Erratic camera movement in animation?

Dead Cow Digital

I'm sure this has come up, but I am having no luck searching the forums.  It would be awesome if DAZ could add some "advanced" search options.

I have a camera that is supposed to lead a moving object, so the camera should move backwards while focused on the object as it moves forward.  Kind of like a following cam, except in front of the object instead of behind.

Seems simple enough.  In my timeline, I have the camera facing the object at the starting point and I create keyframes.  I then advance the timeline and the object moves forward.  At the desired point in the timeline, I move the camera so it is in the same position in front of the object and create another keyframe.  It is a straight-line movement from point A to point B.

However, when I scroll the timeline back an forth, the camera starts in the correct position and ends in the correct position, but in-between it's doing crazy 360 flips and spins.  Again, it's a straight line motion; the camera is supposed to simply lead the object from start point to finish point.  What causes it to go crazy between the 2 locations?  I've tried adding in-between keyframes which works to an extent, but still a lot of wavering around.  It seems I would need to add a keyframe on every frame for the camers to (maybe) keep it steady.

Thanks for any advice!

GIF: http://perfectfunction.com/circleofsouls/files/crazycam.gif

Wolfwood

That is one crazy camera.

I think this topic might be of help: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/427966/animating-a-camera-keeping-camera-still-between-movements

Tip: forum search is not good.  Use google and limit results to daz site if needed.

Dead Cow Digital

Okay, I greatly improved the movement by copying and pasting the camera's XYZ rotation values from the starting point to the finish point keyframes.  No more flips and spins.  However, it still wavers side-to-side a lot during the transition.  What does it take to make it just move straight back without unnpredicatible movement, and why wouldn't it do that in the first place?

Dead Cow Digital

Wolfwood said:

That is one crazy camera.

I think this topic might be of help: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/427966/animating-a-camera-keeping-camera-still-between-movements

Tip: forum search is not good.  Use google and limit results to daz site if needed.

Thanks!  I'll check it out!  :)

margrave

I've noticed sometimes when I turn a camera 180 degrees on the Y axis, the rotation values will instead appear as -180, 0, -180. It's possible that Daz's rotation algorithms determined that going the opposite way is "quicker" than the shortest distance, as they're sometimes wont to do. I believe this is why most 3D applications use quaternions internally.

Aside from that, it might also be ghost frames. Sometimes I've noticed keyframes will disappear from the timeline, but still affect the object during playback. You just have to unlock every object (because locking something will hide it in the timeline), hit the "Refresh" button, and hope that the spooky keyframes appear so you can delete them.

Dead Cow Digital

margrave said:

I've noticed sometimes when I turn a camera 180 degrees on the Y axis, the rotation values will instead appear as -180, 0, -180. It's possible that Daz's rotation algorithms determined that going the opposite way is "quicker" than the shortest distance, as they're sometimes wont to do. I believe this is why most 3D applications use quaternions internally.

Aside from that, it might also be ghost frames. Sometimes I've noticed keyframes will disappear from the timeline, but still affect the object during playback. You just have to unlock every object (because locking something will hide it in the timeline), hit the "Refresh" button, and hope that the spooky keyframes appear so you can delete them.

Thanks!  After reading through the thread linked above 90% of my issue was resolved by using the dailers to move the camera instead of the transform gizmo.  I guess the other 10% of my issue is related to TCB path smoothing, but I may just leave-well-enough-alone and be happy my object is staying in-frame. 

benniewoodell

Usually I change it from TCB to linear and that fixes the issue. 

Robinson

margrave said:

I've noticed sometimes when I turn a camera 180 degrees on the Y axis, the rotation values will instead appear as -180, 0, -180. It's possible that Daz's rotation algorithms determined that going the opposite way is "quicker" than the shortest distance, as they're sometimes wont to do. I believe this is why most 3D applications use quaternions internally.

Aside from that, it might also be ghost frames. Sometimes I've noticed keyframes will disappear from the timeline, but still affect the object during playback. You just have to unlock every object (because locking something will hide it in the timeline), hit the "Refresh" button, and hope that the spooky keyframes appear so you can delete them.

Yea, this is an issue if you rotate a character by 180 and do animation.  Sometimes Daz will flip it to -180 and then interpolate from -180 to 180 to the next keyframe.  It doesn't know the difference between 180 and -180 (some vector math probably going wrong - a little if(x) would fix this someplace I'm sure).

Ivy

benniewoodell said:

Usually I change it from TCB to linear and that fixes the issue. 

This^

I might add . if your planning on animated cameras . its really a good practice to create a primitive or node and parent the camera to the primitive or node and animate the primitive.  . there is an number of reasons for doing this . 

1) makes the camera more editable  you will be able to continue a single animated path for the primitive or node  and you can have the camera veer off ot do a fly out

2) you can stablelize or lock keyframes in the timeline , when  you animate Nodes or primitives  you can customize the keyframes with properties panel giving you more options for animation of your caerma

3) when you use a animated camera parented to primitives or node you can parent Fog panes and FX props to follow the node or primitive iwhich still follows the camera movements . giving you options for customizing your pane animations to match the camera movements. its better way to make sure you cameras do what you want them to in the daz timeline properties panel

4) you can use x-y-z transition aniblocks to move the camera primitive to match your characters movements. like if you were following a person running  the camera won't work with transitions aniblocks

 There is about 10 more reason you would parent a camera to a primitive or node and keyframe the primitive instead of just trying to key frame the camera . But it would take me all day to right them out

I personally prefer using primitives over nodes because  you can use a sphere primitive and have access to all xyz perimeters, When using nodes to parent camera sometimes nodes will not offer all the translation values & do not hold a keyframe when using them with certain props with ik-chians  and scripts. Ive always had better luck with primitives.

But that has been my experiences on animating camera. its best to parent a camera to a primitive . make the primitive invisable and keyframe/animate the primitive instead of the camera.