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VRML files and controlling animation

Geoff60
Geoff60's picture
Registered: Jul 5 2010
Posts: 7
Answered

Good morning Guys, I am a relative beginer to 3D but have created some models in Cinema 4D saved then as VRML2 which allows exportation of animation and imported into Acrobat Pro Extended. The model imports ok and pan zomm etc are all working. My question is how do I begin to control the animation. Any help would be appreciated, directions to text books or tutorials would help too. Best regards, Geoff

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro Extended 9.2, Windows
UVSAR
UVSAR's picture
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
Aside from the play/pause/scrub button on the 3D toolbar there's no UI support for animations in 3D scenes - to control playback you will have to write JavaScript code, and it's not entirely trivial. There are similar questions on this part of the forum if you search, but to be honest most people exporting 3D animations into PDF do so with a third-party product that handles all the JS automatically.
Geoff60
Geoff60's picture
Registered: Jul 5 2010
Posts: 7
Hi, many thanks for a very quick response. Just one question which 3rd Party products do the trick?
Best regards, Geoff
Fingi
Fingi's picture
Registered: Aug 18 2010
Posts: 5
Good morning Geoff60, UVSAR,
I am new to AcrobatUsers.com and have a similar requirement, i.e. I am trying to control the animation (pre-defined simulation) of a 3D model (VRML2) using hyperlinks, to allow navigation to any part of the sequence within Pro Extended/Adobe Reviewer.
I can't find a way to insert bookmarks into the timeline for navigation of the simulation using Adobe, so instead I am considering splitting the animation of my VRML2 into bite-sized pieces prior to PDF import. I should then be able to create separate hyperlinks to each sequence.
The disadvantage of this process is that it will not be easy for me to split my simulation into separate chunks. Subsequently I will also have mulitple files I will then need to maintain instead of one file.
My conclusion is that I feel there 'should' be a way of scrolling through the sequence within Pro Extended/Adobe Reviewer and adding bookmarks where desired udsing my original VRML2.

I hope this helps. Any feedback/information you can provide in response would be much appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Dean.
Geoff60
Geoff60's picture
Registered: Jul 5 2010
Posts: 7
Hi Dean
Thanks for your comments. In the end I used Strata Live 3D software. This allowed the import of the model in VRML2 and subsequent export to Acrobat Extended with animation control. Strata is not cheap but works quite well but probably better in HTML than Acrobat. Try their website http://www.strata.com/ Am probably not much help as am still a relative beginner myself but Strata is very good and will do the job but as I said at a price!
Regards, Geoff
Fingi
Fingi's picture
Registered: Aug 18 2010
Posts: 5
Hi Geoff, Good to hear that you got it working through Strata.
I just want to clarify what you mean by 'animation control'? e.g. Did you do the bulk of the animation in Cineam 4D and then use Strata to create the interactions (animation control) available to the end user, or was it a static model from Cinema 4D which you imported into Strata for animating?

FYI, My VRML model already includes animated sequences. I want to link keywords to different parts of the sequence so that when the end user clicks on a keyword the applicable sequence is displayed.
Thank you.
Kind Regards
Dean