Image Always Point at Camea?

Apple Motion

Image Always Point at Camea?

Posted by Chad Johnson on October 3, 2008 at 9:53 pm

Hi.

I have seen in a check box in a particle emitter where you could have the image always point at the camera. I’m wondering if I can do the same thing in a non-particle situation. I have some circular images I want to make into a molecule type thing, and fake the 3D-ness of it by having the ball images always point at the camera as it moves around.

Is this option available?

Thanks

Chadfish

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Noah Kadner replied 17 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
4 Replies

Noah Kadner
October 3, 2008 at 10:18 pm

Add the Point At behavior to the circle and set the camera as the target would be my suggestion. You’ll have to add it 3 times for each axis- x, y, z. Or look into the Zaxwerks plug in mentioned in the previous thread for more true 3D.

-Noah

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Chad Johnson
October 3, 2008 at 11:26 pm

Thanks Noah!

I was excited about the ProAnimator plug until I saw it was 700.00. Man.

I’ll try the point at behavior.

Take care.

Chadfish

My Music: https://www.humboldtmusic.com/chadjohnson
My Work: https://www.precisionintermedia.com/video_sample.html (Video & Jingles)
My Fun Video: https://www.youtube.com/chadfish
Chad Johnson
October 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Hey Noah

So your suggestion seemed to work at first, but it get’s a little buggy. Is there any special considerations to be aware of?

At the moment I have 4 circles as the beginning construction of the molecule. I plan on having maybe 8 more. When I am in camera view they follow the camera as expected, but when I start to record, or set key points on the camera position the circles start to act oddly and lose at least one of their access points through which they follow the camera.

• Is there some special way I need to program camera moves so as not to loose the “point at” connection?

• The “balls” are 1mb .psd files that are 720px across, but resized down to 50% in the inspector. Maybe their size is effecting the buggyness? Would there be a better image type/size?

• I want to put chapter names on the balls and fly into them and out of them between chapters of a presentation.

• Also there is no copying and pasting of “point” behaviors. I need to set each one by hand or the again lose 1 or 2 of the points of access to follow the camera.

Thanks for any suggestions you or anyone has on the subject.

Chadfish

PS I am running an 8 core Mac Pro with 5 gigs of ram, so my hardware should be good enough…

My Music: https://www.humboldtmusic.com/chadjohnson
My Work: https://www.precisionintermedia.com/video_sample.html (Video & Jingles)
My Fun Video: https://www.youtube.com/chadfish
Noah Kadner
October 4, 2008 at 9:03 pm

Hard to say without seeing your actual project. To be perfectly honest what you want to do is kinda beyond Motion’s capabilities. Either you keyframe it manually- which is not that tricky, use auto-keyframes. Or you switch to a full 3D program which is really what you need for this sorta thing anyway.

Noah

My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com

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