unwanted camera flipping...

[galactor]

In maya a camera exist's of the camera itself and the point it is aiming for. By choosing for the camera that makes both the camera and the target visible, you can control the camera movements better.

:: Galactor ::

[jedijrmax]

Ok.......well.....I had a similiar problem.....

and I solved the problem by not just creating a normal camera, but.....the ......CAMERA, AIM, and UP. By doing this and placing the "up" circle, in an appropriate place, the camera knows how to keep the orientation.

It wont' be able to flip onto the other side of the curve anymore.......


think of it as a camera on a pendulum.....with the center of that pendulum being the "UP" .........it will swing...or move accordingly....

I might not be explaining it well.....but open up a new scene file and experiment with it. It will solve your problems. If you need more help and I don't seem to respond on the board, just email me at jedijr88@aol.com with a noticable heading.

I spend two months working with moving cameras in maya. I'm more than confident I can help you out.

[misterdi]

Your camera flip is due to the up vector which coincide with front axis when it goes straight up.

Have you try different world up Type, let say probably for your case is Object Up.

[bakkaboy]

thank you so much everybody for responding.

misterdi - vector was the only world type that i found to work

jedijrmax - thanks for the suggestion. i did a keyframe animation - which was a bit more "loose", and took care of the abrupt flip - it just kind of rolls over, which wasn't too bad.
However, i'm going to take another pass at it w/ a camera aim & up like you said. thanks for the offer of contacting you.

glactor - thanks

[bakkaboy]

just out of curiosity jedijrmax, did you use the camera aim & up w/ a motion path?

[jedijrmax]

Yes I did!

Yeah, plus.......what I don't know if a lot of people realize........ like... you can animate along a motion path....but.....for the "freedom" of keyframing animation......

You can GROUP a camera to itself....and then either attach the original camera, or the GROUP node, to the motion path, and then still have an extra node to add variation.... for example...

If you have a camera grouped to itself. Take the camera node and attach that to a path, now you have a group node, HIGHER in the hierarchy, which you can set keyframes for.......this might be useful...if you want the camera to move along the path, but maybe you want to set rotation keyframes and stuff....if you do that on the group node....the camera will still follow your path but now you'll have a group node controlling its rotations.....


well..........maybe you've done stuff like that, maybe not, but regardless, you can still do that and have the "up" like I said.....the "up" doesn't restrict the camera's motion at all, whether it's keyframed or motion path animation.

[bakkaboy]

yeah, that's pretty cool

i took a character rigging class & we did grouping for that "extra" control.

btw i took another pass at it & it looks pretty good. a little tedious tho. didn't use a path this time. i have to redo the end again, so i'll try the path & group method.

thanks again

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