Cineversity

Hello!

I have this problem with my camera animation. I am using several camera morphs in order to get a smooth camera movement but I can not really manage to get it right.

I think it would be best to have a look at the attatched project file. The final camera used for rendering is the “rendercam”. Its composed of two cameramorphs.

I also tried animation the camera along a spline but I need the 360° rotation at the start and when using the spline method, everything flips upside down.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/irb2uimjbqpevt7/kochbuch_v022_export.c4d?dl=0

Any help is highly appreciated

Hi visutainment,

Please try the following:

Go to the Layer Browser
In the Book Line (Buch), switch the icon for Xpresso and Python to off. (For the test only).

Play your animation again. Better?

If not, go to the right side of the timeline (standard interface) and there to the little film strip icon: Set the All Frames to unchecked.

This should give you now a better idea of your camera work.

If this is again not helping, render a small preview.

About the spline-based camera, try to use a rail-spline in addition to the path spline. This rail-spline is like an up-vector. Without it, the camera might have reached a point where it shows the sign of a Euler Angle problem. Instead of all three axes are stabilizing it, two-axis might point into the same direction, and then it goes wrong.

Let me know if that was of any help.

All the best

Hello Dr Sassi,

thanks for your advise. It’s not the playback that is not smooth, I mean the camera movement itself. I want smooth transitions between the cams or a way to animate this in a smooth manner. Right now there are parts, for example at around frame 150 where its not really smooth.

Visutainment,

Could it work when you take the Blend slider from “Morph_Start>>>>Orbit” to Frame 200 and drag the left Tangent handle to the left.
In the screenshot below, I have taken first a snapshot of the old curve, so you can see the difference.
Screenshot
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/4Vn1EwN4d30C57PqEn4oQjJG22Kwyq85wmPzDq6xNWs

Is that smoother now? The term smooth is kind of relative, so what feels right to me could be unacceptable for you.

To nest one morph into the next takes the simplicity of the Morph idea out of it. Animated source cameras confuse the concept of simplicity even more. Could it be that there is the reason that you struggle with the setup? Just a wild guess? So how use your approach and make it comfortable to use for you?

Any animation that you place into a Morph needs to include the extra animation time that will overlap with the next, perhaps even more. To keep the start and end of the sub-sequence too short will lead to non-smooth results, as the animation stops and introduces that feeling of rough.

A different approach would be to let go of keyframe PSR animation of the cameras and set each motion-segment as a single camera into the scene, then morph.

Cheers

thanks for your help, my problem is that I get into gimbal lock and everythign flips upside down when I do the rotation of the main camera around its own axis

How about this:

Project file
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/cUOMal9QbMtTez8X8HzoDmFh9qubTbR5svr4PdGnApN
Note that I use a Platonic here for visibility of the effect, it can be just a Null.
More about this, here:
https://help.maxon.net/us/#TMORPHCAM-ID_TAGPROPERTIES
There might be problems with large rotations close to the top of the camera, though.

I hope that helps to simplify your set up.

Enjoy

Visutainment,

Here is a quick and straightforward way to take the existing animation, and adjust the areas that you find not smooth enough in the simplest way I can think of.
Project-file and screenshot
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/gtDVqpWi99T71atGB1sC0Giy9KROOShg7TjjbWQx4lU

What I have done: (Make a copy before you explore this)

• Selecting the Render Camera, and use the Main Menu>Animate> Add Motion Clip…

• This clip contains now the whole animation, like a filmstrip.

• I went to frame 150 and use the Timeline> Motion System> Cut/Connect function (This needs to be shut off when done!)

• I created a cut into Frame 150.

• I dragged the new start and ends over each other, which automatically creates an Ease-Ease transition. The longer the overlap, the smoother the transition.

• This can be done as well with a Spline interface, as shown in the screenshot.

I hope that works best for you.

In the file, you might notice that I have given each camera not functioning as Morph “parent” the same rig. As long as there is a single keyframe, you can create long or short Animation Clips for each. Again, the rig must be the same! Then you can mix and match those, and have the transition as smooth as wanted.
I have discussed this in detail here:
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/animation_techniques_for_teams/animation_techniques_for_teams_part_01_course

My best wishes