Mini-Challenge: Camera Rig

#2

Some more great features or perhaps a point of departure is this great rig by BorderEquals0.
http://www.zoogono.com/setups.cfm (hit the camera setup)

#3

Anyone taking up this challenge? I’d love to attempt. But I’m a big beginner and was hoping this would spark some sharing of knowledge in the community. Perhaps this post shouldn’t be a sticky?

#4

Well, it seems the the outcry for support and an active community is only valid, when other users want something. :banghead:

Seems we don’t have anyone interested in participating in the community after all. Just taking and not giving. A typical problem in our times. :cry:

If you don’t like this challenge, then just open a better one and we close this one. I am by no means the official challenge authority here.

#5

Lets get this going by pointing to a good starting point. Perhaps having something to start from would get things going.

#6

Well, I already said I am open for suggestions, but even they don’t find their way in here obviously.

What would you suggest Nichod? If I’d show you the rig, then you already have it. It really is very easy to build. Just a matter of parenting and a couple of simple expressions.

The shaker is a more complex beast, but we should start with he rig first, cause if we don’t, we don’t have something to test it with. :wink:

And I am not entirely sure how much more I can explain without just showing you how it is done. The different noise types are decribed in their sections already. The “only” thing that is missing is a formula, but that’s part of the challenge isn’t it? Otherwise it would only be a tutorial.

#7

Okay, okay… I’ll try it.
(aside note for the historians: I’ve been provoked!)

You KNOW how much I love [size=2]expressions!

And yes, Alex - you tease - I insist on the links. As well as any tips about messiah expressions I might avail myself of. Currently reading up on “[/size]double Noise (double x, double y, double z )” and motion. No idea why its “double” and not just noise - but hey, you prodded me into this, now didn’t you!

#8

:applause:
Thanks for taking part so willingly David. :twisted:

Here is the link for the shaker tutorial. It will cost you points in the final valuation, though, so choose carefully. :wink:

If you need more help, just say so. And I will drop more hints. :twisted:

#9

Okay. When I get home…I’ll dive my cold hands into the heart of Messiah and rip out the most daring and impressive camera rig possible…:wise:

#10

LoL! Well, to be hponest I’m happy to cross the finish line.
So, not sure how effective your threats about points will be with me.

Maybe you can help me with this:
I’m trying to have a slider control amplitude and speed of a noise function, but noise(x,y,z) doesn’t seem to offer these. Right now I’m thinking of animating a shake and having the slider access this. I mean, it would work, right? Go with what you know.

OR…

I could have a dummy null with a sin curve, and have that spit out numbers…
Eww. That sounds like maths.

#11

It’s a lot more easier than that David. You can access a sliders value.
The sliders channels are labeled the same as all other objects channels internally. So the first silder (from the top) becomes Slider01:xpos in an expression.

Let’s say you want to controll your noise with the first slider of your Slider01 the expression would go like this:

noise(2,2,2)*[Slider01:xpos]

In some occasions you might need to convert your value to Radians first, because that is what Messiah calculated with internally (not Degree).
Like for example if your expression outputs a value of 120 and you put that into a rotation field you have a problem because Messiah thinks that value is in Radians, but that’s like 6975° Degrees. So you will get WAY to fast rotations.

To convert between these two ways of expressing angle values you use:

(noise(2,2,2)*[Slider01:xpos])*RTOD

or back again

(noise(2,2,2)*[Slider01:xpos])*DTOR

Understood?

#12

Well, sheesh - I have a camera rig with the arm and aiming pretty much like you’ve outlined. No armatures yet, nor the cleaned up animation group…

(zwischenfrage: is there a null-shape option in messiah?)

And I’ve got an xpos and ypos jitter.
But gaussian-distributed shake? (I didn’t see “gauss” in the messiah drop-down :-!) Wander? I mean, sheesh! I jus’ wanna animate here!

okay - serious. I have limited brainpower here. I managed to get noise working on the slider, but not evenly (I have to re-map the values to saddle 0 instead of moving from 0 to 1). Anyone wanna jump in here and have a look-see?

edit: forgot the link - camJITTER.mpj

edit2: hooboy. I did it with this

Noise((Rand(0,[cam:xpos])),0,0)

I thought the rand command was a switch. (0 or 1). And very helpful to see how you wrote the slider in. I’m thinking inside out.
About the DTOR: how do you know when you need which version? Angle is always DTOR internally?

#13

Hi Alex,
I just tried your expression. (Noise(1,1,1)*[cam:xpos])
But it only creates a value, offsetting the camera but not an animated value shift.

Am I missing something?

Ha! Okay, I warned you, but you poked the hornet’s nest anyway!
Check this out:

  1. offset a null’s pivot (like I did in the camera’s arm)
  2. attach an armature to it.

When you select the armature, it pushes the null to its true pivot position. Anyway to stop this from happening?

#14

Congrats! It’s a first start.

What is a null-shape option?

Hehe, well, I did come up with this only to train some expressions, but someone else could post an animation challenge (it just isn’t the area of Messiah I work in).

It doesn’t do that by default? Hmm, I just remember that I used the same value for all the slots of the noise function like:

noise(value1,value1,value1)

not like

noise(value1,0,0)

maybe that’s what makes the difference?

Great. And you solved it completely different than I did. Nice.
My version reads like this:


Noise([shaker_destabilize:heading],[shaker_destabilize:heading],[shaker_destabilize:heading])*[shaker_main:ypos]*0.0004

Er, actually I always use the wait and see approach for that one. does it act funky? Try to convert Degree to Radians (DTOR) or Radians to Degree (RTOD) and see which one looks more correct. :smiley:

#15

That was just an example with no real values. For this thing to work here you have to bring in a time component. Try to multiply the Noise variables with NOW and use the sliders value as the noise value.

Hmm I don’t have Messiah available righ tnow, so I am not able to look into that right now. And I have to quit for today. There is still a move waiting to be done. :hmm:

#16

Like Lightwave’s null-shape: being able to make a null appear to be a disc or sphere or whatever…

Ha! Cool. I do the same!

Wow. This really was a welcome kick in the butt. I’m definitely getting closer to defeating my rig-o-phobia. I couldn’t get your script to work, unfortunately - but I’ll try again later.

I’ve updated my camera rig - same location. It now has some armatures to make selecting the right object easier. You could also make them drags - I prefer select… because I get the edit sphere to work with.

Anyway - for anyone interested, my version is the “jitter lite” camera that suits my needs. And thank you, Alex, for the very horizon-expanding experience - no departure here, I plan to continue my exploration. And maybe have a look at my leech and tell me what you would do differently.

#17

Woo Alex! :thumbsup:
nice one, i’m a little late but i’m in :smiley:

#18

Okay Layer, you’ve thrown your glove in the ring. Too late go into hiding now :wink:

#19

Well, as this challenge has kind of died and I was asked in another thread about my setup, I decided to upload it for your playing and working pleasure.

Have fun guys!! :bounce:

This is a saved setup. Never did that before in Messiah and have therefore no idea if it works. EDIT: Just drop it into your messiah/modules/setups directory.
http://rapidshare.de/files/18601997/FreeCamera.mst.html

…in case it doesn’t here is the fxs. It contains only the camera setup, nothing else.
http://rapidshare.de/files/18601933/StandardFreeCamera.fxs.html

The usage is pretty simple.
EDIT:The first thing you should do is to right click on your new camera in your item list, to make it the active camera.
The camera is setup so that you have a rotation order like in a real camera and you control it via the item list. Naming is pretty self-explanatory. The shaker node contains the sliders for your personal adjustments. You have global controls and the additional ability to adjust every noise type on all axes individually. Have fun with it.

And an additional goodie for all interested parties.
I present to you the same as before only in a MotionControl version.

EDIT: This rig lacks some nice little control objects like a real arm that is extending with the rig. But I just never came to do the “fancy” part. It works great but one has to use the item list.

http://rapidshare.de/files/18602708/MoCoCamera.mst.html
EDIT: Just drop it into your messiah/modules/setups directory.

and again as fxs, for the case of the mst not working.
http://rapidshare.de/files/18602766/StandardMoCoCamera.fxs.html

EDIT: One thing I never tried is to use several of these in one scene. I have no idea if it works or if the expressions make problems with different naming (like the added “_1” that gets added when you duplicate something)

Hope you like it. :bounce:

#20

thanks ALex! I’ll take it apart as soon as I’m back (tomorrow)…

#21

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