making smooth, slow crane shots?

Hi,
I have made several simple clips over the past couple of years but now I am seeing that I don't really know how to do a basic task: take smooth, slow crane shots. By this I mean an overhead shot that moves, for example, an overhead shot looking into a small crowd at an angle and then moving from the front of the crowd to the back.

I only know how to move the camera with keystrokes and in a recent clip, that ended up with a very stop-start, jerky motion that I hate. Granted, the sim was heavily loaded (55 people at one point) but I think I could have done better.

Is there a setting I should be aware of? Do I need some kind of joystick or something?

The clips I make are fairly spontaneous, so I am not looking for anything that requires much pre-planning or the equivelent of setting out a path or a track.

Thanks!

~Jenni~

Buy a xBox controller for the PC and hook it up to your computer. Enable joystick flying. Proceed to move camera smoothly through your shot.


Hope that works.

In the preferences, you can choose 'Setup Joystick' now, uncheck all bar flycam.. otherwise it will try controlling your avatar etc.. then map the keys onto the paddles (or whatever you use), adjusting feathering, scaling etc to get it as smooth as you need...

If your joystick/controller supports full 3D movement, you can set Yaw and Pitch to gain additional movements. To turn on the flycam, use the Edit menu to enable it (you will see an entry in the menu).
If you use a USB device, make sure you plug it in before loading the client, as drivers are not loaded on the fly by the client.

You might try using FlightPath.. its a great product for controlling the camera during filming, although you do need to do some setting up beforehand.

In the debug console there are 2 options that will save you tons of time and some money.

'ZoomTime' will cut your camera speed to agonizingly slow motion if you set it much higher than 20.

I suggest expermenting with the values...
5 simulates reverse crane motion zoom very nicely when used with camera restrictions turned off and in faaaaarrrrrr away camera position. See below for one possible use.

10 medium slow camera speed.

15 slow camera speed.

20+ OMG is it moving?

'CameraPositionSmoothing' will smooth that mouse wheel out like butta.

I have mine set at 50, that gives me a nice smooth camera scroll. Anything higher makes my camera jump large distances.


Other settings to get even more functionality out of the camera.

In the "Advanced" menu check "disable camera restraints." Amazing what this one will allow. By hopping my selection point on sky builds I had my camera somewhere in the 800M elevation with my avie standing on pixleferma. I then left the mouse alone and gave up arrow a quick bump to make the camera reset to default. with 'ZoomTime' at 5 it gave the impression of the camera moving away from me but zooming in at the same time. I have never tested the ability to cross the main grid but you can move at least several sims over.

Brings us to 'MaxSelectDistance' in the debug console. Values above 256M seem not to increase your reach any. You can select across sim boundaries.

I don't make machinima, just some personal clips here and there of SL but these settings make my work look almost good.

I also use the ALT+Left mouse for zooming in & out and X rotation around selection. ALT+Ctrl+Left mouse for full X,Y rotation around selection. ALT+Ctrl+Shift+Left mouse for X,Y panning.

A quick note.
My camera is acting very jumpy today for some reason, its not the update because it only started this morning and I have had the new viewer for a couple of days now. I hope this isn't permanent.

Rafe, this info is very helpful..thanks for sharing.

YW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI7vg7YpULc