Complex camera movements

[Victor Nash]

Once you’ve placed your elements in 3d space, perhaps with 3d assistants, then it’s just a matter of moving your camera around to what you like.. it looks like they used time remapping to get better control over the speed. What specifically were you thinking in terms of camera movements?

[Chris Burns]

Thanks for your reply. After trying to manually place the layers, I did buy the 3d assistants full version and placed all the layers in my project. (what a time saver!) I’m basically looking to reproduce similar camera movements as they did. It just seems very tedious and time consuming to move the camera around to achieve similar results. You mentioned time remapping, how would this help and is there any other tips you might give to make this process a little easier? If it is just a matter of alot of time tweaking settings then so be it, but after setting up layers in 3d space manually and then using 3d assistants, it can’t hurt to ask about this also to see if there is an easier way! lol

Thanks again
Chris- MN

[Jack Hilkewich]

One way to make it easier to do camera movements is to parent the camera to a null. Using the example movie you suggested place the null in the center of the walls of pics and place the camera away from them so that you see all of the pics. One the camera is parented to the null all you would have to do to get the camera to do a complete circle around the whole set of walls is to keyframe the rotation of the y axis on the null.

You can keep adding nulls and use them to control the zoom elements of a camera as well as other attributes.

[Chris Burns]

I’ll try to experiment with a null object to control the camera. I haven’t had alot of experience null objects yet, but it sounds like it might be an easier way to go. Would I keyframe most of the movements of the null (zoom, pan, etc) and let the camera be controlled that way and mix in some camera moves when it was a little easier to get the right shot?

Thanks,
Chris- MN

[Mike Clasby]

You’ve got the right idea with the tweaks. These two posts from Chris Smith give detail to you question. The original thread had about 20 entries in case you want to read all.
An Advanced search for camera null and Chris Smith reveals all.

Name: Chris Smith
Date: May 11, 2006 at 9:25:45 pm
Subject: Re: Complex Camera Moves

I shut off the camera’s POI. Then layer groups of animation to nulls. One null is position only, next null is rotation only, next null is shake/vibrate only, then lastly the cam. All of these in a parent/child chain.

This way everything is in it’s own layer of motion and not all mixed together. Also each null works relative to 0,0,0 so any expression writing is easy.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

Name: Chris Smith
Date: May 12, 2006 at 6:43:58 am
Subject: Re: Complex Camera Moves

I have no secrets 😉

1. null_CamPosition
2. null_CamRotation (Parent = null_CamPosition)
3. null_CamShake (Parent = null_CamRotation)
4. Camera (Parent = null_CamShake)

I do this so I am never commited to any keyframing that is done, I can still offset things how I wish. For example for the cam to vibrate, it uses up the cam’s position parameter. But if the vibrate is a parent of another null, it moves first from the first null, then it adds vibration to it.

Also if you have rotation on it’s own null, for example, the rotation null can be the camera’s general aiming direction as it moves through space (from the PosNull). But then you still want to override the camera angle to look at something for a moment or to offset it temporarily, then you can still key the camera’s actual rotation and it won’t effect the rotation you already have from the RotNull. Or if your PosNull had a good animation path, but you just think it should be tweaked in space because it’s not quite the right spot, instead of moving all your keys, simply drag the camera layer around (Since it doesn’t have keys itself, it just rides along).

Like when I do a motion track, I paste the track data to a null and not to the video layer itself. Then I parent the video layer to the null. This way dealing with offsetting the layer is as easy as grabbing it in the comp window and dragging it to a new position. Yet it still tracks along because it is parented to the null with the track data.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com