Other CameraMan - Automatic Camride and smooth tracking camera

[CheekiBreeki]

CheekiBreeki submitted a new resource:

CameraMan - Automatic Camride and smooth tracking camera - A smooth tracking camera setup that creates automatic camride/camera movement.

What is this?
CameraMan is a subscene that adds a smooth tracking camera in VaM. The camera smoothly tracks a TARGET atom (both position and rotation) while always pointing towards it, and can be used to create automatic camride for animated or mocap scenes. CameraMan functions like a scene plugin (but it's not a plugin). You can load CameraMan subscene in your scene, set a tracking target, use the UI to adjust camera settings and you're...

Read more about this resource...

 

[too]

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing

I might not be using it correctly, but the camera is facing forward mostly. In general it's working fine, it's rotating, yaw-ing etc just like the demo video you shared.

But how can we get the camera to point downwards, for when the girl is on all fours, bending over and picking up apples off the ground? And we want the camera to orbit around her back?

 

[CheekiBreeki]

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing

I might not be using it correctly, but the camera is facing forward mostly. In general it's working fine, it's rotating, yaw-ing etc just like the demo video you shared.

But how can we get the camera to point downwards, for when the girl is on all fours, bending over and picking up apples off the ground? And we want the camera to orbit around her back?

Glad you like it. The camera position and rotation are both derived directly from the TargetPosition atom, which should be linked to your Person's control like chest or hips. Since it's all automatic, the camera will move if the linked control (and TargetPosition) move/rotate.

If you'd like to animate the camera differently from what the automatic movement gives you, check out the Advanced Usage section in instructions. You can animate 'TargetPosition#2' atom with Timeline and use Triggers on animation weight to switch between Timeline's animated position and the automatically animated position by CameraMan. While animating position of 'TargetPosition#2' with Timeline, disable the RubberLeash plugin on it, otherwise it'll snap back to it's original position when you move it. Re-enable RubberLeash on it when you're done animating.

 

[too]

Glad you like it. The camera position and rotation are both derived directly from the TargetPosition atom, which should be linked to your Person's control like chest or hips. Since it's all automatic, the camera will move if the linked control (and TargetPosition) move/rotate.

If you'd like to animate the camera differently from what the automatic movement gives you, check out the Advanced Usage section in instructions. You can animate 'TargetPosition#2' atom with Timeline and use Triggers on animation weight to switch between Timeline's animated position and the automatically animated position by CameraMan. While animating position of 'TargetPosition#2' with Timeline, disable the RubberLeash plugin on it, otherwise it'll snap back to it's original position when you move it. Re-enable RubberLeash on it when you're done animating.

Ok I'll give it a try. Thanks a lot !

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Ok I'll give it a try. Thanks a lot !

Added some more information about manual animations on the resource page in Camera functionality > Manual camera animations. Check out the more info button there.

 

[maxmatrix]

I think if you could add the manually control option in case auto recording sometimes go a little unexpected angle, so we could correct it.

 

[epi.noah]

Hi,

You might be interested in using some of the settings found in FastPhysicsDemo.
Here's a scene that offers a tablet with different performance levels if you're interested: epiTemplateLite

If I wasn't busy, I would definitely integrate CameraMan into epiSanctuary I'd make it the floating menu, and make the UItoggle button on the tablet its toggle button.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[One-Headlight]

Love this plugin a must-have! I'm just curious has everyone had the issue with "tilt" or "yawn" being more exaggerated? I position the model's chest and didn't tick the yawn option but it seems to yawn or tilt a lot to the point its vertical. Don't know if I describe it in detail good enough.

 

[silly]

is it possible to adjust so viewing angle is vertical instead of horizontal? I seem to have managed it once, but can't remember how I did it. ?

 

[CheekiBreeki]

I think if you could add the manually control option in case auto recording sometimes go a little unexpected angle, so we could correct it.

I've added a manual animation point 6. to the Camera functionality section. Hope it helps. basically you can use Timeline to take manual control of camera when needed. For unexpected angles, try reducing the randomization amount if you've enabled that.

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Love this plugin a must-have! I'm just curious has everyone had the issue with "tilt" or "yawn" being more exaggerated? I position the model's chest and didn't tick the yawn option but it seems to yawn or tilt a lot to the point its vertical. Don't know if I describe it in detail good enough.

Yaw should be side to side motion of the camera. The camera shouldn't tilt in the vertical axis, only rotate around the character. It does move up or down with the Target atom you're tracking though. Can you post a video somewhere with the issue?

 

[CheekiBreeki]

is it possible to adjust so viewing angle is vertical instead of horizontal? I seem to have managed it once, but can't remember how I did it. ?

By default the camera has vertical rotation locked, and only moves horizontally around the target. It still moves vertically with the target as the height changes, but it doesn't tilt.
If you want only vertical motion, you can use the 360 mode, go to zCameraman/TargetPosition > Move > uncheck Lock on X Rotation and check Lock on Y Rotation.
The camera should tilt vertically along with target atom's rotation, but this can cause the camera to go into the ground.

 

[idolking]

I would like to see separate tracking speeds for the camera's forward/backward and left/right tracking. In the default state, the camera moves slowly when a person walks toward us, so if we speed up the tracking, the sideways movement will now be too fast.

 

[CheekiBreeki]

I would like to see separate tracking speeds for the camera's forward/backward and left/right tracking. In the default state, the camera moves slowly when a person walks toward us, so if we speed up the tracking, the sideways movement will now be too fast.

I couldn't separate them properly because both rotation and translation tracking are kind of liked to the same atom. You can separate the movement, but only in 180 mode. To change rotation tracking speed change the weight for this atom plugin:
zCameraman/RotationAnchor > Plugins > Plugin#1_RubberLeash (label = Leash-RotationTracker_alt) > Weight
Default Weight is 0.20. As you increase tracking speed reduce this to lower values like 0.05-0.1 when tracking speed slider is fully right.

Hope that helps.

 

[Case]

Hey!

This is awesome - but there might another application for the "technique" you developed:

Do you think you could maybe build a slimmed-down version just for lighting? I know several scene-devs that construct intricate multi-position scenes with different "stations" within the same scene (think TGC, XRWizard, Vihper etc), who find the problem of keeping a dynamic character (pair) well-lit to be non-trivial.

I already recommended the Lumination plugin as a partial solution, but your innovation of combining Lumination and RubberLeash struck me as elegant - only that scene-devs might be wary of all the runtime overhead of a subscene with advanced UI features & loads of buttons - multipose scenes normally already run a lot of scene-control atoms & plugins, and most creators already struggle to keep load-times & memory-load at a tolerable level.

Ideal would be smth that assists a scene dev with planning a good lighting setup for each "station" (and pose) and then stores each of those setups, eg as a Timeline track.

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Hey!

This is awesome - but there might another application for the "technique" you developed:

Do you think you could maybe build a slimmed-down version just for lighting? I know several scene-devs that construct intricate multi-position scenes with different "stations" within the same scene (think TGC, XRWizard, Vihper etc), who find the problem of keeping a dynamic character (pair) well-lit to be non-trivial.

I already recommended the Lumination plugin as a partial solution, but your innovation of combining Lumination and RubberLeash struck me as elegant - only that scene-devs might be wary of all the runtime overhead of a subscene with advanced UI features & loads of buttons - multipose scenes normally already run a lot of scene-control atoms & plugins, and most creators already struggle to keep load-times & memory-load at a tolerable level.

Ideal would be smth that assists a scene dev with planning a good lighting setup for each "station" (and pose) and then stores each of those setups, eg as a Timeline track.

I have actually been working on something similar to allow saving multiple camera positions in the scenes, and then switching between them.
It's meant to switch camera but can be used with light rigs or other atoms too by attaching it.
For the case you mentioned to save light rig positions in timeline, I've done that before using Timeline directly. You can add the light rig atom control as a target and add keyframe to define it's position and rotation. When that animation is played, the light rig should automatically move to the position saved in Timeline track. I don't think anything else is required for this use case.

 

[poiob]

Hi! I enjoy this very much. The dance scene will be many times more fun! thank you!
However, sometimes a small black flicker can be seen. (Is this jitter?) How can I lock FPS and physics to the same value?
Also, it's a little disappointing that the face is out of frame when randomly zoomed in. It would be nice if there was an option to automatically shift the focal point a bit as the focal length gets closer. But it's still fun enough!

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Hi! I enjoy this very much. The dance scene will be many times more fun! thank you!
However, sometimes a small black flicker can be seen. (Is this jitter?) How can I lock FPS and physics to the same value?
Also, it's a little disappointing that the face is out of frame when randomly zoomed in. It would be nice if there was an option to automatically shift the focal point a bit as the focal length gets closer. But it's still fun enough!

Black flicker? I'm not sure never saw that on my end.
For locking FPS you'll need to use an external tool like RTSS or MSI Afterburner. It fixes most of the physics issues.
I'm assuming you mean face going out of focus when zooming in? I don't think depth of field is related to cameraman, most likely the focal length settings for PostMagic depth of field are not set correctly for close-up camera.

 

[PuppetMaster]

This is great! However I can not get the zCameraman/camera rotation to follow the target? Eg. If the target's position moves up and down, the camera position can move with it, but the camera wont rotate to follow it? Eg. If you wanted to watch an atom jump up and down and have the camera follow it pointing up and then down.

 

[poiob]

Black flicker? I'm not sure never saw that on my end.
For locking FPS you'll need to use an external tool like RTSS or MSI Afterburner. It fixes most of the physics issues.
I'm assuming you mean face going out of focus when zooming in? I don't think depth of field is related to cameraman, most likely the focal length settings for PostMagic depth of field are not set correctly for close-up camera.

Thank you for your reply.

sorry. The small black flicker was a problem unrelated to CameraMan.
It seems to happen with some clothes when using PostMagic.
In my case, for example, this happened with the Queen's Crown costume.

Also, one more thing, I should have said "TargetPosition" instead of "focal point".
For example, if you set the TargetPosition to the chest, parts of the face may be out of frame when the camera zooms in too much. Of course, if you set the target to the face, it will not be like that.
However, I sometimes feel that a slightly lower TargetPosition is better for camera positions farther from the person, and a slightly higher TargetPosition is better for camera positions closer to the person.

But it's a minor detail, so don't worry about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed CameraMan and thank you and many other creators.

 

[CheekiBreeki]

This is great! However I can not get the zCameraman/camera rotation to follow the target? Eg. If the target's position moves up and down, the camera position can move with it, but the camera wont rotate to follow it? Eg. If you wanted to watch an atom jump up and down and have the camera follow it pointing up and then down.

Sorry for the late reply, been quite busy outside VaM. So by default the Camera will move with (follow position) and point at (rotate) the zCameraman/TargetPosition. So the camera does rotate. What might be different from your case is that camera won't rotate around the target by default. In 0° or 180° mode it'll only rotate partially. Try switching to 360° mode if that helps.
Didn't quite understand the problem you had, so send a message with more details if it wasn't resolved.

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Thank you for your reply.

sorry. The small black flicker was a problem unrelated to CameraMan.
It seems to happen with some clothes when using PostMagic.
In my case, for example, this happened with the Queen's Crown costume.

Also, one more thing, I should have said "TargetPosition" instead of "focal point".
For example, if you set the TargetPosition to the chest, parts of the face may be out of frame when the camera zooms in too much. Of course, if you set the target to the face, it will not be like that.
However, I sometimes feel that a slightly lower TargetPosition is better for camera positions farther from the person, and a slightly higher TargetPosition is better for camera positions closer to the person.

But it's a minor detail, so don't worry about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed CameraMan and thank you and many other creators.

Yeah, that black flicker that looks like a blob is usually caused by some clothes when using depth of field. No way to fix it as far as I recall.
Changing target position with zoom length isn't possible right now. I am working on a version which has multiple camera angles and can switch between them, so that can do different target positions for different cameras. But been quite busy, not sure when I can finish the update.

 

[cdgczta8]

Great resource! Who's the blonde model from the first video here?

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Great resource! Who's the blonde model from the first video here?

Mercy look from here: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/mercy-look.2253/
I made some edits, and turned down the original morphs intensity a little bit. You can use Morph Mass Manager to merge native morphs with some other look or just reduce them.

 

[hainabaa]

Hey cool plugin!
I have an issue when loading different poses. The camera will look way out of line with the atom. If I quickly reset the camera view it fixes itself though but that's not optimal.
Any idea what it might be? Thank you.