Question Looking for an easy way to control camera for making movies from scenes.

[Absolutely]

I've been using VAM for years now, and have around 600-700 scenes with the purpose of one day making movies. Well, so far I've made zero movies. I would love to know what is your preferred way of using and controlling the camera if you are a movie/clip maker. I can always do it manually just using WASDZX, but it won't be smooth and will look junky. Plugins, suggestions, tips, any info would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[hazmhox]

Look at Midnight Moves and how i did the shots.

It's a fully controlled WinCam to help you frame the shot then the scene triggers embody with passenger mode on it to instead display the scene through the normal player camera.

 

[Absolutely]

Look at Midnight Moves and how i did the shots.

It's a fully controlled WinCam to help you frame the shot then the scene triggers embody with passenger mode on it to instead display the scene through the normal player camera.

Thanks for the reply. Downloaded the scene and been using many of your tools. Thanks! Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I think it's way too much work to exit embody and align the camera in third person for every shot. When you say fully controlled WinCam, what exactly do you mean and how do you align the shots? I want to be able to activate passenger on the WinCam and align the shot this way, not exit embody every time I need to make a change to the camera. Is that even possible, or I'm asking for too much?

 

[hazmhox]

Thanks for the reply. Downloaded the scene and been using many of your tools. Thanks! Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I think it's way too much work to exit embody and align the camera in third person for every shot. When you say fully controlled WinCam, what exactly do you mean and how do you align the shots? I want to be able to activate passenger on the WinCam and align the shot this way, not exit embody every time I need to make a change to the camera. Is that even possible, or I'm asking for too much?

I'm not using Embody during editing/directing the scene.
I'm never editing through first person view either, I think it's not a proper way to preview the curves and arcs your camera is gonna do.

I have the "in camera" preview displayed, and the hud preview also active. I'm doing several shots like this in a row, using Timeline with the curves enabled and then only after doing like 3, 5 or 8 shots... previewing through Embody.

I'm creating a VAMStoryAction with several buttons in the scene which are debug and do the reset/embody activation automatically to ease the preview process. And removing it when the scene is ready.

Pretty straight forward :']

I don't think it's more work. If you feel it is, it's probably because you're not improving your workflow over time. Moving a camera and lining a shot with timeline is a very very basic animation process. Doing that in a viewport mode like any animation artist does in the industry is standard and kind of fast. I could do like 15 shots for Midnight Moves in like 15 minutes.

The actual very long process is timing the shots, syncing it properly to the music, and all the pace of the camera work. And this is something you can't do by any other means than working in timeline. Using FP won't help you with that.

All that said, a proper camera work for a scene is a long creative process if you take in account the whole choreography... but animation is not what makes this long. You won't be able to make this a quick process, especially if you're aiming for quality.

 

[Absolutely]

I'm not using Embody during editing/directing the scene.
I'm never editing through first person view either, I think it's not a proper way to preview the curves and arcs your camera is gonna do.

I have the "in camera" preview displayed, and the hud preview also active. I'm doing several shots like this in a row, using Timeline with the curves enabled and then only after doing like 3, 5 or 8 shots... previewing through Embody.

I'm creating a VAMStoryAction with several buttons in the scene which are debug and do the reset/embody activation automatically to ease the preview process. And removing it when the scene is ready.

Pretty straight forward :']

I don't think it's more work. If you feel it is, it's probably because you're not improving your workflow over time. Moving a camera and lining a shot with timeline is a very very basic animation process. Doing that in a viewport mode like any animation artist does in the industry is standard and kind of fast. I could do like 15 shots for Midnight Moves in like 15 minutes.

The actual very long process is timing the shots, syncing it properly to the music, and all the pace of the camera work. And this is something you can't do by any other means than working in timeline. Using FP won't help you with that.

All that said, a proper camera work for a scene is a long creative process if you take in account the whole choreography... but animation is not what makes this long. You won't be able to make this a quick process, especially if you're aiming for quality.

Thanks for taking the time to answer. Make sense what you're saying, and I like the camera work in your scene. I gave it a try, and it's not too bad timewise.
I did run into a couple of issues, but I'll try to figure it out.

 

[hazmhox]

Thanks for taking the time to answer. Make sense what you're saying, and I like the camera work in your scene. I gave it a try, and it's not too bad timewise.
I did run into a couple of issues, but I'll try to figure it out.

Don't hesitate to come back asking questions : )
Some hurdles might be complex to figure out sometimes, it's always good to discuss/share information if you need to.