Camera Animation Problem

[Mitsu50]

hi all,

Has anyone successfully done a walk through animation? I am following the example in the help with no luck. i have the camer a attached to the sled, and i can drag it all thru the spline path. But when i try the distance mate to make it move, it follows the staright line, and when it gets to a turn it chokes and stops. thoughts. this process seems to be extremely difficult. thanks!

 

[Theophilus]

It is extremely difficult--it's Animator! I don't think you want a distance mate along with a mate to a curve like that--suppress the distance mate first. The idea is to move the sled (in 2007 and later, you don't even need a sled--just a camera) along the path. You can change the focus of the camera as you go if necessary.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

What did you dream? It's all right--we told you what to dream.
--Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

 

[Mitsu50]

no sled, really. How does that work? the help file for this process stinks.

 

[Theophilus]

I dunno--I still use a sled with some sketch elements that I use to track and point the camera. I don't think I'd have quite the control I want with a camera only.

You're right--camera in help seems always to refer to a sled. I saw this no-sled mentioned in the What's New for 2007 or a VAR presentation (don't remember which).

Anyway--you may want to stick with the sled idea. I normally create a point on my sled, and the point mates to the path (you need a single-entity path--not a series of segments--to get that, use the Fit Spline tool to convert your segments to a single spline [if not already using a spline for your path]). Mount the camera to the sled and change the focus of the camera within the animation to update what the camera sees as it moves. This can be a pain in more complicated assemblies, so you may need to be careful.

To best control the motion of the sled, move it in small-increment steps (instead of moving along the whole path in one step). The trouble with this is that it's tough to keep the movement speed constant. Takes a lot of tweaking.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

What did you dream? It's all right--we told you what to dream.
--Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

 

[Mitsu50]

boy the example in the help is no where like what you describe. i may be better just expoting this into 3ds max and doing it there. Its way easier. All i'm doing is a model of my house with a new room added upstairs, and thought it would be cool to do a walk through to show the wife!!!

 

[Eltron]

Fellas, in I think the camera without a sled was new to '08. All you have to do is pick "Position by selection" and move it along your path. Check the screenshot.

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com

 

[rockguy]

Nope, you can do this in 07 as well.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP

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SW 2007 SP 2.0

 

[Theophilus]

Just nothing in Help within 2007.

And yes, almost anything would be simpler to use than Animator. Lots of limitations and bugs, not much help, lots of heartache. I use Animator all the time, but it's quite broken for "production" use.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

What did you dream? It's all right--we told you what to dream.
--Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

 

[ren3of3]

I disagree. I get great base footage for my walkthroughs and assembly animations. I wish I had time away from my work projects to do a couple examples for tutorials.
And the materials editor is much better than most of the other options on the market.

Eltron, thanks for the tip. Never thought about contraining the camera to a sketch. Does this work on 3D sketches too?



"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance." --Sam Brown

http://www.danielanderson.info

 

[Theophilus]

I think you can constrain it to any sort of curve--so a composite curve or 3D spline would probably work fine.

I've been able to get decent animations (and I really like the power of PhotoWorks' rendering engine)--but the animations of the sort I do are much more difficult than necessary. I think the programming interface and manner of part motion could be improved dramatically (and should be if Animator is ever to be considered for animations more complicated than exploded views or part rotations). My only options for most of what I do is a series of crazy hacks and work-arounds that could be considered nothing short of heterodoxy.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

What did you dream? It's all right--we told you what to dream.
--Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

 

[Eltron]

You can constrain the camera to any curve.

I agree with Theo. Animator is much more buggy than it should be. Yes, you can eventually end up where you want to be, but you have to use all of your brains up trying to get there. I believe the most fundamental limitation with animator is its inability to "understand" remotely complex motion (especially something as complicated as spinning objects over 180°). I think it's frustrating because it is on the verge of being uber-powerful, but for some reason these motion-related issues remain release after release.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

 

[Mitsu50]

well i like that you can set the camera to follow the spline, but how on earth do you get it to move on its own? Cant seem to get that going at all...

 

[Eltron]

In the Animator tab slide your timeline out to where you want it. Then double click on your camera and move it wherever you want. Hit play and away you go.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

 

[Mitsu50]

hey thats not bad at all. it actually wroks pretty good with some refinement. For what i'm doing this will work great. thanks for all the help!!!!!

 

[Theophilus]

You can play through your animation to fine-tune your camera positions, focus, etc. to get something that looks great in the end.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

What did you dream? It's all right--we told you what to dream.
--Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine