Making a Simple Animation in SOLIDWORKS - Part 2

Step by step process on how to input appearance changes, rotation around an axis, and utilize an exploded view (explode/collapse) in an animation using SOLIDWORKS.

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 [Figure 1]

• Turn on Autokey: Automatically places keys and creates the animation command where the time bar is at [Figure 2]

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

Make Animation of changing the appearance

1. Drag time bar to desired result time

2. Right click on part in the motion tree and choose Appearance [Figure 4]

3. Change to the desired appearance

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

5. Can move the start key to a different time to start transitioning to that appearance

Make Animation of Explode/Collapse/Rotation using an exploded configuration

Note: You have to have created an exploded configuration to display an explode/collapse of the model in an Animation

1. Click on the animation wizard button [Figure 5] -OR- right click in the motion study area [Figure 6]

2. Choose Explode/Collapse/Rotate and click Next [Figure 7]

Figure 7: Animation Wizard to Rotate/Explode/Collapse

3. Input the duration and start time for Explode/Collapse [Figure 8]

4. Input the axis of rotation, number of rotations, and direction then the duration and start time for Rotation

Figure 8: Duration and Start Time

5. The keys are created at the specified points