AutoCAD 2007 Tip: Recording 3dOrbit Movies

As AutoCAD becomes more complex, the online documentation has a harder time keeping up. For example, the 3dOrbit command (which used to be what the 3dFOrbit command is now -- clear?) has this option in its shortcut menu: Animation Settings.

The options in the Animation Settings dialog box hint at recording to files. There's AVI, MOV, MGP, and WMV listed, along with frame rates and resolution. But the online docs for 3dOrbit don't tell us how to record the animation.

The solution is found in the 3D Navigation control panel of the new Dashboard: look for the colorful Play-Record-Pause-and-Stop strip of buttons:

Record - records the movement in the viewport.
Pause - pauses the recording until Record is clicked again.
Stop - stops recording, and prompts us for a file name.
Play - prompts us to select a file name, and then plays back the movie file in an independent window.

(If we click Play instead of Stop, the animation is immediately played back in the window, but is not saved.)

It's too bad this recording feature does not extend to all areas of AutoCAD, so that we could record any other commands, such as Line, Move, and SplinEdit.

Comments

[John Burrill]

There really are limits to what Autodesk can put into the rendering and animation of it's base-model cad software. I mean, their flagship rendering product is Max...which, last I checked, was about 4-5K. If you didn't need particle systems, subobject animation and inverse kinematics, you could get VIZ for a couple grand.
But, if you didn't need full, modelling capabilities, modifiers, really good materials and postproduction effects, you'd get VIZRender with ADT and Civil3D and AccuRender with Revit.
Now, if you don't need any modifiers, object animation oe environgment mapping, you can just get AutoCAD.
What's next, if you don't need Orbit, 3DSolids or shademodes, you can get LT's new pan/zoom rendering engine?
It's like Max Lite Lite Lite, you have to have some limit to your expectations.

[Evan Yares]

"There really are limits to what Autodesk can put into the rendering and animation of it's base-model cad software."

No... I don't think so. There is no variable or incremental cost in including capabilities in an application program. Autodesk can put anything they want to in AutoCAD. That they choose not to, as a matter of positioning, is certainly reasonable. But it's not like they have to buy more bits and bytes to put more functions on the disk.