THIS PROJECT IS STILL VERY EARLY IN ITS DEVELOPMENT :
SO FAR THE SCRIPT HAS ONLY BEEN SUCCESSFULLY TESTED ON VRED 2020.1.
USERS OF VRED 2020.3 HAVE REPORTED BUGS RELATED TO CORRUPTED ANIMATION DATA .
DUE TO A CHANGE IN PYTHON VERSION USED IN VRED 2021 THE SCRIPT DOES FUNCTION IN VRED 2021
This will be corrected at a later date (big thanks to the people that tested it and reported the issues) .
INTRO .
Want an easy way to animate your vehicles in Vred? Say no more!
Here you will find the tool you needed .
DOWNLOAD .
This animation tool has two main components .
1 - The VRED script :
It can be either installed as a script plugin or used as a one off by opening a prebuild scene with the all the relevant nodes and script already in it .
The script plugin folder can be downloaded using the button below and installed/copied in the script plugin folder as per Autodesk instruction : script folder install
It can also be downloaded from the download page .
Alternatively you can use the following VRED scene .
It can also be downloaded from the download page .
2 - The app .
It comes in two different flavour .
You can either use the Android version or the PC version (for Windows) .
They can also be downloaded from the download page .
HOW TO USE .
STEP 1 - CONNECT THE APP TO VRED .
If you decided to install the script as a script plugin you should be able to have access to the script using the top menu .
Click the 'create animation receiver' button . Vred will then wait for a connection on the specified port .
IMPORTANT . If the scene you want to animate does not contain the nodes seen in the image below . click the 'create animation receiver' button then save your scene and reopen it . clicking the button will add the required nodes to your scene but unfortunately due to a small bug in Vred nodes created through script need to be saved and reopened before animations can be applied to them .
If you preferred using the scene instead make sure you click 'run script' and note the hostname of your machine displayed in the terminal .
If you need to change the port number used to communicate with the app it can be done by changing the PORT variable at the bottom of the script (example : PORT = 5523) . By default the PORT number is 8888 .
Vred is now waiting for the app to connect . Both apps are pretty similar, the following images come from the PC version but the same steps are to be followed for the Android version .
Open your app and go to MENU
Then CONNECTION .
Enter your Vred machine hostname/IP in the IP option of the app . Make sure he port number match the one from Vred and press CONNECT .
The connection can take some time to be established (up to a minute but usually faster) .
Bare in my that if your Vred computer is on some sort of protected or company network it might reject the connection .
Note that you can also change the amount of frames you want to record in this menu .
Make sure the frame rate selected in the app is the one that your timeline is running at in Vred if they do not match you could end up with some funky results .
Once the connection is established between the app and Vred the IP address of the machine/phone running the app should be displayed in Vred (in terminal or script plugin window) .
STEP 2 - SETUP VEHICLE .
The CHASSIS and WHEELS menu allow you to change various parameters regarding the vehicle itself .
STEP 3 - create and export animation .
Now we can go back to the main menu and click DRIVE .
You can now start recording animation by pressing the REC button . Once you have recorded an animation you can press the SEND button to send the animation to Vred . You should then see the animation frame data being receives in the Vred terminal .
Open the timeline in Vred and you should now be able to see that the animation has been loaded to the nodes .
Each new animation sent we be added to the previous one in the timeline . If you want to restart animating from frame 0 press 'clear animation memory' (script plugin only) .
The control for the Android app are onscreen joysticks :
- left joystick for steering, throttle and reverse .
- right slider for brakes
- button for handbrake
The PC app vehicle can be controlled using keyboard or a game controller :
- Throttle and reverse on right joystick (UP and DOWN or W and S on keyboard)
- Steering on left joystick (LEFT and RIGHT or A and D on keyboard)
- Brake on right trigger (SPACE on keyboard)
- Handbrake on B button (M on keyboard)
STEP 4 - import terrain to app .
Animating a vehicle on flat ground is great but being able to add some elevation change is even better .
In order to import VRED geometries to the app you just have to press the 'GET TERRAIN' button .
If the geometries are not refined enough you can try increasing the terrain resolution and decrease the terrain size .
!!! THE ANIMATION AND TERRAIN ARE INVERTED LEFT TO RIGHT BETWEEN THE APP AND VRED . I will try to correct this bug later .