The Pitch That Almost Failed

How Animation Saved a $2 Million Contract

Rachel had fifteen minutes to convince the procurement team that her company’s new robotic assembly system could actually work.

The problem? The system didn’t exist yet. They had CAD models, calculations, and confident promises. But the client’s procurement director had been burned before by “revolutionary designs” that looked great on paper and failed spectacularly in production.

“Can you show us how it actually moves?” he asked. “How do these six robotic arms avoid colliding while handling twelve different part types at 400 units per hour?”

Rachel’s competitor had brought a physical prototype of their simpler, slower design. They could demonstrate it right there in the conference room. Rachel had… PowerPoint slides with arrows.

That night, Rachel discovered SolidWorks MotionManager. Two weeks later, she walked into the follow-up meeting with something her competitor couldn’t match: a photorealistic 3D animation showing every movement, every cycle, every potential interference resolved. The client could see the future of their production line before a single part was manufactured.

Rachel’s company won the contract. Her competitor’s physical prototype? It looked slow and outdated next to Rachel’s vision of what was possible.

This is the story of why engineers are increasingly using animation instead of prototypes, and how MotionManager transforms CAD models into compelling visual stories.

The Three Worlds of Motion

Before we dive into MotionManager, you need to understand something fundamental: not all motion is created equal.

When Rachel first opened MotionManager, she faced a choice that would determine everything about her animation. Three types of motion studies, each solving different problems:

Animation Study: The Choreographer

This is pure theater. Components move because you tell them to move. There’s no physics, no mass, no friction. A 5-ton steel frame can accelerate instantly. Components can pass through each other like ghosts. Gravity doesn’t exist unless you fake it.

Think of it as directing actors on a stage. “You stand here at 0 seconds, move there at 3 seconds, arrive here at 7 seconds.” The software interpolates the movement between your waypoints. It’s perfect for showing how something moves, but not why it moves that way.

Rachel used Animation study for the initial presentation showing the assembly sequence – components floating into position, rotating elegantly, demonstrating the build sequence. No physics required, just visual impact.

Basic Motion: The Simplified Physicist

This is where physics enters the picture, but in a manageable way. Components have mass. Gravity exists. Things collide and bounce. Motors create forces. Springs compress. Friction slows things down.

Basic Motion is the middle ground – it solves the physics without overwhelming you with complexity. It’s perfect for mechanisms where you need realistic motion but don’t need detailed analysis of forces, torques, and power consumption.

When Rachel needed to show the robotic arms actually interacting with parts – picking them up, the weight causing realistic motion, arms moving at realistic speeds – she switched to Basic Motion. Suddenly the animation looked real because it obeyed real-world physics.

Motion Analysis: The Full Scientist

This is SolidWorks Motion – the complete physics engine. It doesn’t just show motion; it calculates everything. How much power does that motor need? What forces act on each joint? What’s the acceleration at point X? Will this spring provide enough force?

Motion Analysis is overkill if you just want animation. But if you need the animation and the engineering data, it’s the only choice. Rachel used it for one critical section: proving to the client that the motors they’d specified could actually achieve the claimed 400 units per hour cycle time.

The animation was a bonus. The data was the proof.

The Timeline – Your Animation’s DNA

Here’s what makes MotionManager different from just moving parts around in SolidWorks: the timeline.

Imagine a movie editing interface, but for mechanical motion. Along the bottom of your screen runs a timeline measured in seconds. Every position, every property change, every camera movement gets placed on this timeline as a “key frame.”

Key frame at 0 seconds: Assembly is empty, camera shows wide view
Key frame at 3 seconds: First component appears, camera begins zoom
Key frame at 5 seconds: Component moves to position, second component appears
Key frame at 8 seconds: Both components mate together, camera rotates for better view

The software fills in all the movement between key frames. You’re not animating every fraction of a second – you’re setting the critical moments and letting MotionManager handle the transitions.

This is profoundly different from physically moving parts in your assembly. Your assembly stays intact. The timeline is a separate study that shows how things could move, not how they are positioned.

Rachel had five different motion studies for her presentation:

• Study 1: Assembly sequence (Animation type)
• Study 2: Normal operation cycle (Basic Motion type)
• Study 3: High-speed operation showing maximum throughput (Motion Analysis type)
• Study 4: Maintenance access demonstration (Animation type)
• Study 5: Interference checking during extreme positions (Basic Motion type)

Each study told a different story using the same CAD models.

The Three Things That Change

When Rachel started planning her animations, her mentor gave her this advice: “In any animation, only three things ever change. Master these three, and you master animation.”

1. Component Position

This is the obvious one. Parts move. Arms rotate. Conveyors translate. Doors open. This is what most people think animation is – making things move from point A to point B.

But there’s an art to it. How fast do they move? Do they accelerate smoothly or move at constant speed? Do they ease into their final position or snap there abruptly? MotionManager gives you control over the interpolation – the motion between key frames.

Rachel learned that abrupt starts and stops looked robotic and cheap (ironically, for an actual robot). Smooth acceleration and deceleration looked professional and realistic.

2. Component Properties

This is where magic happens. A component doesn’t have to move to change. It can:

• Fade from invisible to visible (showing new parts appearing)
• Change color or texture (showing heating, coating, or status)
• Become transparent (revealing internal mechanisms)
• Switch from solid to wireframe (reducing visual clutter)
• Suppress or unsuppress (completely removing from view)

Rachel used this brilliantly. When showing the internal mechanism, she made the housing transparent. When demonstrating different product variants, components changed color to show which were different. When focusing on one subsystem, everything else faded to wireframe.

Properties also include lights and cameras. The intensity of a light can change. The focus of a camera can shift. These subtle changes create professional-looking animations that feel cinematic rather than mechanical.

3. Viewpoint

The camera is your audience’s eyes. Where they’re looking determines what story they understand.

Rachel’s biggest mistake in her first animation? A static camera. She’d spent hours perfecting the motion, but the camera never moved. The result looked like a security camera recording – technically accurate, completely boring.

Professional animations move the camera:

• Wide shot establishing the scene
• Close-up showing critical details
• Tracking shot following moving components
• Orbit revealing different angles of complex geometry
• Zoom drawing attention to specific features

MotionManager lets you create virtual cameras and animate their position, target point, and field of view. Rachel’s final animation had three camera cuts and two long sweeping motions that made a robotic assembly line look as dynamic as an action movie.

The Three Types of Physical Motion

Understanding motion study types (Animation, Basic Motion, Motion Analysis) is one thing. Understanding the actual physics of how things move is another.

Free Motion: The Impossible World

This only exists in computers. Components move wherever you tell them without regard for obstacles, physics, or common sense.

Example: Rachel’s initial assembly sequence showed components flying in from off-screen, moving through other components, rotating in mid-air, and snapping into place. This looks great for exploded views and assembly instructions but terrible for simulating real-world operation.

Free motion is perfect for:

• Assembly/disassembly sequences
• Exploded views
• Design reviews showing configuration changes
• Marketing animations where “cool” matters more than “realistic”

Kinematic Motion: The Connected World

This is motion controlled by mates and constraints. A piston can only move along its bore axis. A door can only rotate around its hinge. A gear can only turn relative to the gear it meshes with.

Change the position of one component, and all connected components move accordingly. This is SolidWorks’ bread and butter – the software already understands these relationships from your assembly mates.

Rachel used kinematic motion for the robotic arms. Each arm had six axes (rotational joints), and MotionManager understood that moving joint 1 affected the position of everything downstream. She didn’t have to animate each joint individually – she animated the gripper position, and MotionManager calculated all the joint angles.

Dynamic Motion: The Real World

This is where mass, gravity, forces, and collisions matter. Drop a ball, and it falls. Apply a force, and lighter objects accelerate faster than heavy ones. Components collide and bounce realistically.

Rachel’s client was skeptical about collision avoidance. So she created a dynamic simulation with all six arms moving simultaneously, handling parts at maximum speed. The animation showed no collisions – but more importantly, she could prove it because the physics engine checked every possible interference throughout the motion.

When one arm’s motion briefly delayed due to a part handoff, the timing ripple through the system looked completely realistic because it was realistic – the physics engine calculated everything.

Why Computer Animation Beats Video (Sometimes)

Rachel’s competitor brought a physical prototype. So why did Rachel’s animation win?

Reason 1: The Product Doesn’t Exist Yet

Rachel’s design was still in CAD. Building a full-scale prototype would have cost $200,000 and taken twelve weeks. The client needed a decision in four weeks.

Animation let her show a working system without building it. She could demonstrate features that didn’t physically exist yet. And when the client asked “What if we want to handle larger parts?” – Rachel modified the CAD model and regenerated the animation overnight. Her competitor would need weeks to modify their prototype.

Reason 2: Impossible Camera Angles

Try filming inside an enclosed mechanism with a real camera. You need to remove panels, add lighting, deal with reflections. The camera is always in the way of the thing you’re trying to film.

In animation, the camera can be anywhere. Inside the mechanism. Following a component through tight clearances. Showing impossible views that reveal exactly what’s happening.

Rachel’s favorite shot: the camera following a part through the entire assembly process, flying between robotic arms, showing every operation from the part’s perspective. This single shot made the complex system completely understandable. A real camera couldn’t do it.

Reason 3: Special Effects Without Post-Production

Want to make a component transparent to show what’s behind it? In the physical world, you’d need expensive glass or acrylic parts. In animation, you click a button.

Want to show forces as colored arrows? Stress as a heat map? The motion path traced through space? These effects are trivial in animation but impossible or expensive to add to real video.

Rachel showed the client exactly where potential stress points were, how forces flowed through the structure, and where maintenance access existed – all using color coding, transparency, and visual effects that would be impossible in a physical prototype.

Reason 4: Perfect Lighting and No Physical Limitations

Real prototypes exist in real rooms with real lighting. They have fingerprints, weld marks, zip ties holding things together, and prototype ugliness.

Animation is perfect. The lighting is exactly right. There are no cables or supports unless you want to show them. Everything is clean, polished, and production-ready even when the real parts are still months from manufacturing.

When Video Beats Animation

Rachel’s mentor also warned her: “Don’t use animation when a simple video would work better.”

If you have a physical product and need to show real-world interaction – especially with people – video is faster and often more convincing. A person interacting with a product looks more authentic than an animated person (which enters the “uncanny valley” of looking almost-but-not-quite human).

If you need something quick and rough, shooting a video of your physical prototype takes minutes. Creating a decent animation takes hours at minimum, days for professional results.

If you need absolute proof of real-world performance, nothing beats real testing. Animation can predict behavior, but testing proves it. Rachel’s animation showed the system should work. The client still required physical testing before full production.

The best approach? Many companies now do both: animation for initial presentations and design reviews, physical testing for validation, then use animation for marketing materials once the design is proven.

Building Animations – The LEGO Approach

Rachel’s biggest revelation? Animation is just like CAD modeling.

When you learned SolidWorks, you learned individual commands: Extrude, Revolve, Fillet, Pattern. Then you combined them to create parts. Each feature by itself is simple. Combined properly, they create complex parts.

Animation is identical. Each individual effect is simple:

• Move component from here to there
• Change transparency from 100% to 50%
• Rotate camera 45 degrees
• Make this component disappear

None of these are complex. But combined in the right sequence, with proper timing, they create compelling animations.

Rachel’s 3-minute presentation animation consisted of:

• 47 component position changes
• 23 property changes (appearance, transparency, visibility)
• 12 camera movements
• 5 camera cuts between different angles
• 3 exploded view sequences

Each individual element took 30 seconds to 5 minutes to create. The power came from how they combined and timed together.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

Here’s the hardest lesson Rachel learned: animations are never finished, only abandoned.

After winning the contract, Rachel decided to create an even better animation for the trade show. She spent:

• 40 hours on the initial animation (good enough to win the contract)
• 20 hours making it “better” (smoother camera movements, better lighting)
• 30 hours making it “perfect” (tweaking timing, adding effects)
• 15 hours on “final improvements” (minor adjustments to color, slight camera angle changes)

That last 15 hours improved the animation by perhaps 3%. Nobody except Rachel noticed the difference. She’d entered the realm of diminishing returns:

First 40 hours: 0% to 85% quality
Next 20 hours: 85% to 93% quality
Next 30 hours: 93% to 97% quality
Final 15 hours: 97% to 97.5% quality

The client loved the first version. The trade show audience loved the second version. Nobody could tell the difference between versions three and four. Rachel had spent 45 hours chasing 12% improvement when she could have been working on the next project.

The wisdom from computer graphics professionals: Your work is never done, only abandoned. At some point, you have to decide the animation is good enough and move on. Usually, that point is determined by deadlines, not perfection.

Free vs. Kinematic vs. Dynamic – Making the Choice

Rachel eventually developed a decision tree for choosing motion types:

Use Animation study + Free motion when:

• Creating assembly/disassembly instructions
• Showing design intent without realistic motion
• Making marketing videos where visual impact matters more than physical accuracy
• You need to solve in-context relationships (where parts reference other parts)
• Timeline is tight and you need something fast

Use Basic Motion + Kinematic motion when:

• Showing mechanisms with mates (linkages, gears, sliders)
• Realistic motion matters but detailed force analysis doesn’t
• You want gravity, motors, and springs but don’t need power calculations
• The physics needs to be “good enough” not “exact”

Use Basic Motion + Dynamic motion when:

• Components need to collide, bounce, or interact dynamically
• Gravity, friction, and contact matter
• You’re simulating sorting, dropping, or collision scenarios
• You need realistic physics without detailed analysis

Use Motion Analysis when:

• You need animation AND engineering data
• You must prove performance (forces, power, acceleration)
• You’re validating that specified motors/actuators are adequate
• You need servo motor control and advanced physics
• The client demands proof, not just visualization

Often, Rachel used multiple studies for one project. Free motion for assembly sequences, Kinematic for mechanism operation, Dynamic for collision checking, and Motion Analysis for performance validation.

The Workflow – Rachel’s Hard-Won Process

After creating dozens of animations, Rachel developed her standard workflow:

Step 1: Define Component Motion (First and Foremost)

Get the parts moving correctly before worrying about how it looks. This is usually 60-70% of the work. If components don’t move right, nothing else matters.

Use simple appearances, standard lighting, static camera. Just get the motion working.

Step 2: Animate Properties

Once motion is correct, make it look good. Add transparency to show internal features. Change colors to highlight specific components. Make components appear/disappear to control visual clutter.

This is where technical accuracy becomes visual storytelling.

Step 3: Animate Camera Last

Why last? Because during steps 1 and 2, you’ll need to change your viewpoint constantly to verify motion and properties. If you’ve already animated the camera, you’ll break that animation every time you change views.

By leaving camera animation until last, you can freely explore during development, then lock in the perfect camera motion once everything else works.

The Animation That Changed Everything

Rachel’s motion study won that first contract. But the real impact came later.

The client loved the animation so much they asked Rachel’s company to create animations for their entire product line. Rachel became the company’s visualization specialist. Other engineers began learning MotionManager because clients now expected animations with proposals.

Physical prototypes didn’t disappear – they’re still essential for testing. But for presentations, design reviews, and marketing materials, animation became the standard.

Rachel’s competitor? They eventually started creating animations too. But by then, Rachel’s company had a two-year head start and a reputation for bringing designs to life before they existed.

The Hidden Truth About MotionManager

Here’s what nobody tells beginners: MotionManager doesn’t make animation easy. It makes animation possible.

You still need:

• Understanding of camera angles and cinematography
• Sense of timing and pacing
• Knowledge of what makes compelling visuals
• Patience to iterate and refine
• Willingness to abandon “perfection” at the right time

MotionManager is a tool, not a magic button. Like SolidWorks for modeling, it gives you powerful capabilities. What you create with those capabilities depends on your skill, creativity, and persistence.

Rachel’s first animation was mediocre. Her tenth was good. Her fiftieth was excellent. The software didn’t change. Her understanding of how to use it did.

The Integration Nobody Expects

One feature Rachel didn’t initially appreciate: MotionManager works with PhotoView 360 (SolidWorks’ rendering engine).

Her early animations looked good but not great. They had the sterile quality of CAD models – technically correct, visually cold.

Adding PhotoView 360 rendering transformed them:

• Realistic reflections and shadows
• Depth of field (blur) effects
• Photorealistic materials and textures
• Professional lighting with ambient occlusion

The trade-off? Rendering time. Her 2-minute animation went from taking 5 minutes to render (standard quality) to 8 hours (photorealistic quality).

Was it worth it? For client presentations and trade shows – absolutely. For internal design reviews – rarely. Rachel learned to create two versions: fast/adequate for working sessions, slow/photorealistic for external audiences.

Getting Started – Where to Find It

The simplest things sometimes elude beginners. Rachel wasted 30 minutes looking for MotionManager her first time because it’s not automatically visible.

Enable MotionManager:

• Menu: Tools → Customize → Check “MotionManager”
• Menu: View → Toolbars → MotionManager

The MotionManager pane appears at the bottom of your screen, replacing the ConfigurationManager/FeatureManager area. It shows your assembly tree on the left, timeline across the bottom, and animation controls.

It’s not intuitive at first. Nothing about animation is. But like learning SolidWorks itself, each hour invested pays dividends for years.

The Future Rachel Sees

Five years after that first contract-winning animation, Rachel makes a prediction: “In ten years, engineers who can’t create animations will be like engineers who can’t create CAD models today. It’s not a specialty skill anymore – it’s a fundamental communication tool.”

Clients expect to see how products work before they exist. Marketing needs videos for websites and social media. Manufacturing needs assembly instructions. Training departments need maintenance tutorials.

All of these need animation. And MotionManager puts that capability directly in the hands of engineers who already know the product intimately.

The physical prototype Rachel’s competitor brought to that first meeting? It’s gathering dust in their storage closet. The animation Rachel created? It’s still being used in sales presentations, adapted and updated as the design evolved.

Because animation scales. Prototypes don’t.

The Question You Should Ask

Not “Can I create animations?” but “Can I afford not to?”

When your competitor walks in with a compelling video showing exactly how their solution works, what will you present? PowerPoint slides with arrows?

When the client asks “Show me how this handles the edge case scenario,” can you modify your demonstration on the fly, or do you need to schedule a follow-up meeting?

When manufacturing needs assembly instructions, can you provide animated sequences, or just static drawings that require interpretation?

Rachel won a $2 million contract because she could answer “yes” to all these questions. Her competitor couldn’t.

The technology isn’t the barrier anymore – MotionManager is included in standard SolidWorks (with Motion Analysis requiring Premium). The barrier is learning to think in animation, understanding what stories to tell, and developing the patience to tell them well.

Have you created animations that won contracts, clarified designs, or prevented costly mistakes? Share your MotionManager victories (or disasters) in the comments. We learn best from each other’s experiences.

This article is part of our Engineering Design Excellence series, where we transform technical capabilities into competitive advantages.