Making a Simple Animation in SOLIDWORKS

Table of Contents

Let’s go through an easy step by step process on making a simple animation
using different views (orientations) and translation/rotation of components.

Before starting, here are a couple things to help:

  •    The time bar is the orange vertical bar that is moved with a click and
    drag (Seen in Figure 1)

3TimeBarFigure 1: Time Bar

  •   Turn on Autokey: Automatically places keys and creates the animation
    command where the time bar is at (Seen in Figure 2)

1AutokeyFigure 2: Autokey Button location

  •   Make sure view key creation is not disabled: Disabling prevents changes in
    views from being created; right click on Orientation and Camera Views (Seen
    in Figure 3)

2ViewKeyCreationFigure 3: View Key Creation option

Make an Animation of different orientations

1.      Drag time bar to desired result time

2.      Change to the desired view (right, front, etc.)

3.      The key is created at the time the bar was dragged to

4.      Repeat as desired

Make an Animation of dragged components

1.      Turn on Autokey

2.      Make sure what is moving is not fixed in assembly or constrained by
mates

3.      Drag time bar to desired result time

4.      Suppress any mates restricting desired movement

5.      Drag components to desired locations in graphics area

6.      The key is created at the time the bar was dragged to

Make an Animation of translated/rotated components (not dragged)

1.      Make sure what is moving is not fixed in assembly or constrained by
mates

2.      Right click on part in the motion tree and choose Move

3.      Choose how want to move it (ex: By Delta XYZ)

4.      Input desired location and hit enter

Note: It can be moved as many times as desired but it will move in the most
efficient way to the final location when completed (not in the steps that you
moved it to be there)

Example:

Apply translation x = 3 and then y = -1 will not move 3 and then -1, it will
move diagonally

4MoveComponentPt1Figure 4: Move Command

4Move ComponentFigure 5: Control parameters to Move or Rotate

Watch the
SolidProfessor SOLIDWORKS Simulation tutorial
to learn everything you need to know about testing your models in virtual
environments. For more information or if you have any questions, please
contact us
at Hawk Ridge Systems today. Thanks for reading!

Andy Rammer

Andy Rammer

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