Creating Rendered Animations in AutoCAD Architecture 2009

Contents:
Overview ---- Body ---- Conclusion

1 Overview

The Question

Over the last couple of years I have

received numerous inquiries about
creating animations in AutoCAD
Architecture but my response has
been to shrug of my shoulders
because this subject hasn't been
high on my list of priorities.  I have to
admit that I just haven't shifted out of
my old habits and still prefer to use
Viz for this type of work.  VizRender
is no longer part of AutoCAD
Architecture so unless you have
another Rendering and Animation
product, you are limited to the same
set of tools that regular AutoCAD
users must work with.

I have finally found some time to

look into creating Rendered
Animations with AutoCAD and
AutoCAD Architecture and below is
an introductory overview of how to
create an exterior movie.  For
anyone trying to get started, this
should get you on your way but
there is much more to be discussed
and I will attempt to write more
articles on this subject in the future.

2 Body
The Path

In my opinion interior rendered

animations are far more difficult to
create than exterior ones so I will
start with a simple exterior example.

In the illustration to the right I show a

small house in Plan View.  Around
this house I have drawn an irregular
closed curve with the "3DPoly"
command.  Paths can be drawn
with Circles, Rectangles, Polylines
and so forth but the reason I chose
to use the 3D Polyline is that this
particular Object type can be
modified in all three dimensions.

Illustrated in the lower right I show

how I used the Grip points on the 3D
Polyline to adjust the Z-axis up and
down according to how I felt the
Camera should move as it travels
around the house.

Objects to be used as Camera

Paths don't have to be closed but if
you want your movie to loop in a
way that feels natural, I recommend
that you close your path.

 
The Camera Test

To configure a Camera to produce

any Animation, rendered or
otherwise, you must use the
"AniPath" command which activates
the "Motion Path Animation"
dialog.  This dialog has a very
rudimentary set of options that
should be self-explanatory.

In the illustration to the right I show

that I have used the "Link camera
to" "Path" option and Selected the
3D Polyline created earlier.  For the
"Link target to" option I chose to
use a "Point" and Osnapped to the
Midpoint of the roof's ridgeline.

If you leave the Target set to Path,

your Camera will focus on the path
as it travels along it.  This is a neat
option but won't keep the Camera
on the building.

Under "Animation settings" I have

set the Frame rate (FPS) to the
lowest value I feel comfortable with. 
The default of 30 frames per second
is better but requires far more
frames to be rendered and thus
more time.  The Number of frames
is actually a mathematical formula
connected to the Frame rate and the
Duration so I prefer to focus on the
Duration.  For my first test run, I
have set the Duration (seconds) to a
very low value because all I really
want is for AutoCAD to create the
automatic View that it uses to save
this Motion Path information - see
comments below.
The Camera Lens

Once you have created your first run

with the Motion Path Animation
dialog, you should find that this
action creates a new Named View
as illustrated to the right.

When you use the Motion Path

Animation dialog to create a new
Camera, it automatically uses the
current View information.  This may
mean that you end up with a
Camera Lens setting of 50mm (the
default).  However, after you have
run that first output, you can use the
"View" command to access the
"View Manager" dialog and change
the Lens as I show to the right
where I have set the Lens to 35mm.

Outside of the "Lens length" and

"Field of view" settings, the View
options don't really matter when it
comes to Animated Cameras so
don't get confused by things like the
"Animation" group (it's all gray
anyway).

Note:
AutoCAD and AutoCAD Architecture
uses the term "animation" just about
anywhere an option exists to make
something transition over time.  This
means that saving a series of Pans,
Zooms and Orbits is considered an
"animation".
The Light

You can address the subject of

Lighting for a Rendering or
Rendered Animation before you
even start to look at the Motion Path
Animation dialog but I am getting to
it now because I didn't need it for my
first test run; lighting and shadows
add time.

Since this article is about an exterior

Rendered Animation, I will use the
Sun to take care of all my lighting
needs.  You can access the Sun
settings by typing "SunProperties"
or from the View pull-down menu
(View > Render > Light > Sun
Properties...).  If the "Status" of the
Sun is "Off", you are likely to get an
alert dialog when you turn it "On".  I
recommend that you use the "Turn
off the default lighting
(recommended)" option but this will
affect the way your Visual Styles
appear since the default lighting
won't be active: use the
"DefaulLighting" settings to go back
if you want.

Once you have activated the Sun,

you can spend a bit of time playing
around with a lot of cool settings like
the Sun Angle Calculator and Sky
Properties.  For this example I will
use the "Sky Background" and,
since I live near the default
Geographic location, I get to leave
the Geographic Location as is.

If you find that you cannot access

the Sky options, you may need to
change the "LightingUnits" to 1 or
2.  The setting is often 0 in older
drawing files.

Note:
Another setting that affect the
appearance of your lighting is the
Render Exposure; type
"RenderExposure" to access this
dialog.  It is particularly useful for
interior work.

The Render Settings

After configuring your Sun

Properties, you will need to
configure how you want to Render
each frame as the Camera travels
around its Path. 

Illustrated to the right I show the

Render Presets Manager dialog,
type "RenderPresets", where you
can Copy any of the default Render
Presets to create your own.  To the
right I show that I have created a
copy of "Medium" and named my
new one "Medium2".  This will allow
me to make changes to the settings
and save them for future use in this
drawing.  You may not need to take
these steps in your early
experiments but I believe it is
important to know how to create and
access settings that will be available
under the Motion Path Animation
dialog (see below).

Note:
The "RenderPresets" command
should be available on the pull-down
menu or the Render toolbar but it
isn't.  Instead, you can access it
from the Advanced Render Settings
Palette; use Select Render Presets
drop-down and select Manage
Render Presets...

 
The Movie

After creating a Path, adjusting the

Camera View, setting the Sun
Properties and possibly creating a
custom Render Preset you can
revisit the Motion Path Animation
(type "AniPath") dialog to produce a
movie.

Illustrated to the right I show that my

Motion Path Animation dialog has
the Path and Target information
from my earlier run.  For this run I
have decided to keep the Frame
rate at 20 though 25 or 30 would
look smoother.  I have decided to
set my movie for a Duration of 20
seconds and with the 20 Frame rate,
this will require 400 frames. 
Rendering a single frame can take
anywhere from seconds to minutes
so lets say one frame takes an
average of about 30 seconds
(30sx400 =12000s/60s
=200min/60min =3.33hrs).  One
problem with this calculation is that
not all frames render at the same Resolution will have a significant impact on the length of time it
rate and things like reflective glass will take to Render each frame and the file size so pick something
take longer than a wall of wood.  appropriate for your anticipated use.  I show that I set mine to
High quality can easily keep your 640x480 because I found that the lower resolutions were blurry.
machine busy for hours and hours
which is why professionals use The final choice of "Corner deceleration" will be a matter of
"Render Farms". preference based on experiments but I find that it creates a
smoother motion so I have it on.
Under the Visual Style category
you should find a drop-down list with
all of those Render Presets
discussed above and any Visual
Styles currently defined in your
drawing.  Visual Styles don't
incorporate Rendering settings but
can produce movies that are more
stylized and less "realistic". 

Next, you will need to chose an

output Format and output
Resolution.  For Format you should
find three choices, .avi, .mpg and
.wmv.  I tested the .avi output and
found that it crashed my default
Vista 64 media player so I used
the .mpg format instead.  The .mpg
format is likely your best "bang for
the buck" when you measure file
size to quality.  I ran a test to
compare files sizes and the .avi file
came out at ten times the size of the
.mpg file.

3 Conclusion

The End

Hopefully I have provided just

enough information here to get you
into trouble.  I'm not a big fan of
Rendered Animations simply
because I feel that it takes too much
time to produce a relatively small
amount of eye-candy.  As you will
soon discover, high quality
Rendered Animations will keep your
machine busy for hours; even days. 
High quality still shots, however, can
be knocked out fairly quickly; they
can be modified in Photoshop or re-
Rendered with changes to Materials,
time of day and so on.  A 3D DWF
can provide a client with a lot more
"entertainment".

Having said that, I like looking at

Rendered Animations just as much
as anyone else and it is great to see
that anyone using AutoCAD or
AutoCAD Architecture can now
produce cool movies.