Animating Views - Bongo

Bongo 

Animation for Designers 

Tutorials

Copyright © 2003 Robert McNeel & Associates and The Le Bihan Partnership Ay. All 

rights reserved. 

Rhinoceros is a registered trademark of Robert McNeel & Associates, and Bongo is a 

trademark of Robert McNeel & Associates and The Le Bihan Partnership Ay. 

Bongo 

Copyright © 2003 Robert McNeel & Associates and The Le Bihan Partnership Ay. ii

Table of Contents 


Introduction .....................................................................................1 

Animating an Exploded View ............................................................1 

Animate the Lens Assembly Position 2 

Animate the Position of the Batteries 3 

Animate the Rotation of the Lens Assembly 4 

Using Hierarchies to Link Objects .....................................................6 

Link the Parts Together 6 

Locate an Object’s Pivot 10 

Animate the arm 12 

Animating Views.............................................................................16 

Copyright © 2003 Robert McNeel & Associates and The Le Bihan Partnership Ay. iii

Introduction 


Bongo is an animation plug-in for Rhinoceros 3.0. It is simple to use but capable of 

complex multi-object and view animation. You can quickly and easily preview and 

demonstrate the animation from within Rhino in real time and in any shading mode. You 

can then output the animation to video using the Rhino viewport display or any Rhinocompatible 

renderer. 

Bongo integrates completely with Rhino. Object and viewport animations are editable in 

the Rhino window using simple drag and drop operations. Modify your object and motion 

data without losing valuable time changing between programs. Develop your designs 

and see how they work at the same time. 

To start Bongo 

1 Install Bongo. 

2 At the command prompt, type Bongo. 

3 When you start Bongo, the Bongo menu and 

toolbar appear. 

Bongo menu. 

Bongo toolbar. 

Copyright © 2003 Robert McNeel & Associates and The Le Bihan Partnership Ay. 1

Animating an Exploded View 


To get started using Bongo, try the following tutorial. In this tutorial, you will create a 

simple animation of an exploded flashlight assembly. 

To see the finished animation, open the file Flashlight.avi. The flashlight starts in the 

closed position. Exploding the lens assembly and moving the batteries out of the light 

are animated. 

Starting positions. 

To start creating the animation 

� Open the model Flashlight start.3dm. 

To start using Bongo 

Ending positions. 

� From the Bongo menu or the Bongo toolbar, choose Timeline. 

The Bongo Timeline appears docked at the bottom of the Rhino window. 

Timeline. 


Animate the Lens Assembly Position 

The first part of the flashlight we will animate is the lens assembly. We will move the 

lens assembly straight out from the flashlight body. 

Animate the lens assembly 

1 In the Bongo Timeline, click the Animate 

button. 

The timeline will turn red. 

2 Set the Timeline Slider to tick 50. 

The Timeline Slider controls the timing 

and coordinates movement during the 

animation. 

3 Select the lens assembly. 

4 Drag the selected parts to the right. 

This tells the animation that at tick 50 you 

want the lens to be at that location. 

Bongo will fill in from tick 0 to 50 how 

much the lens needs to move to get to 

that point. 

5 Click the Timeline Slider and drag it back 

and forth along the Timeline. 

This action is called scrubbing. The lens 

assembly slides back and forth with the 

Timeline Slider movement. 



Animate the Position of the Batteries 

Now that the lens assembly is moving, we will also move the batteries out. In the 

animation, the lens assembly moves before the batteries. 

Animate the batteries 

1 Slide the Timeline Slider to tick 99. 

2 Select the batteries. 

3 Drag the batteries to their final location. 

4 Scrub the Timeline Slider. 

The batteries start to move immediately 

at tick 0. However, we want them to start 

moving at tick 50. 

5 Hold the Ctrl key and drag the red 

Keyframe Marker from tick 0 to tick 50. 

This copies the keyframe. A small + will 

appear to indicate you are copying the 

keyframe. 



6 Scrub the Timeline Slider. 

Now the lens assembly moves first and 

the batteries follow. 

Animate the Rotation of the Lens Assembly 


The final part of this animation is to rotate the lens assembly as it leaves the flashlight 

body. 

To rotate the lens assembly 

1 Slide the Timeline Slider to tick 20. 

This is the position near the flashlight body 

where you want the rotation to stop. 

2 Select the lens assembly. 

3 Click the Rotate button. 

Rotation is the default action and may 

already be selected. 

The Transformation Slider is the tool 

you use to rotate and scale objects during 

animations. The Transformation Slider is 

located in the lower half of the timeline. 

4 Move the Transformation Slider all the 

way to the right. 

The X-coordinate is the default and should 

be selected 

This will give you 360 degrees of rotation 

between tick 0 and tick 8. 


5 Scrub the Timeline Slider slowly between 

tick 0 and tick 8. 

You will see the complete animation. The 

lens assembly will rotate as it moves in 

and out of the flashlight body, and the 

batteries will move out after the lens 

assembly is in position. 



Using Hierarchies to Link Objects 

For the following animation tutorial, we will link parts of a robot arm together and 

control the arm movements through these links. 


To see the result, open the file Robot Arm.avi. The robot arm comprises a series of 

related parts. First, we will link the objects together in Bongo, and then we will animate 

the arm. 

Link the Parts Together 

When you have a model that includes many connected parts, you can set up 

parent/child relationships between objects. Parent objects control their child objects. 

This lets you animate the parent object in the assembly and the child objects will move 

in relation to the parent. 

Activate the Animation Manager hierarchy tree 

1 Open the model Robot Arm Start.3dm. 

2 From the Bongo menu or the Bongo toolbar, 

choose Animation Manager. 

The Bongo Animation Manager appears. 

Link the robot post to the base 

1 From the Bongo menu, choose Utilities, and 

then choose Select Children. 

BongoSelectChildren command. 

2 At the Select Parent prompt, select the 

robot Base. 

Animation Manager. 


3 At the Select Children prompt, select the 

Post, and press Enter. 

You have just created a parent/child 

relationship between the robot base and 

the post. Now if you move the base, the 

post will move with it. A parent/child 

hierarchy is how Bongo represents 

assemblies that move relative to each 

other. 

You can see the relationship hierarchy in 

the Animation Manager window. The 

Base displays in the Animation Manager 

hierarchy tree as a parent of the Post. 

A parent can have many children. The 

children can also have children of 

their own. 

Link the forearm to the post 

1 From the Bongo menu, choose Utilities, 

and then choose Select Children. 


Post. 




Forearm, and press Enter. 

The Forearm displays in the Animation 

Manager hierarchy tree as a child of the 

Post. 

Link the wrist to the forearm 




Forearm. 


Wrist, and press Enter. 



The Wrist displays in the Animation 


Forearm. 

Link the hand to the wrist 




Wrist. 


Hand, and press Enter. 

The Hand displays in the Animation 


Wrist. 



Link the fingers to the hand 




Hand. 

3 At the Select Children prompt, select each 

Finger, and press Enter. 

Hint: Use the SelBlockInstanceNamed 

command to select all of the fingers at 

once. 

The Fingers display in the Animation 

Manager hierarchy tree as children of the 

Hand. 

Locate an Object’s Pivot 


In addition to telling Bongo how parts link to each other as parents and children, you 

must also set the location of the link. Each animated object has an object pivot and 

objects link at that pivot. Since objects relate to each other through the location of their 

pivots, you must ensure that the object pivot is located at the center of the joint 

between the objects. 


Note: In this model, most parts are blocks. For blocks, the object pivot is 

automatically located at the block’s insertion point. 

Locate the pivot point for the base 

The Post is not a block. Therefore, its pivot is 

not automatically placed at the block 

insertion point. 

You can see that the post’s pivot is not 

located at the center of the post. This means 

the post will not rotate around its center. 

In the next step, you will move the post’s 

pivot to its correct location. 

1 From the Bongo menu, choose Utility, and 

then choose Move Object Pivot. 

2 At the Select Objects prompt, select the 

Post, and press Enter. 

3 At the Pick Point prompt, using the Center 

object snap, pick the center of the hole in the 

Post. 



The Post will now rotate around its center. 

Animate the arm 

Now that the parts of the arm are linked, you can animate the arm. 

Activate the Timeline 

1 From the Bongo menu, choose Timeline. 

The Bongo Timeline appears. 

2 Click the Animate button. 

Rotate the Post 


2 Select the Post. 



3 In the Timeline, click the Z button, and 

slide the Transformation Slider to the 

right so the arm rotates approximately 90 

degrees. 

You can see that the rest of the arm stays 

attached to the Post because of the 

parent/child relationships in the hierarchy. 

Note: The X, Y, and Z coordinates refer to 

the axes of the object pivot, not the Rhino 

coordinate systems. 

4 Scrub the Timeline Slider to see the 

results. 

Lower the Forearm 


2 Select the Forearm. 

3 In the Timeline, click the X button. 

4 Slide the Transformation Slider to the left 

so the arm rotates approximately 90 

degrees. 




results. 

Rotate the Wrist 


2 Select the Wrist. 

3 In the Timeline, click the X button. 



4 Slide the Transformation Slider to the left 

so the hand is pointing straight down. 


results. 

To watch the animation 

� Click the Play button. 



Animating Views 


In this tutorial, we will animate the views. Animating the views lets you pan, zoom, and 

rotate the view while the animation is running. 

To see the result, open the file Robot Arm View.avi. The objects in this model are 

already animated. We will be adding simple view animation. 

Activate the Timeline 

1 Open the model Robot Arm View.3dm. 

2 From the Bongo menu, select Timeline. 

3 Click the Animate button. 

Activate a view for animation 

1 From the Bongo menu, choose 

Animation Manager. 

The Animation Manager appears 

with a list of your viewports in the 

hierarchy tree. 


2 In the Animation Manager window, 

right-click the Perspective icon and 

from the menu, choose Animation 

Enabled. 

A small rectangular reticle appears at 

the viewport’s center, and the current 

tick location is written in the lower 

right of the viewport. 

When view animation is enabled, 

Bongo controls the position of the 

view. 

To temporarily release control of the 

view from Bongo, right-click the 

viewport name in the Animation 

Manager tree, and clear the check 

from Animation Enabled. 

Record a new view 

1 Set the Timeline Slider to 99. 

2 Make sure the Animate button is 

depressed. 



3 Place your mouse in the right half of the 

screen, hold down your right mouse 

button, and drag the view into this 

position. 


results. 

Zoom in on the hand 

1 Place your mouse on the Hand, use the 

mouse wheel to zoom in on the Hand. 


results. 


Note: It does not matter if you have to zoom or pan to adjust your view. What is 

important is that at a certain tick, the view is where you want it to be. Bongo 

will handle the view manipulation between ticks.

Animating Views - Bongo

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