Tutorial 11: Animated Exploded Assembly

Goal#

Make a short animation that shows how a small product assembles: a stand-up desk lamp base consisting of a base plate, a column, a lamp head, two screws, a rubber foot pad and a cap. You will model the six parts quickly, assemble them with joints, then use the Animation workspace to explode the assembly, build a storyboard with camera moves and callouts, and publish the video.

The modeling is intentionally simple; the interesting part is the structure of the file. A clean assembly (named components, grounded base, proper joints) makes the animation easy. A messy one (loose bodies, parts not in components) makes explosion unpredictable.

What you'll learn#

• Setting up a tidy assembly: components, grounding, joints.
• Creating a Storyboard in the Animation workspace.
• Using Auto Explode: One Level or All Levels, and Manual Explode.
• Adding Transform Components steps with fine control of direction and distance.
• Showing and hiding components in the storyboard.
• Adding callouts (annotations) to parts.
• Recording camera moves with the View toggle and editing action timing.
• Publishing a video and choosing resolution.

Prerequisites#

• Tutorial 1 and the Components and Assemblies section.
• A design with named components.
• Time: 45 to 60 minutes.

Parts and dimensions#

You can substitute any simple parts. What matters is that every part is a separate component.

Steps#

Part A: Model the parts#

1. New design Lamp Assembly. Keep units millimeter.
2. Base. New component Base. Sketch on XY, circle 120 mm diameter; extrude 12 mm; add a center hole 16 mm through; fillet the top outer edge 3 mm.
3. Pad. New component Pad. Sketch on the underside of the base (Z = 0), circle 110 mm, extrude -3 mm (downward).
4. Column. New component Column. Sketch on the top of the base (Z = 12), circle 16 mm, and extrude 180 mm up with Start set to Offset -12 mm, so the column runs from Z = 0 to 180 and its lower 12 mm sits in the base hole. Add the flange: a second sketch on the base top with a 36 mm circle, extrude 4 mm Join (Z 12 to 16).
5. Head. New component Head. On an offset plane at Z = 160, sketch a 50 mm circle and extrude 40 mm (Z 160 to 200). Cut a 16 mm socket 20 mm deep into its underside so the top 20 mm of the column (Z 160 to 180) sits inside; then optionally shape it like a lamp shade with a taper angle of 8 deg in the extrusion.
6. Screws. New component Screw. Sketch on the flange top (Z = 16) a 7 mm circle at X = 13 mm and extrude 3 mm for the head (Z 16 to 19), then a 4 mm circle on its underside 12 mm long down into the flange and base. At X = 13 mm the head spans 9.5 to 16.5 mm, clear of the 8 mm column radius and inside the 18 mm flange radius. Make the second screw at X = -13 mm as another instance of the same component (Copy and Paste, not Paste New) for a consistent BOM.
7. Cap. New component Cap with a 20 mm disc 6 mm tall sitting on top of the head (Z 200 to 206).

Part B: Assemble with joints#

8. Ground. Right-click Base > Ground (the pin icon appears). See Rigid Groups and Grounding.
9. Joints. Press J for each relationship.
   • Pad to Base: Rigid.
   • Column to Base: Rigid, snapping at the flange bottom circle and the base hole top circle.
   • Head to Column: Revolute, so that the lamp head can swivel; limit the rotation to -90 to +90 deg.
   • Screw x 2 to Column flange and Base: Rigid, snapping at the screw's shank axis and the hole.
   • Cap to Head: Rigid.
10. Test. Drag the Head; it swivels and everything else stays. Fix any joint that moves parts unexpectedly. Check with the Joint capture position tool if you changed positions.
11. Appearances. Quick materials: base in black plastic, pad in rubber, column in brushed aluminum, head white paint, screws steel, cap chrome. Press A and drag appearances from the library.

Part C: Create an animation#

12. Switch. Change the workspace to Animation. The timeline at the bottom becomes the storyboard timeline. The Transform drop-down holds Auto Explode: One Level, Auto Explode: All Levels, Manual Explode, Transform Components, Restore Home, Show/Hide and Appearance; Create Callout, the View toggle and Publish Video are in their own panels.
13. Name the storyboard. In the timeline, rename the first storyboard to Explode Intro. Each storyboard is an independent sequence; you can make several (for example "Explode" and "Assemble").
14. Restore home. Use Restore Home if a component got moved. The home position is the arrangement from the Design workspace.

Part D: Auto explode#

15. Auto Explode. Move the playhead to 0:00 and select the top-level assembly (the lamp, not a single part). Choose Transform > Auto Explode: One Level; every component here is a direct child of the root, so One Level is enough (All Levels only matters for sub-assemblies). On the Auto Explode toolbar adjust the Explosion Scale slider, choose One-Step Explosion or Sequential Explosion, and finish.
16. Look. Fusion moves parts outward along directions it infers from the structure and geometry; Autodesk warns that results can overlap or run in odd directions, so review from several angles.
17. Add a timeline segment. The timeline now holds an Auto Explode action. Drag its end (or right-click > Edit Action) so it ends at 4 seconds.

Part E: Manual explode adjustments#

18. Manual Explode. To refine the result (or instead of Auto Explode, after deleting that action), choose Transform > Manual Explode, select a component and drag along the Z axis of the triad (or type the distance). Use these distances from the home position: Pad -40 mm, Base 0, Column +40 mm, Screws +80 mm (select both screws together), Head +120 mm, Cap +160 mm. Consecutive parts are then 40 mm apart, which leaves visible gaps at 1080p.
19. Trails. Select a component, right-click and choose Trail Visibility to toggle its trail, a line from the component's current position to its home position. Enable it for each moved part.
20. Timing. Stagger the parts: Cap starts at 0 s and lasts 1.5 s, Head from 0.3 s, Screws 0.6 s, Column 0.9 s, Pad 1.2 s. In the storyboard, drag the bars or edit start times in the properties.

Part F: Camera and callouts#

21. Starting view. Orbit to a front three-quarter view and zoom to fit with the ViewCube. Turn on the View toggle (red dot means it is recording) at 0:00 so the start view is recorded as a View action.
22. End view. Move the playhead to 4 seconds, orbit slightly (about 20 degrees) and zoom out to fit the exploded view; a second View action is recorded. With the toggle off (yellow dot) you can navigate without recording.
23. Callouts. Click Create Callout (Animation > Annotation panel), click the part (for example the Head; the callout turns from red to green when attached to a component), enter Lamp head (revolute joint) in the Annotation dialog and click OK. Add callouts for Column, Base, Screw and Cap. Callouts are actions in the timeline: drag each one to the time you want it to appear, after its part finishes moving.
24. Visibility. Use Transform > Show/Hide to hide the Pad during the final seconds if needed (a Visibility action; right-click > Edit Action and change Instant to Duration for a fade).

Part G: Reassemble and loop#

25. Duplicate. Add a Transform > Restore Home action after the callouts have been displayed so the model returns to its assembled state; set it to last 2 seconds.
26. Preview. Press Play. Scrub the playhead to check overlaps. Look for parts passing through each other during motion; adjust order and axes to avoid collisions.

Part H: Publish#

27. Publish. Click Publish > Publish Video and choose to publish the current storyboard or all storyboards. Set the Video Resolution (Current Document Window Size, Custom, or a preset; for example 1920 x 1080, or 1280 x 720 for tests). Autodesk states that Windows publishes AVI and Mac publishes MP4; frame rate options are not documented. Choose a filename and save.
28. Optional: stills. Autodesk does not say whether published video is ray traced. For photoreal frames, render stills at key poses in the Render workspace (see Rendering and Animation).

Checkpoints#

• All six parts are components in the browser, none loose bodies.
• Every non-base component has a joint to its neighbor.
• The animation runs about 8 seconds (4 s explode, callouts, 2 s Restore Home), with no part clipping through another.
• Callouts readable at 1080p.
• Published video plays in a normal player.

Variations#

1. Turntable. Record a View action that orbits the model at the end (View toggle on).
2. Assembly instructions. Publish stills for each step to make a manual; or create a Drawing with an exploded view (see Sheets and Exploded Drawings).
3. Motion of the lamp head. Rotate the Head about the column axis with a Transform Components action.
4. Alternative explode paths with curved trails.
5. Adding BOM balloons in the drawing.

Troubleshooting#

Related#

• Animation Workspace and Explode covers each toolbar command.
• Storyboard, Transforms and Video covers timing and publishing.
• Camera and Depth of Field for lens settings.