Following a particle with camera

[Kevin Camp]

i don’t know of any way to get a particle’s position values, which is what you would need…. you could ‘track’ the particle with the tracker, but that will only give you xy positional values.

what you may want to consider is adding the ‘particle’ as a separate layer that is animated manually… not knowing anything about you particle system, i don’t know how much work it would be to make this layer move like it is part of your particle system, but there are some advantages of this. not only would it be easier to track with a camera, but your layer particle could be higher resolution and be manipulated in more ways, with more precision as it moves about. but i really don’t know if that is of any value for the effect you are after….

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[David Bogie]

I don’t know if this will work for you either but I did it on a recent project. I created a small object that resembled the particles left after a Shatter explosion. This one particle went out of the frame which allowed for the transition from the 2D Shatter scene to full 3D space. I parented the camera to the object. As the object flew through the scene, the camera followed. I manually manipulated several keyframes to give the camera some chase ballistics, smooth banking, and physical inertia.

I hear there are some expressions that provide this kind of interaction but the word “expressions” sends me into paroxysms of terror.

bogiesan