Multi Plane effect

[Steve Roberts]

I don’t move the planes, I create a new camera, turn off its auto-orient and move the camera.

Next, using a custom view, the object layers are placed relative to each other, according to how they would be placed in a real scene. Sometimes I place them closer or farther away if I want more or less apparent motion.

But in the shot, I don’t animate the background layers, I animate the camera. Moving the layers just makes it more complicated and you lose a sense of perspective. If I want some layers to move, I’ll keep some static layers in shot to “ground” the animation and keep a sense of perspective.

Regarding focal length and z-position, I’d hesitate to say that there’s a formula — it depends on the look you want, just as it would in a real scene.

Does that help?

[David Bogie]

Thanks, Steve.
I was going to say something similar, pointing to one history of animation book or another. Multiplane animators at Disney (see the old “Illusion of Life” book) did not necessarily move the different planes unless they were going for a particular dolly or boom effect. The impact of the multiplane camera rig was its ability to control depth of field and present an unnerving illusion of depth to otherwise two dimensional artwork.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Joe Piazzo]

Thanks,

I will experiment – I did not have the time before to do this kind of R&D.

I am also a Cinema4D user, thus I thought I might do some tests in that app as well.

JP