In SolidWorks, you can create the animation of the designed component or assembly. This feature of Solidworks comes very usefully when you want to show Design from all sides or how it’s going to assemble or while working. The animation can be exported into AVI video format or any other available file format. Creating animation is simple you just need to understand how you want your animation to look and how it should be created to cover all the aspects the viewer is expecting.
First of all, open the Designed component/ Assembly file. Then set the view of the design (form this view our animation is going to start). You cannot change the view after assigning all the motions in timesteps. You have to create a new motion study and assign a new 3d-view before starting the Animation/motion study.
After setting the view you will find the option of motion study at the bottom just above the Status bar. Click on the motion study and on the left side below the time tree from the dropdown you have to select the animation option and then you can start by assigning the motions from Motion Manager.
You can set the animation time for that particular motion either by dragging the motion line from the timeline or the time key. You can also assign animation time before in case of the Animation Wizard option.
After assigning all the desired motions you can check the animation motion by clicking on either calculate or play button. After every change in the timeline and for running the animation, you need to calculate the motion study.
You can select various motion options from Motion Manager. There is the various motion you can use to make a good animation. You can apply motion to the whole body like Rotate model, Explode, or collapse. From Motion Manager, you can access these motions in the Animation Wizard icon.
If you want to apply a certain motion on a particular component then you have motor, spring, Contact, and Gravity option.
After seeing and making changes in the amination you can save the animation as AVI video format. By clicking on the save animation icon above the timeline you can save the animation. Selection the saving location then Give the name to the file, select the file format, Image Size, and Aspect ratio, and click on the Save button. You can increase the frame rate and Aspect ratio of the animation, creating good quality and smooth animation. Increasing the Frame rate and Aspect ratio will also put a load on your computer. For good or high specification Desktop/Laptop, only its recommended.
If you want to change the starting view of the component you have to create a new motion study. But before right-clicking on the motion study and selecting a new motion study to need to set the 3D- view. For Setting a new view first set the view of the component as you want. Click on the 3D Views option on the left of the motion study option. After that save the current motion by giving the name and then proceeding with the motion study steps.
