Camera Snap

[Leon13DM]

Okay, so in my current animation project, I want the Camera to "Snap" to a certain item in the background. What I mean by "Snap" is that the camera instantly focuses on it, no gradual panning. However, when I put the position of the camera (using both Camera Zoom and Camera Pan tools) on the timeline, the part of the animation before the placement of the Camera Snap gradually pans and Zooms into the position, instead of snapping. I even just tapped the Camera Zoom and Camera Pan tools on the Timeline Frame right before the Camera Snap point to try and get the animation to keep it's default camera view until needed, but it still doesn't work.

How the heck do you use the stupid camera?

[Greenlaw]

If I understand the issue, you need to add a keyframe somewhere before the 'snap' keyframe to hold the camera position before the 'snap' motion. Otherwise, that 'snap' key will interpolate to the earlier keyframe, which I'm guessing is the very beginning of your camera move (thus the gradual motion.)

You may also need to set different interpolation modes for some of the keys...probably use Bezier mode, which can be adjusted in the graph editor. That might make it easier to control the velocity.

You might want to open a second view and set it to orbit, so you can see exactly what your camera is doing.

If that's not it, you'll need to post some pics of what you're trying to do.

FYI, at times like this, I wish we could target the Moho camera to a layer or some kind of null. Right now, when I need more complex camera moves I'll render the elements for cards and import them to a 3D animation program or compositing program with better 3D camera controls, like AE or Fusion.

[hayasidist]

Okay, so in my current animation project, I want the Camera to "Snap" to a certain item in the background. What I mean by "Snap" is that the camera instantly focuses on it, no gradual panning. However, when I put the position of the camera (using both Camera Zoom and Camera Pan tools) on the timeline, the part of the animation before the placement of the Camera Snap gradually pans and Zooms into the position, instead of snapping. I even just tapped the Camera Zoom and Camera Pan tools on the Timeline Frame right before the Camera Snap point to try and get the animation to keep it's default camera view until needed, but it still doesn't work.

How the heck do you use the stupid camera?

What I think this says you're doing is:

at (say) frame 0 you have a camera key
at (say) frame 30 you set the camera to point at the thing you want
you then go to frame 29 and set a key frame

and that still crawls the camera from 0 to 30
===

that's exactly what it should do - adding a key sets it to the interpolated value at that frame

what you need to do is copy the frame 0 key to 29

or reset all the necessary camera attributes on frame 1 and then change those keys to step interpolation

[hayasidist]

I wish we could target the Moho camera to a layer or some kind of null.

I had a script for that back in the days of AS9.5 (4 years ago !!)

this was it: http://www.mediafire.com/?z6hk26af1w8emot -- (seems still to work with Moho12)

It will change the camera pan/tilt to point the camera from its current position at either:
>> the centre of any selected points in the layer or, if there are none
>> the origin of a selected layer.
so that the target is in the centre of the render area.

there wasn't that much interest in it at the time so it never progressed beyond that (i.e. won't do zoom to fill the screen or follow path or other tracking)

Let me know if you've got any interest in it and I'll stick it back on the list for (probably) early next year.

[Greenlaw]

That sounds cool! I'll check it out soon.

[sbtamu]

You can also go to the fame you want and move the camera then copy key frames that are on zero and paste them to key frame one and set key frame one to step interpolation.

[Leon13DM]

Okay, I was trying to copy with the copy tool in the "Edit" tab. However, I discovered that you could copy all the camera frames without having to move them in the "Animation" tab. I tried it in this matter and it worked.

Thanks, I've never gotten this much help on a forum before. Also, how do you access Bezier view? I'm curious.

[Greenlaw]

Click on Motion Graph. To edit it, you need to double-click on the icon for the channel you wish to edit.