Boy, moving the camera around is tricky. Any tips?

[Andrew Kramer]

Hey!
One effective solutions is to use a 3D Null object and Parent the Camera to it. Then animate the Null object. Creating Dolly shots is much easier and you can still control the orientation of the camera.

Best,
Andrew Kramer
Video Copilot

[Blake Porter]

Thank you Mr. Kramer. I will try that.
Blake

[Steve76]

And while you’re using a Null Object for the Cam, try another one for the point of interest (POI). You can connect the POI of the Cam to the Null Object by using the expression pick whip. That way you can move the POI Null Object around in 3d space and the Cam will always point directly to it.

There’s a good tutorial on Cam basics by Rick Gerard

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/gerard_rick/AEWeekly1/index.html

That should get you going! And don’t forget to use the Focus feature of the Cam. That really gives you some extra life into your scene!

Cheers

Steve

[Darby Edelen]

Or turn the Point of Interest auto-orient off all together, I find this allows me to work more intuitively with the rotation properties for pans/tilts.

I’d also recommend setting your default spatial interpolation to linear (in Preferences > General) as the auto-bezier can sometimes create ‘boomerang’ keyframes. You can always go back in whit your pen tool and tweak the motion path to your liking, I like to have this extra degree of control over the camera.

[Blake Porter]

Great suggestions! Thank you all.
Blake