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Chapter 12. Animation

Figure 147. 3D animation editor and toolbar

►To add a 3D animation to an active object class

1.Click the New 3D Animation toolbar button, or Choose Insert|New 3D Animation… from the main menu. The New 3D Animation dialog box is displayed.

Choose the active object class, which will contain the 3D animation, from the Choose active object drop-down list.

2.Alternatively, in the Project window, right-click the active object class, which will contain the 3D animation, and choose New 3D Animation… from the popup menu. The New 3D Animation dialog box is displayed.

3.Enter the name of the new 3D animation in the Name of new 3D animation edit box.

4.If needed, select the Add encapsulated 3D animations check box to add 3D animations of the encapsulated objects to this 3D animation.

Moreover, you can add links between encapsulated 3D animations by setting the

Add links between encapsulated 3D animations check box.

5.Click OK.

Chapter 12. Animation

Background – static value|[optional] dynamic expression of the background color.

Exclude from build – if set, the animation is excluded from the model.

Properties specifying the location and rotation of the 3D animation on the container 3D animation (X, Y, Z, X rotation, Y rotation, Z rotation) are suppressed by the dynamic expressions of the corresponding properties of the encapsulated 3D animation shape in the container 3D animation, if the latter is defined.

On the Miscellaneous page of 3D animation’s properties window you specify animation window size, and light sources properties. AnyLogic 3D animation is lightened with one ambient and two directional lights. Ambient light is constant low level light. Because ambient lighting is uniform, it produces uniform shade. Directional light sources make animation more interesting. Directional light is an oriented light with an origin at infinity. A directional light has parallel light rays that travel in one direction along the specified vector. The portion of a scene where visual objects are illuminated by a particular light source is called that light object's region of influence. The influencing bounds of a light determine, which objects to light. When a light source's influencing bounds intersect the bounds of a visual object, the light is used in shading the entire object.

Miscellaneous properties

Window size – the width and the height of 3D animation window.

Ambient – the color of the ambient light.

Direct 1 – the color of the first directional light.

X, Y, Z – static values|[optional] dynamic expressions of the x, y, z-coordinates of the vector, in which the first directional light shines.

Direct 2 – the color of the second directional light.

X, Y, Z – static values|[optional] dynamic expressions of the x, y, z-coordinates of the vector, in which the second directional light shines.

Bounds – light sources influencing bounds.

The blue cross is the origin point (0, 0) of 3D animation diagram.

Chapter 12. Animation

Appearance properties

Enable lighting – if set, the shape is lightened and thus visible.

Shininess – static value|[optional] dynamic expression of the shininess of the lightened shape, specifies how shiny a material surface is. This value (in the range 1.0 to 128.0) is used in calculating the specular reflection of a light from a visual object. The higher the value, the more concentrated the specular reflection is.

Transparency – static value|[optional] dynamic expression of the shape’s opacity (where 0.0 denotes fully opaque and 1.0 denotes fully transparent shape).

Polygon mode – Fill|Point|Line the style of how the polygons making up the figure are rendered. If Fill is set, polygons are filled, if Point – they are rendered as the points only, if Line – with lines only.

Render face – Front|Back|Both type of rendering the faces of 3D animation shapes. For many visual objects, only one face of the polygons need to be rendered. To reduce the computational power required to render the polygonal surfaces, the renderer can cull the unneeded faces.

If Front is set, front facing polygons are rendered only. If Back is set, back facing polygons are rendered only.

If Both is set, all polygons are rendered, no matter which direction they are facing.

If a generic property is not applicable to a particular shape, it is disabled.

Names of animation shapes are used only for code generation and, correspondingly, to access shapes from code. Names do not appear in the animation window.

12.3.23D animation shapes

In this section, the detailed description of the 3D animation shapes is given.

Chapter 12. Animation

12.3.2.3Cone

►To draw a cone

1.Click the Cone toolbar button, or

Choose Draw|3D Animation|Cone from the main menu.

2.Click or drag the cone on the diagram.

Properties

Radius – static value|[optional] dynamic expression of the radius of the cone.

Length – static value|[optional] dynamic expression of the cone length.

Slices – the number of the circle elements the cone surface is formed from.

12.3.2.4 Parallelepiped

►To draw a parallelepiped

1.Click the Parallelepiped toolbar button, or

Choose Draw|3D Animation|Parallelepiped from the main menu.

2.Click or drag the parallelepiped on the diagram.

Parallelepiped has no specific properties.

12.3.2.5 Rectangle

►To draw a rectangle

1.Click the Rectangle toolbar button, or

Choose Draw|3D Animation|Rectangle from the main menu.

2.Click or drag the rectangle on the diagram.

Rectangle has no specific properties.

Chapter 12. Animation

Properties

# points – [read only] static value|[optional] dynamic expression of number of points of the polyline.

X[index] – [optional] dynamic expression of the x-coordinate of the polyline’s point.

Y[index] – [optional] dynamic expression of the y-coordinate of the polyline’s point.

Z[index] – [optional] dynamic expression of the z-coordinate of the polyline’s point.

Line width – static value|[optional] dynamic expression of the polyline width.

Closed polyline – if checked, the closing segment is created.

Points – coordinates of the polyline points, specified in the form #, X, Y, Z, where # is the point’s index, X, Y, Z – x-, y- and z-coordinates of the point correspondingly.

Each point of the polyline can be controlled during the model execution. You can specify dynamic expression, defining the number of points. The coordinates of the polyline’s points can also be defined by dynamic expressions. Use the predefined symbol “index” in X, Y, Z expressions to refer to the current point index. The index value is zero based – i.e. the first point has index of 0.

12.3.2.8 Mesh

You can use mesh to define custom geometry shapes. The mesh is defined as follows: you define the vertices of the mesh and then choose the mesh type – the way the array of vertices is drawn (individual groups of vertices can form lines, triangles, quadrilaterals, etc.).

►To draw a mesh

1.Click the Mesh toolbar button, or

Choose Draw|3D Animation|Mesh from the main menu.

2.Click at each mesh vertex on the diagram.

3.Double-click to finish.

The generic polyline editing operations (see section 12.2.2.4, “Polyline”) can be applied to mesh.