Saturday, May 10, 2008

Quick Tip:Camera Rig

I know we hardly do any camera movements for our assignments at Takshaa, coz if we dont get it right it looks crappy... and as Manu Sir told us once during the class that camera movement is an Art in itself which takes quite a lot of time learn. So why is it so difficult to move the camera in CG... I think simply because it floats... doesn't have a solid ground... and the camera movements we see in the movies are so great simply because the camera is stacked on a trolley or crane or whatever the most modern equipment they use to have a precise control over the movement. Also over the period of time our eyes have accustomed to smooth camera moves. (thanks to all the movies we see). So for quite some time now i have been toying with this camera rig below and its been working fine for me, so far. But ya... this can be improved i guess... so all you monsters do let me know what are ur thoughts and please do comment if this rig can be improved.
























Waiting for ur comments,
Chintan :D

7 comments:

Deepak Arasu said...

Good one chints, it a very cool rig. That you have.

One small addon to this. Try to Aim constrain the Traget to the Cameras - 1st locator. Which would help the cam to act like and eyeball :)

Firefly Design Studio said...

Hi Chints, Gr8 stuff man ...

Chintan Shah said...

hey man... thanks for the comments... will definitely try it.

Chints.

Prasad said...

this sounds cool...i will give it a try...one thing i wanted to ask...in certain scenes camera jumps almost to opposite direction...i mean take a case of two people talking, standing facing each other...camera view is from behind one person's head...and in next shot it goes behind other persons head (err..am i confusing, i can't put words in right way i guess)...how is it done in studio...are they done as two different scenes and rendered separately, or camera is animated so it jumps in that position in very next frame...

KASANA said...

Hey Chintan.
Really helpful post. This info made this idea very clear as you mention same as camera having solid base.
Very logical.

Prasad : You already have answered ur querry.let me make it loud.... :)
Either you can use 2 different Cam or Can jump on very next frame. But using 2 cam is wise thought as there is possiblity of timing change in Cam Animation.

damncreative said...

Hey chints. Its gr8 man. Works well. And u were telling about the camera being floats in cg right. Yes thats because in maya or ne other software, the values are calculated like how we animate. And here in cg its more like animation rather than the art of camera movement. We got to udjust the keys to get the same effect of the movies. And do check ur curves after ur camera animation. U got to control ur tangents rather than letting it to the software.

A small tip - While doin camera animaition. Keep the curves in linear mode and achieve the movement u wanted. Later smooth it out.

And prasad u got ur answer:).

Unknown said...

well, vinay..this goes to the tutorials section. :)

thanx for the idea chints. it works fine.

and prasad, i think u r talking about animation. in live action they use different cameras to shoot a scene and do this cuts in editing without losing the continuity. but in animation,is there a need to worry about it? this type of cuts probably comes as two different shots and the animator who's working in both will check the continuity ..