Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View

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CreativeCOW presents Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View -- Adobe After Effects Tutorial

Andrew Devis
CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

In his third tutorial on animating cameras in After Effects, Andrew Devis shows how to build a controller layer to simplify the process of animating the camera rig and what happens when you have the right settings but the wrong layer order. Lastly, Andrew shows how to use the controller layer itself as a way of changing and animating the point of view of the whole camera rig.

This tutorial is also available as a podcast.

Adobe After Effects Podcast

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Comments

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Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Mike Mairs

This is awesome. Thanks a lot. You should make a preset of it. I added a seperate xyz position effect to enhance the functionality of the control-null.

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Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Simon Luchini Duca

Hi Andrew, great!
Two thing i think is more correct to name X and Y Control as Y Orbit and X Orbit cause Pan is another camera movement. The same thing for Z Tilt, that should be named as Z Roll.
other think is that:
in the last step of 3th tutorial (part 3) you parent if is right to say that Controls (NULL) control Point if Interest, should be also correct utilize always a "One Point" Camera and let to the Control Null controls Point of Interest.
To have Controls Null and Point of Interest together could create confusion, I think, But maybe I'm wrong!

•

@Simon Luchini Duca
by Andrew Devis

Hi Simon

Thank you for your observations, they are very helpful :o)

All the best
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Michael Peterson

Well it appears everybody got this tutorial which I might add was well made. I have tried this on a rotating globe and can't get the camera or the null to move just the globe does the moving. I want the camera and it's point of interest to move to a specific location on the globe as the globe stops rotating. It does end up there but the globe moves down partially out of sight. This as shown in the tutorial make perfect sense but I have lost something applying it to my project. Any Ideas where I have gone wrong.

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@Michael Peterson
by Andrew Devis

Hi Michael
Sorry to not have got back to you earlier, I've been a bit snowed under of late.

The first thing to ask is if you have made the camera null 3d?

Secondly, if you create a new null, make it 3d and then place it at the exact point you want your camera to end at you can copy the position properties of that null, then go to the point in your timeline where you want the camera to look at that point and then paste those coordinates to the camera null - which - assuming it has keyframes - will place the camera at that point at that time.

Lastly, are you animating the sphere as well as the camera? If is often best to do one or the other if you can get away with it as animating both at the same time can sometimes give slightly unpredictable results - although it can work with fine tuning.

I would animate the camera null. Firstly, place it at the center of the sphere and then rotate it and move it and finally place it at the point you want it to look at. Note also, that the Zoom of the camera can be animated independently to the camera null and may well be what you need to animate to finish off looking closely at the point you want to look at.

Hope this helps and sorry again for the delay
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

@Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Clemencia Herrera

Wow what a great tutorial! Thank you so much. I am used to 3D cameras from using Maya, and the way this rig works is very similar to 3D camera rigs - but I just didn't know how to work it out in AE! This was really big help.

•

@Clemencia Herrera
by Andrew Devis

Hi Clemencia

Really pleased to hear that you found the series helpful. I have also done another series on the cow on working in 3D and here is the link to the first 1

http://library.creativecow.net/devis_andrew/AE_Working-in-3D_Part-1/1

There are 4 in this series plus another one on panning large scenes in 3D

http://library.creativecow.net/devis_andrew/AE_3D-Panning-Scenes/1

You may find these give you more techniques to deal with cameras in AE.

All the best with your work
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Luke McFadden

Thanks for this! Very helpful. Is there anyway to make this some type of camera preset? Where it automatically adds the camera and nulls w/ the control layer? It doesn't take that long to set it up, but would be a helpful time saver?

•

@Luke McFadden
by Andrew Devis

Hi Luke

It doesn't seem possible to save this as an animation preset. However, in After Effects you can import a project into you existing project. So, if you save a bare-bones version of the cam-controller and then import it into you new project you can then copy and paste the controls and camera across from one comp to another which is the way I tend to use it.

Hope this helps
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Andrew Devis

Hi Alankar

It was the same for me when I first learnt. The truth is, we all learn at some point or another but the key is what we do once we've learnt it. 3D cameras can still be tricky, you just need to practice and work at it to get the best results you can.

Really pleased it helped and thanks for you comment. :o)

Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Alankar Misra

Thank you SO much Andrew! You're explanations were extremely simple to grasp and your voice has an admirable clarity to it. I know the voice shouldn't really matter but it does help - there I said it! Seeing you create the rig was an aha! moment for me - I've always been discouraged by my initial experiments with the camera and seeing others (on YouTube) do seemingly fantastical smooth camera animations always made me wonder how stupid I was. Now I know how its done and I feel stupid no more! Thank you once again.

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Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Andrew Devis

Hi John

Thanks for the comment. It can make a big difference when you know how to make your cameras work in AE, I know it made a big difference for me when I learnt.
All the best
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by John Nelson

Enjoyed the lessons and am going to have more 'fun' with future projects.

Muchas Gracias Hombre

Juanfordroad

http://www.omproductions.net

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Rob Dahl

Andrew,

After watching all three of the Animating a Camera Tutorials, I may now rest. In these three sections, you have explained away my biggest and most common mistakes. Due to my inability to understand why the camera was not doing what I wanted, I would end up animating the layers before I touched the camera. Now, it seems clear and easy. I have created my own camera rig now and saved it off as addition to any future project.

Thanks.

Rob Dahl
Transparent Alchemy
Boulder City, NV 89005
http://www.transparentalchemy.com

•

@Rob Dahl
by Andrew Devis

Hi Rob

Really pleased you found the tutorials helpful, I suspect that a camera rig will save you a great deal of time and help that 'transparent alchemy' to get even better. :o)

Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 1, 2 and 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Peter van Lith van Spaandonk

Wow, never i have seen a tutorial making me so happy. I finaly can use the cameras without loads of frustration.
Also the piece about using the angle expression makes my life easyer.

Thank you Mister Devis.

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Rob Burrell

Great tutorials Andrew, very clear and very useful! Many thanks

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Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Laurel Guy

Thank you for all three parts for Animating with a Cam Rig. Finally a very clear methodical sequence to reveal that the hierarchy is so very important for the outcome of this recipe... why I don't know, but like cooking, layering components evidently cascade and impact the results.

Much appreciated and look forward to more of you tutorials, hopefully soon.

A specific question is must we only have one camera per project? Why can we NOT use cameras in pre-comps that are then brought (that pre-comp camera data) into a final main comp, using another camera as the final view.
Lg

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Jenny Conway

Wow, extremely helpful. I've heard about the this technique but your explanation made it clear to me. I'm going to give it a try- thanks Andrew!!

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by Andrew Devis

Hi John

Thank you for your kind comment, I'm really pleased you found it helpful.

Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: Animating a Camera 3: Controllers & Point of View
by John Melbardis

This series was fantastic! The best explanation of "cause ans Effect" I've seen yet. Thanks for such a useful set of tutorials.
John

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