[Sebastian Martinez]

Hey Trent,
thank you for replying to my post! I just discovered that you posted so I hope you can still respond …

Alright, I’m animating a camera flying over a google-like map while countries, borders and traveling routs of ancient kings and their armies and sorts of stuff blend in. So the flying camera should look kind of real too. Most of the time it does but other it doesn’t: For example the camera travels around a spot in a circle. Untouching the Z-Rotation of the camera the entirely map rotates upsidedown in the cameras viewer. What doesn’t look real at all (when I walk around a spot nothing turns upsidedown).

So far I adjusted that “misbehaviour” of the camera by the Z-Rotaion with a layer of circles that move in X and Y coordinates beneath the camera (if the circles fit symmetrically in the viewer the camera is stable – a good working brute force trick!).

But that way it’s too tedious if you change the path or something of the camera. And it’s not accurate at all in some situations.

So that was the reason I was wondering about a expression that turns the Z-Rotation in that way did it to make the animation look right.

Auto otrientation off make no use, parenting the camera to a null ether because other expressions aren’t working anymore.

Trent, I hope I could make it mor clear now what my problem is. It would be more than greatful if there is a solution you might know of.

Ta,
Sebastian

Sebastian Martinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

Ah – but it is an interesting script!

Ta,
Sebastian

Sebastian Martinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

Hi Sam,

erh, you replied to my post?

[Expression for Camera Z-Rotation
by Sebastian Martinez (seniormartinez) on Apr 10, 2008 at 10:11:15 am]

Yours

Sebastian Martinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

Thanks Dan! I put the layer onto auto-orient and put the expression into z-rotation aswell as into orientation. There just came up the Warning:

Invalid numerical result (this is a translation from German AE) (division by zero?)
Expression deactivated.
Error in Line 4.
…

I began a different workaround by deactivating the orentation of the camera and get rid of the parented null. did work but wasn’t reproducable, for what reason ever …

I know, cameras wich aren’t parented ain’t that good! But what about an expression that could level the z-rotation of the camera when moving aroundeverywhere in space?

But many thanks anyway, I admire you stuff and dedication to this site!

Sebastian

Sebastian Martinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

Hey guys,

I solved some of the problems myself so far: I deinstalled the Sapphire and Cycore plugins correctly with Vista’s deinstaller program and reinstall the plugins. This time with the correct pass for the text files (whatever their meaning is). And all worked fine again, all plugins work. Cool.

But still when starting AE dozens of warnings pop up saying:

All Saphire and Cycore Plugins are exist repeatedly. To avoid problems exit After Effects and move or delete old or no longer requiered versions.

So what’s the point in that?

Chears

Sebastian Martinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

hi,

just after i posted the previous one i kind of discovered the solution for the problem: i orienteted a null to my camera and linked my text layer to the null’s orientation data via the code posted here by Dan Ebberts:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/227/42

thanks Dan! that solved a problem i was faced with since weeks!

It now works like a swiss made – except the fact that the Z of the text layer doesn’t point directy to the cam but a bit right or left (parallel to the orientation of the null). might there be even a diferent way to overcome this?

chears
sebastian

seniormartinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

Wow, that works! Like a swissmade watch – nice. That worked IN KIND of they way…

More persize now: The “leader’s” opacity from 0 to 100 within a frame. The follower should start it’s 0 % opacity from the same spot but reaches the 100% continuously after the delay of 5 frames or whatsoever.

Jese, that was a big lesson anyway! Thank you yikesmikes for your instant help. Ikind of understand and “read” that syntax – I just tried with more of big dan’s stuff but with not much of usefull results. I guess it’s just a language thing.

Dan’s webpage is a great indeed! I have visited it a few times before. Before I posted that message I tried a few expressions from the very same link where you “cracked” your sugestion from.

But thanks so far big time!

Seb

[Sebastian Martinez]

Hey guys,
ha, I found the solution myself by deleting all empty storage on the raid – so it says in german on the drive-assistant on the Mac. There are three version to overwrite deleted data wich was before various footage:

1. Overwriting with zeros
2. Deleting deleted date in 7 rounds
3. Deleting deleted data in 35 rounds

I tryed the first (but it took hours). Sounds wired but works! The speed test was now up at 43 fps for HDTV 1080i 50 8 bit an the material is capturing right now without a stop.

It’s probably making a differences to iron the socks 😉

Thanks for this site and keep on clickin’
sebastian

[Sebastian Martinez]

hey kevin,

thanks for that fast help!

it took a while until i was trying that echo-effect on the timelapse footage. a good idea but for some reason i couldn’t figure out it didn’t help much. i kept on trying and found another way that worked for myself: the cc force motion blur – motion blur levels onto 20 or even higher and shutter angle as open as you can get it to 3600. works neat n’ tidy.

keep on klickin’
sebastian

seniormartinez

[Sebastian Martinez]

hey kevin,

thanks for that fast help!

it took a while until i was trying that echo-effect on the timelapse footage. a good idea but for some reason i couldn’t figure out it didn’t help much. i kept on trying and found another way that worked for myself: the cc force motion blur – motion blur levels onto 20 or even higher and shutter angle as open as you can get it to 3600. works neat n’ tidy.

keep on klickin’
sebastian

seniormartinez