I need to render an animation of train on a railway. Since moving the complex train model cost scene preparation time for each frame I tried to move the camera along the railway. At the end I need a litte sideward camera movement for showing some different configurations (slide show of still images).
After a few hour of testing different ways I don’t get it. Attached a very simplified example model.
An other way - I tried to animate the camera like an object without to independent set camera and target. I found no direct way and so I use a trick - the camera is “set along path” to a short line. This line is my camera object and I can animate it like a camera object. It works, but again I get an unwanted extra turn between the last two keyframes.
(Topview, mangenta line is the camera object)
Finally I got the camera-curve-object way running. It looks like I have problem to understand and use all the technical parameters for the curve smoothing. Maybe at Bongo 3 it can be easier to use (wish).
An interesting problem for the development could be, that the time line preview shows an other animation as the keyframe by keyframe clicked preview. I suppose so the fast scene update doesn’t right update all objects. (see attached file - bug?)
My little challenge bring me to an other wish - please allow to animate the camera like an object. My workaround is only a dirty workaround, but the usage is easier than by source/target paths. Per paths I don’t got a stable solution, it was not possible at the beginning to keep the constant orientation of the camera to the rail way if at the end a side turn needs to be added.
And I don’t see a way to get a simple “named view” transition animation running. There seems to be no tweening options. (UI bug?)
Your solution to combine a ‘Camera LookAlong” constraint with a moving curve is resourceful. The NamedViewAnimation technique is rather basic and meant to facilitate architectural practice (walk through animation) as is described in the movie on Rhino - Animating Named Views. Indeed the only tweening setting is the optional use of ‘spherical tweening’. The technique isn’t suited for fine-tuned camera travels.
You are certainly right; the use of separate target and camera manipulation on the other hand is cumbersome and laborious. So yes the idea to animate the camera (camera-point and target) like an object is obvious. It must surely be taken in account in the development of Bongo 3.
Yes: a bug: the LookAlong of the camera isn’t update in Preview.
And finally: Tweening indeed isn’t a simple mechanism. You can read about it on a Bongo-page Rhino - Tweening. The effects of the Tensions parameter are hard to grasp and combination of the default Auto-Easing with the tweening settings can complicate stuff.
I’ll consider to make a tutorial on the subject.
