Develop separately

It is a good practice to develop animations separately from the rest of the virtual plant. Generally, you should dedicate a graphic context to each animation.

The only exception to separate development might be keyframe-based animations (those handled with the animation node) such as turning pumps or aircoolers. These require nothing more than speed or key handling.

Benefits

Managing an animation separately on a dedicated graphic context has two main benefits:

• You can have all and only those elements connected to the animation and manage them more easily.

• You can have a dedicated logic script file associated with the graphic context to put all needed scripts.

Development notes

• The content of the animation graphic context must be correctly integrated with the rest of the plant, so the elements coordinates and orientation must be correct.

• The typical starting point is to export a dedicated MWX containing a copy of the equipment involved in the animation to use as reference.

• The graphic model should also contain the other needed elements for animation design, such as liquid levels, meshes, animations.

• When the graphic context is ready, develop the animation.

• To avoid duplicated geometry, hide duplicated equipment before integrating the animation context with the rest of the plant.