What's the easiest (to learn) program (that gives decent results) to use to animate SolidWorks models?
I want to do simple animations like exploded views, walk-thru's/fly-thru's. Those supposedly simple operations are a bit tedious to do in SolidWorks. I was thinking Lumion, but it seems Lumion doesn't accept SolidWorks models, and I haven't found a way to convert the SolidWorks files to a third-party file that is accepted by Lumion.
3 Answers
Does Lumion list the file types it will open?
Many programs won't work with native CAD files, but there should a a common, generic format which SOLIDWORKS will save that can be used (step, stl, vrml...etc).
Trinityscsp's animations are always great. Check out his profile for hundreds of examples. I don't think I've seen a walkthrough done in Simlab Composer, but the exploded views are nice.
About walkthrough, see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axMU3kMQbB4
Simlab Composer is pretty easy to use, and very good to make explosions and walk-throughs. Also supports VR, if that interests you. Take a look at Youtube, there is an official channel with several demos.