[SOLVED] Tracker - Keyframer

[steve.brodie]

After much anticipation and waiting the Tracker is finally here. It looks like it will be a powerful tool, but in its current state it needs a lot more work to be useful.

 

Features that it really needs.

- ability to create and edit beziers in 3D scene to use as animation paths. These then need % tracks similar to max path animation. We have been asking for this feature for 3 years.

- i have tried animating a camera in the Tracker but it turned into a nightmare while animating camera rotation.

 

It was interesting to note that the cameras in valley demo were not animated using the tracker (as far as i can tell).

 

- no undo a change in position etc

- It was odd that to edit live transform keyframes in the 3d scene, you need to deselect the object you are animating. Is there a reason for this?

 

A working demo scene would be good. The valley demo seems to have most of its workings hidden.

[manguste]

but in its current state it needs a lot more work to be useful.

Sure, this first version will be further improved, but later on. This version will be in use till the end of the year.

 

- ability to create and edit beziers in 3D scene to use as animation paths.

Yes, in the current implementation beziers can be edited only on the track graph. We will add editing of paths directly in the scene in the next iteration (but will be no sooner than 2-3 months).

 

These then need % tracks similar to max path animation.

There are two options that control the velocity of movement along the spline: Cont and Inconst velocity.

• With Inconst, you can change the velocity only by changing the spline, so that's not what you need.
  
• You can set Const velocity for position track, save it into a *.track file and load it as a track track. After that, you can speed up or slow down its animation as you need (check here).
  

- i have tried animating a camera in the Tracker but it turned into a nightmare while animating camera rotation. It was interesting to note that the cameras in valley demo were not animated using the tracker (as far as i can tell).

 

The Valley demo was released in a preview mode, unfinished. So the cameras are animated right now - using Tracker. It's really possible :)

What camera did you use?

• For persecutor, you control the point to look at (hence controlling the point controls the rotation).
  
• For Dummy cameras, here's a tip with adding a dummy node as a parent that you can use.
  

- no undo a change in position etc

 

Won't be implemented until the editor is rewritten (see below). After that, for sure, it's a must-have feature.

 

- It was odd that to edit live transform keyframes in the 3d scene, you need to deselect the object you are animating. Is there a reason for this?

The problem is, right now the editor and the tracker are two separate entities, with nodes as a point of conflict. Either one has control over the node and the other cannot change it, or the other way around. The editor was designed this way. And when it will be rewritten, the tracker will be seamlessly integrated.

 

A working demo scene would be good. The valley demo seems to have most of its workings hidden.

What do you mean by that? You can access all tracks and see how they are done. As for cameras, they will be ready soon, so it looks like pretty much all features are covered with Valley and samples.

[steve.brodie]

 

The Valley demo was released in a preview mode, unfinished. So the cameras are animated right now - using Tracker. It's really possible :D

What camera did you use?

 

 

Im using Dummy cameras at the moment, but still havent found an easy way to keyframe cameras. The main problem is that i want camera rotation to be around the world z but it appears that the rotation is around the Camera local axis. Therefore the camera is always "rolling". For most cameras we use we want only camera tilt and no rolling. Am I doing it wrong?

 

I think a good way to animate a keyframed camera would be to add a camera, then use the Edit Camera in the Player tab to look through and move the active dummy camera. Then add move and rotate track in the Tracker. Then transform the camera to new position/rotation, slide along the timeline and hit add keyframe. Then a path of camera points could be mapped out very fast, viewing and moving through the editor camera. This approach almost works, but it still has the same problem of camera "roll". It would be good if the rotation and position key could be added at the same time also.

This is a similar approach to creating simple keyframed animation in 3dsmax and other 3d programs.

 

Also, it would be good if the camera could be set to be visible when not selected.

 

Thanks

[manguste]

Try changing the rotation order: you can choose between XYZ and ZYX modes. It controls which axis goes first when a node is rotated. For example, when creating cameras for valley, our tech artists switched between them depending on the required result.