence animations in the project not currently a track in a multi track animation. When Ok is clicked the selected animation is added to the currently selected multi track animation.

There are options in the Element Properties that control your multi-track sequence animations. When an object with any number of multi-track sequence animations is selected individual tracks are listed in the element properties.

Selecting these rows allows you to control properties of each of the animations for that object. Once selected these options appear under Edit Multi Track Animation(Fuzor). The other options to edit other tracks remain. Adjust Objects and Grab Object only appear for animations that have a frame where an objects is grabbed. For multiple grabbed objects there are subsequent Grab Object rows in the element properties. These options are designed to make sequence animations fully portable and quickly editable.

The Adjust Object option opens the Refit Tool to transform the grabbed object.

The Edit Instance option separates the selected instance from the multi track animation creating a sequence animation for each track in the instance that can be edited individually.

The Grab Object option allows you to select an object to replace the currently grabbed object.

Other options in the element properties allow you to quickly test out and ensure that the animation is configured correctly without editing the multitrack animation in the Sequence Animation App.

The Loop Animation option toggles whether that animation will loop once complete.

The Move Animation option moves the object and all animation frames.

The Reset Animation option resets the Animation to the first frame.

The Toggle Animation option allows you to pause and resume the animation.

Quickly create separate tracks of animations that are performing similar tasks in slightly different ways., For Instance: a crane picking up and placing multiple different objects at different locations.

Clone the animation with the Clone button in the Multi Track Animations App. Use the Adjust Object and Grab Object to swap out the objects being grabbed.