SteadyCAM - A complete rig for dload

[JDP]

Thanks, mighty generous of you .:thumbsup:

[Cybergooch]

Dang, it looks like a lot of work went into that...thanks a lot for sharing it Lennart!

[rocarpen]

Man, that's a strangley hypnotic tutorial there.

Great work on this! Do you mind if I ask what you use this camera for, day to day? It looks like there's a lot of power here - I'm just looking for tips on using it.

Thanks for sharing!

[SeanL]

Thank you very much Lennart. A valuable gift.

It's like Christmas around here lately. :)

[jddog]

wow... :eek: is simply a great things and a wonderful gift Lennart :thumbsup: thanks so much !

Julien

[Hilt]

wow... :eek: is simply a great things and a wonderful gift Lennart :thumbsup: thanks so much !

Julien


Well said indeed :)

Thanks for this one.

.hilt

[Rich-Art]

Thanks Lennart,

That is what I call "The Cinema4D feeling"
This makes C4D so nice, the people who work with it are so nice and helpfull.

Peace,
RichArt. :thumbsup:

[flyingP]

WOW, that is just too cool :bounce: , very clever, and many many thanks

[JamesMK]

Oh yeah, very clever rig, Lennart :thumbsup: I'm sure this will come in handy at times.

[flyingP]

actually just a thought, but that could perhaps make for the basis of an interesting lighting rig too :)

[mt_sabao]

Really cool and usefull!

May i sugest something that would be really interesting? A damping factor attached to the lag option, so this lag would be smooth (or not, adjusted by the user).
That would make this perfect!

Cheers, and of course, many thanks!
Luis C.

[govinda]

My god, this is a wonderful thing! The hits just keep coming, Lennart!

I'm wondering if you incorporated Toshio Fuji's Smart Cam (http://www.c4djug.com/expression/ex.html) in there. Yours is more a macro setup which could include his or a variation of it.

One thing I think is would really make it complete on first glance--a Reset tab to return all cam attributes (Focal/fov/zoom) back to default. Axis Center has this, and it's really spoiled me and made me pine for it in other plugs.

But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm off to play with this gem!

[lllab]

thanks very much!

cheers

lllab

[mt_sabao]

My god, this is a wonderful thing! The hits just keep coming, Lennart!

I'm wondering if you incorporated Toshio Fuji's Smart Cam (http://www.c4djug.com/expression/ex.html) in there. Yours is more a macro setup which could include his or a variation of it.

One thing I think is would really make it complete on first glance--a Reset tab to return all cam attributes (Focal/fov/zoom) back to default. Axis Center has this, and it's really spoiled me and made me pine for it in other plugs.

But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm off to play with this gem!

That´s where i got the damping idea from! The camera movement becomes much more smoother!

Cheers

[tcastudios]

My god, this is a wonderful thing! The hits just keep coming, Lennart!

I'm wondering if you incorporated Toshio Fuji's Smart Cam (http://www.c4djug.com/expression/ex.html) in there. Yours is more a macro setup which could include his or a variation of it.

One thing I think is would really make it complete on first glance--a Reset tab to return all cam attributes (Focal/fov/zoom) back to default. Axis Center has this, and it's really spoiled me and made me pine for it in other plugs.

But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm off to play with this gem!

Good observation Govinda! If you look in the hierarchy of the SteadyCAM there are two objects called "PositionTarget" (As a child under the actual Camera object) and "ViewTarget" (As a child under my FinalTarget last in the hierarchy) that are from the smart_cam :) . I forgot to delete them and didn't want to include it without permision from Toshio.

In my default setup smart_cam is included and fixes those loose tracking scenes very well! This is also why my lagging option is not taken further, why re-invent the wheel?!
I spent some hours trying out different aproaches but failed misserably.....

I can only recommend all to dload that as well. Delete "my" objects and replace them with the ones that comes with smart_cam.

The reset thingy might be a good idea but I don't think I'll have the time to implement anything more for the near future.

Cheers
Lennart

[bbarbi]

Wau! Great.

[govinda]

I see, and Sabao was right as well. I just watched your tutorial and I'm even more impressed. :thumbsup: I love the bend options and the lag.

It looks like the track and target mixing, combined probably with some trim, are useful to avoid gimballing/tumbling. Was that your intent?

[tcastudios]

It looks like the track and target mixing, combined probably with some trim, are useful to avoid gimballing/tumbling. Was that your intent?

My initial intent was just to make a small preset camera rig. Like ,ready made with a align to spline with a userdata slider and a Target so I didn't have to do that each and every time I neede a simple animated camera. It sort of grew from there...
Much of my work includes viz of stage setups design (like the stages in Turkey 2004 and now in Kiev used for the EurovisionSongContest) SteadyCAM then helps me and the LD, the stage designer and the broadcast producers to see how things will actually work.
By placing several SteadyCAMS into the model, each coresponding to real cameras, short movies are a breeze to make.

And here is an "action scene" showing the use of the smart_cam driven by SteadyCAM.
An animation like this is now done in a few minutes with -very- few Key frames, thus making it easy to edit/trim before rendering.

CarRace (http://homepage.mac.com/tcastudios/Movies/014smart.mov.zip)

(12sec 8MB zip QT dload)

Cheers
Lennart

[ernia]

Very generous, Lennart. Thank you. This would be great for that "Ken Burns" documentary effect--only in 3D!

ernia

[JoelOtron]

Just wanted to say thanks as well. Very useful--I may have actually paid for something like this! Thanks for your generosity.

[mt_sabao]

Hi lennart once again,
Could you please specify how i could smart_camera alog with your setup? i didn´t quite follow sorry. :D


Thanks
Luis

[Other3DMaster]

lennart,

thank you so much. man, that is just a great gift!!!

[vesalus]

thanks a lot :thumbsup:

[edfenner]

Great! Thanks!

[tcastudios]

Hi lennart once again,
Could you please specify how i could smart_camera alog with your setup? i didn´t quite follow sorry. :D


Thanks
Luis
smart_cam comes with two Nulls: "PositionTarget" and "ViewTarget". By mistake there are two Nulls in SteadyCAM left in there with the same name. Delete my Nulls and place the Nulls from smart_cam at the same place instead. It should now work.

Cheers
Lennart

[tcastudios]

Very useful--I may have actually paid for something like this! Thanks for your generosity.

I had that thought for a short while during those long nights when I tried to get the darn thing work my way. But, I wouldn't have any time supporting it and I'd rather have one up on you all :)

So check your discs for your (own)best goodies, will ya, and post it here! Thats the fee. OK?


Cheers
Lennart

[policarpo]

Awesome work Lennart! Thanks so much!:thumbsup:

[marshalartist]

Thanks Lennart - that is seriously cool :buttrock:

[Aurety]

Impressive stuff ! Thanks Lennart ! :applause: :eek:

[IanMJ]

Excellent! Thank you very much!

[chromecity]

Very slick and extremely generous. Many thanks, Lennart.:buttrock:

[bobzilla]

I'm a little late with the Thank You cause I just DLed it, but Thanks very much, Lennart. Looks like a lot of hard work went into it. Especially to make it so easy to use.

Your efforts are appreciated.

[artemesia66]

thank you!

any chance you could upload the car race file, so that i/we could see how the camera is implemented in an animation? i'm afraid my tiny brain isn't quite getting it.

[tcastudios]

I'm afraid that scene would cause more confusion than help. It's done with version25 of SteadyCAM (release is 63). No parameters look or work the same.
The only (corresponding) three parameters animated in the scene are:
TrackPosition(Link On), Pan T1<>T2 and Mix 1<>2.
A total of 12 Keyframes.

Other wise it works as regular animation.
Plan what you want to do and SteadyCAM will most likely help you out!

Cheers
Lennart

[flingster]

hey lennart...sounding good...downloading now...thanks for sharing your efforts..RESPECT.:thumbsup:

[Rev9]

I played with this last night.. I feel like Mr technical producer dude!.. Wished i had this when I was doing rock tour previsualisations. I have a question and didn't want to break the rig.. My character models are generally thousands of units in height and width to make mesh building easier.. Do I just scale the tracks 1 and 2..hi ring and lo ring... up to say 10,000 and 25,000 units radius, and use targets I already have in my "fight arena" in place of the object targets you have? And, if I do this, will all the behaviours you have built in be maintained? And.. is the best way to do this to just drop the bunch into a null and scale the null to the size i need and then replace my target object with ones I have already that define the camera limits in my scene?

Great and inspiring stuff! Thank you for your gift.

best
BT

[tcastudios]

Hi. You can have any object as Targets 1 and 2 Points 3 and 4.
You can also have any spline as Tracks. You could either just make the HiRIng and LoRing bigger (in the AM, they are regular ring objects) or make your own splines and place them in the Track fields.

The one and only important thing is that you should never leave any of the two TrackFields empty. The XPresso then breaks and I have found no way to prevent that. So, you could -replace- the splines at any time incl animation of changing splines over time.

The setup is actually made for scenes in scale using centimeters. (The Figures included as examples are 180 units high)
The parameters that might suffer from very big scales are Trim, CameraHight and the DepthZoom. The Trim and CameraHight might then be to small and the DepthZoom works within 2000 units.

Cheers
Lennart

[Rev9]

Your assumptuion as to what would not work as well was correct.. No way to alter those parameters within the COFFEE code? I have made it part of every new c4d file..

Best
BT

[tcastudios]

I'm not with my Cinema now so I can't check myself (I don't have the whole XPresso (No coffie) setup in my head) but you could try RightClicking the UserData faders for Trim and CameraHight and adjust the lower and upper values. It might work since theese should not be connected via any RangeMappers. If that doesn't help I'll have to look at it later, it should be fairly simple.

As for DepthZOOM I think it's more complicated and I won't mess with that I think.

Cheers
Lennart

[Rev9]

I will give the User Data sliders a go and allow more range. I assume the Depth Zoom is for DOF. If so I may be able to muck with it and if it breaks or doesn't work..well I rarely use DOF settings anyways for my work..

Thanks again
BT

[tcastudios]

The DepthZoom isn't DOF. It's a way to get that Hitchcock "Verdigo" effect. If you place an object of (I think) 400 units in front of the camera and have it as a Target, by dollying the camera the object stays intact in size but the surrounding distorts.
There is "positive" (Fader fully to the right) and "negative" (fader left) Verdigo effect.
So that fader is not meant for animation (allthou it might) instead you animate the camera.

Cheers
Lennart

[artemesia66]

I'm afraid that scene would cause more confusion than help. It's done with version25 of SteadyCAM (release is 63). No parameters look or work the same.
The only (corresponding) three parameters animated in the scene are:
TrackPosition(Link On), Pan T1<>T2 and Mix 1<>2.
A total of 12 Keyframes.

Other wise it works as regular animation.
Plan what you want to do and SteadyCAM will most likely help you out!

Cheers
Lennart

ok, well, thanks anyway. i'll try and puzzle it out. i don't have a lot of experience with the camera in c4d (mostly done still scenes up to now), so in a few words, if someone could tell me why this more complex rig is better than just key-framing a camera, i'd be very grateful. feeling kinda dumb. :blush:

[tcastudios]

, so in a few words, if someone could tell me why this more complex rig is better than just key-framing a camera, i'd be very grateful.

The milage might vary and I can only speak for myself.. (And I'd love to hear someone else that has started to use it)

SteadyCAM might not be better or worse than any other workflow. There are as many solutions as users, I would say.
But most camera animation tasks involves certain steps. A camera, it has to be placed somewhere and most likely be moving towards something. That means either place the camera by hand, keyframe all xyz and hpb values. Move forward in the animation, move the camera where it now should be and then add new keyframes. At this moment you already have 6 keyframes that are awkward to edit. Should you put in a position in between the start and end you not only have six more keyframes, the editing is now more all less out of hand since all xyz and hpb values are now separately interpolated, making F-Curve editing very hard.
You can lessen the keyframes by using a Target and even more by using a AlignToSplineTag for the camera. Even then you have to first make the spline, make it have even point distribution , animate the camera along the spline -and- open the F-Curve manager to make a soft curve for start and end movement and adjust anything inbetween. And you still have to remake (at least parts of) the animation for very small adjustments (Trimming).
All of above applies even more to what the camera will look at (Targeting). And if you'd like to pan in the scene its even more a hassle (More splines and F-Curve editing).
This and more also have to be setup for every new scene you make. Although SteadyCAM might seem complex, using it, once you get going with it, makes most tasks very easy and fast to achieve ( I think).
Most functions are already there within it and all parameters are gathered at one place. At all time while figuring out how it should work I had in mind that a person that know nothing about 3D (but knows pictures) should be able to navigate with it, that is how it is used when I have a LD beside me wanting to know how a certain scene will look like in pre-production.
And of coarse there is no reson to use each and every function, often it is easier to add another camera or two and use the StageObject.

Cheers
Lennart

[govinda]

Shorter Lennart: Yes, it's better. Trying to keep an object in frame, to keep headings looking natural, is very difficult. When you're looking through a cam, every bad bezier and overcooked rotation is noticeable. This actually used to be easier with unified tracks in v7, but I wouldn't go back to that.

This tool adds another to the arsenal, but it's not the whole answer for all occasions. I like straight linear keyframes with time curves for a lot of abstract uses, and that's simple without the need for a big rig. Cam moves, done properly, convey emotion and warmth or coldness and distance, simply by how they move. Subtle zooms, sudden jerks, all have some cognate in how we move our own human fields of view in response to what we see. The Brothers Quay are the masters of a kind of impersonal cam move, mk12 (mk12.com) have their own odd style, and there's even a kind of drunken, lurching style coming into vogue, as seen at videoboy.co.nz, ID sequence.

I can't wait to get out of Illustrator and Photoshop hell back into C4D to use it.

I haven't tried yet, but I assume you could have two steady cams as well in a scene, for times when a cam-switch can't be avoided and a stage object is called for.

[tcastudios]

I haven't tried yet, but I assume you could have two steady cams as well in a scene, for times when a cam-switch can't be avoided and a stage object is called for.

Yup, as many as you like. A typical previz scenario would be 8 to 12 cameras. A Steadycam running over the stage, 2 cranecams, 2-3 front of house, a couple of house/public cams, a couple of shuttles running on rails.
So by giving each SteadyCAM an easy task and then animate the StageObject some live action scenarios are quickly done.
This is the reason why you rename the camNull ( and by that automatically the "real" camera Object down in the hierarchy so you can see what camera is active using the HUD) in the name field ("Cam Name") as well as setting the color of each cam/tracks by using the UserData fields instead of messing in the OM.

As for avoiding unessesery F-Curve editing (When animating SteadyCAM "main" faders).
First change the default animationcurve interpolation to "Custom" and then "Linear"
to avoid overshooting when more than two keyframes are made.
The "important" faders (that are meant as "main animation faders")in SteadyCAM work via RangeMappers. These are:
- Pan 1<>2
- 3<T>4 (Under "Look At" faders)
- Track 1 Pos
- Mix 1<>2
- Track 2 Pos
- 3<mix>4 (Under "Camera Position" faders)
The rest are more or less considered as trim faders and follow normal behaviour.
This means, as long as you keyframe any of those "main"faders at full stop (min or max value) the F-Curve will very rarely be needed for editing.
There is one fader called "Pan Lin(ear) <>Soft" that turns this of for panning.

Cheers
Lennart

[artemesia66]

Thanks for the explanation, Lennart and govinda. I think i'm seeing the benefits, and I can see that i need to actually put it into a couple of scenes, and really get a feeling for what the steadicam rig can do. i think there's a hole in my knowledge about how real cameras are used on real shoots. must do some research...

[tonfarben]

thanks Lennart! this thing saved my life this weekend. I needed to make a flythrough and didn´t have enough time. So I placed the target figures into my scene where I needed them, created an alternative splinepath and rendered out four short flythroughs which travel different but start and end at the same place. After rendering i could mix them, up randomly and then suddenly four minutes where already done, great!

[tcastudios]

Great! Glad it came to good use!

Cheers
Lennart

[Thomas S Nelson]

Lennart,

Many thanks - this is a very useful tool. Your movie is clear and your narration charming.

stay well,
Thomas Scott Nelson

[tcastudios]

Updated to SteadyCAM66 (http://homepage.mac.com/tcastudios/Cinema/018SteadyCAM66.c4d.zip)

info (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=217705)

Cheers
Lennart

[Tiziano]

Quite a thread here and what a cam! Thanks.

Did I miss something though, can't figure out how to tilt the cam.
Perhaps it's there (in fact that little voice in my head (no, no, the other one) tells me it is) and I just have a blank spot on my brain. :shrug:

[tcastudios]

Banking perhaps?

Cheers
Lennart

[Tiziano]

Consider me well and truly B**tch slapped.

Thanks, Banking of course. :banghead:

[AdamT]

This is a great gift Lennart, thank you!

[tonfarben]

Cool, an update!
But what did you mean with that in the other thread?
"PS Don't you all forget to add your setups in the Resourse area. It seems as no one have done it so far. They will be hard to find later. DS"

What is resourse when written right and what setups do you mean? I guess "resource" but what sould I put into the Res-folder of cinema? I did put your cam into my object-library-folder.

[tcastudios]

tonfarben, all I meant was, there have been so many things "given away" lately.
XPresso setups, coffie stuff, Lightdomes etc, but they are all in their own threads.
By putting them in the Resource part up here at CGTalk they will live longer and will be easier to find/dload later on. So it has nothing to do with SteadyCAM, I wasn't really clear I must say..

Cheers
Lennart

[rsquires]

Steady Cam is coming to the rescue as I am trying to output complex camera paths to fbx format. The position and rotation are working great, but the fov doesn't seem to get translated across. I can see it pre fbx export as the camera cone moves as it should. it just doesn't seem to come across when exported.

Any thoughts.

Thanks for an extraordinary camera helper.


regards

Richard

[tcastudios]

Hi Richard. It seems as FOV and distance are not transfered with fbx.
I tried a "regular" Camera and keyed position, rotation , FOV and Distance.
Exported as fbx, opened the fbx file in Cinema again and no FOV and distance.
Position and rotation was fine..

So I don't have any suggestion atm...


Cheers
Lennart

[rsquires]

yes I tried that too.

It's a shame. I guess it's something that FBX doesn't support which is a bit strange seeing as it's an important part of camera control.

Anyway your Steady Cam baked camera works great. I guess I'll just have to leave the FOV alone.

Thanks for the reply

regards

Richard

[howzit]

Hi
I went to your website, I was looking for SteadyCam. There is text that says SteadyCam80 Pro coming soon, but I didnt manage to get any SteadyCam (the links are disabled). I did manage to get SteadyFlight.
Is it possible to get a hold of SteadyCam?
I would be very greatful.
Regards
Chris

[tcastudios]

SteadyCAM79(Item013) is the latest avaible. SteadyCAMPRO is not ready but might turn up in the near future.

Cheers
Lennart

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