Simple task, but I fail - view to view animation

Hi,

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.



At the file can be found a simpliest way - I tried to use the named views. The animation looks chaotic.
ScreenShot9630

From Enscape I know the simply workflow to save views as keyframes and I get a smooth path from view to view. Can this be done per Bongo too?

I hope did something stupid and there is an easy solution. :wink:

Best-
Micha

Train on the railway.3dm (287.3 KB)

Here the animation path of the named view animation: between A1 and A2 I got an unwanted additional turn.

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)

Here the file for this setup:
Train on the railway 001.3dm (287.7 KB)

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?)

Train on the railway 002.3dm (289.0 KB)

Micha,

An interesting quest, thank you for sharing.

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.

Luc

Hi Luc,

thank you for the insights. Helped me to better understand Bongo. I hope the little bug fix will be possible for a new SR.

-Micha

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