Making a camera follow an object

[Mike Clasby]

Are you using Particular? If not which particle generator?

[Afxtwn]

Yes Im using particular 1.5

[Mike Clasby]

Here are two post on Camera move, using Nulls to control the AE Camera:

This post by Chris Smith on how he uses Nulls with camera movements:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=878237

Here is an AE project file (aep) for a nifty camera move Australian commercial by John Dickinson, read the whole thread, very cool:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/872881?

That being said. I think the easiest thing to do for what you ask, follow an Emitter to a spot then stop for awhile, then follow again, is also best accomplished with a Null.

If you followed Andrew’s method in his tut on Light streaks, here:

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=34

Then all you need to do is :

1) Add a Camera

2) Position it initially, to the side or behind, where you get a good view of the emitter (Use the Camera Orbit Tools, “C” rotates thru them with the camera selected). Then Parent the camera to that Null Andrew uses to position the Particular Emitter. The camera will now follow the Null, but maybe too rigidly. If you want a little Camera hand held look, keyframe the camera’s position or add a wiggle expression to the camera’s position (Copy the expression, Alt-click the Camera’s Position Stopwatch, Paste, click outside the box)), expression follows:

wiggle (1,25)

The 1 is for Frequency, higher number is a quicker shake, the 25 is the Amplitude, or how big the shake. You can even tie the wiggle to slider if you want the shake to increase/decrease over time), here’s a link for that:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/880578

3) When you get to where you want the Camera to stop following, Edit>Split Layer, then un-parent the top camera from the Null, it won’t follow any more.

4) To start following again, Split the camera layer again, and re-parent to the Null.

5) One neat things about parenting to a Null is that if you Rotate the Null, the camera will do a circle around the Null, that’s the easiest way to get the camera to circle objects.

I’m not crazy about splitting a lot of layers but it seems the easiest solution here.