Creating Basic Animations

You can create a basic animation by dragging the timebar along the timeline to a point in time, and then moving a component to a target location. SolidWorks Animator moves the component from its initial position to the position you designated in the time specified.

To create an animation:

1. Click the Animation tab at the bottom of the window.

• The graphics area splits horizontally.

• The top area displays the model.

• The bottom area splits vertically into two sections:

• The SolidWorks Animator toolbar and Animator FeatureManager design tree on the left.

• The timeline with the key points and the timebar on the right.

2. Drag the timebar to set the duration of the animation sequence.

You can also click anywhere along the timeline to place the timebar, or use the space-bar to incrementally move the timebar.

3. Drag the assembly component to the desired position at the end of the animation sequence.

4. To animate other assembly components:

1. Drag the timebar to set the duration of the animation sequence.

2. Drag the assembly component to the position desired at the end of the animation sequence.

You can start the movement of additional components anywhere along the timeline. However if there is conflict in the movement between the components, a key point is displayed indicating unsolvable motion.

5. Click Play from Start to see the animation.

In addition to component movement, you can animate visual properties and control sequence timing to animation.

Return SolidWorks Help Index