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Working with Splines…
Hi guys,
Working on dramatic camera move – Typical onscreen gfx fodder really, I have a pan along the surface a 3D text then turn 360 and up and out to reveal the word…
…had the impression (rightly or wrongly?) that it’s easiest to achieve this by aligning to a spline, but having one or two problems…
• I want to draw the in spline 3d – I have tried drawing 2 splines and then connecting them – which works but then the circular spline loses its shape, somehow the handles/tangents are set to another value and the circle turns into a kind of rounded square shape…
which brings me to another problem;
• …but this has been driving me nuts – I select the points tool, select the point and the handles appear, all ok BUT then when I try to move one of the handles it just deselects 🙁
I know this is noob stuff so any tips or pointers to tutorials much appreciated,
Elin
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5 Replies
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The circle gets wonky because it’s only drawn with four points. Subdivide it after converting and you’ll get better results.
As for the bezier handles, you can only more them if you have the move tool activated. Annoying, right?
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ooh buddy, annoying isnt the word – but im so happy to know it wasnt just me 🙂
thanks for the tips!
oh, and just as a ps, in your humble opinion, am i right in saying that generally its best to animate along splines, rather than just animate the camera directly?
It’s all the those pesky details :p
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I usually animate cameras along splines if it’s anything but the most basic move. If it’s a complex camera move (or moves) I use Lennart’s SteadyCamPro plugin which allows you to assign multiple spline paths, blend between them, pan between targets, blend between cameras, add random movement/rotation, etc., etc. A real life saver, IMO.
https://homepage.mac.com/tcastudios/index.html
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your opinion’s good enough for me – ive ordered it…
I enjoy animating with splines – but have small problems which throw of the animation in odd places and are difficult to rectify (unexpected rotation of the camera along the spline as the camera constantly tries to align with target…)
hope this might help?
anyway thanks again
It’s all the those pesky details :p
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been playing with SteadyCAMPRO for an hour and its fantastic… fixes all those niggly things with the stage object, align to spline etc
surprised Maxon dont include something similar by default…
thanks again for the recommendation
It’s all the those pesky details :p
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