Walkthrough Camera Timing and Paths

[s0real]

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Cinema workflow. Stuff that matters.

So percy, i guess its just a case of panning a cam over say a plane or something that has got the image applyed to it,and then rendering out whith no AA or filter and bingo

there are planty of programs out there that will zoom / pan still images without having to do it in max... camtasia studio for one, but i'm sure there are others...

[jujubee]

Thanks guys for your overwhelming suggestions and expertise. I can see where both styles are useful.

My latest project is a small apartment, so 'cinema view' would be overkill for what I need I think. Fading from a living room to the bathroom when they are next to each other seems like overkill. But I can see doing this for larger, multiple spaces.

[Dynedain]

ading from a living room to the bathroom when they are next to each other seems like overkill.

Think of this situation:

The most compelling view is looking from the entrance through the living room out a window.
Moving a camera from this view to the most compelling view of the bathroom entails that you have to go halfway accross the living room, turn to the right, go in to the bathroom, turn back to the left in order to get the best view of the bathroom.


Now in this situation, think how much time and effor you'll spend tweaking that camera so the path isn't too jerky/fast/slow/confusing. Think how many extra frames you'll have to render for that camera movement (and how much longer it will take to render them). And think how much bigger your scene is having both the living room and bathroom in the same file.

Now, here's the alternative:
Have the living room in one file. Find the best view, render it... maybee a little bit of animated pan or animated objects to make it more dynamic. Have the bathroom in another file, do the same thing. Transition the two clips and your done. You saved time in rendering, you saved time in hassling with camera paths. You saved time because you can setup complete different lighting situations in each room and you didn't have to worry about how they affect each other. Each one renders faster too because they are simpler scenes.

This is where the cinema-workflow shines. It means thinking about things differently, and planning your shots to begin with. The traditional archviz mentality is to model everything, and then pick your camera paths. The archviz method generally results in more work, and you typically end up modeling/texturing stuff that will never be seen, or doesn't need nearly the level of detail you put into it.

Another downfall of the archviz/walkthrough mentality is that the animations frequently waste a lot of time moving down corridors and turning just so they can see other rooms. Thats a lot of extra rendering time. You can easily "tell the story" of the same animation by having a camera look down a hallway, and then switch to a camera at the end of that hallway looking into a room. No need to waste the rendertime of moving the camera down the hallway.

[glyph]

my 2cents :
it's just plain boring watching a long walkthrough
I honestly think viewers go into a quasi hypnotic trance

but some clients like them because they can then show off 'the project' to the top man or to the ultimate client and justify all the expense

doesn't have to be a pop video edit but cutting to the right music makes them much more enticing

[panthon]

Dynedain

I agree with you, of course!

This method works great and it´s exactly what we do when shooting a commercial or a movie, we work only on what the cam can see. It´s hard to imagine how to do the lighting of an entire house at once and get nice results...Directors of photography don´t work that way, in fact they spend a huge amount of time placing the lights for a single scene.

One thing to keep in mind with this per-scene basis workflow is to wait until u have an approved offline with basic spaces and furniture (if it´s interiors) to start with, otherwise u could find yourself doing extra work to cover the new camera positions or moves.

[digitalx3d]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here, in favor of the archviz walkthrough, is that this method gives the view a much better understanding of the space and how certain areas connect to others.

Believe me...I hate the long-winded, non-stop, walk-through...I think it looks dated, and is quite boring, and you're often showing areas that aren't important.

BUT, I do think it's important (a lot of the time) for someone to say "ok...so that's how you get to the bathroom" or "ok...that's the 2nd bedroom on the right" without having to guess. With the cinematic approach, a lot of the time the viewer is standing there saying "wait...which room is this? where's that floor plan?" and these thoughts are distracting.

So... IMHO it's best to try to incorporate both as best you can. Don't forget, a LOT of the time, the purpose of the animations is to be 'informative'.

[Dynedain]

BUT, I do think it's important (a lot of the time) for someone to say "ok...so that's how you get to the bathroom" or "ok...that's the 2nd bedroom on the right" without having to guess. With the cinematic approach, a lot of the time the viewer is standing there saying "wait...which room is this? where's that floor plan?" and these thoughts are distracting.
.

These are all things that can be covered by editing and setting up your shots properly.

As an example from the film world, if you want to imply that someone is leaving an airport and heading East, you would show the plane taking off from left to right. Similarily if you want to show them landing from the west, you would have them land from left to right. It is a subconcious distinction that the viewer will absorb and establishes a contiuity between the two shots without having to show the plane take off, travel, and land all in one long shot. You can even take time transition into account by showing the shots at different time of the day.

Now in this example, you're taking advantage of "screen left" being "west" in people's minds, and "screen right" being "east. Similar things can be done in archviz animations. If for instance you need to go from a livingroom to a bathroom, have the livingroom shot pan slightly untill the bathroom is visible. Then cut to a bathroom shot that pans in the same screen direction starting from the bathroom door. You have now established the "story" of moving between the two spaces without actually moving a camera across the room, around furniture, and reorientating to view the second space.

Similar things can be done if the bathroom you need to get to is down the hall. Pan (say from left to right) across the living room untill the hallway is in the shot (you don't have to get the whole hallway, it doesn't really matter). Then do a shot looking down the hallway with an ever so slight pan in the same direction, untill the bathroom door is framed. Then cut to the shot inside the bathroom panning away from the hallway door. Result, 3 shots that take much less time to render and tell the story in a much more compelling manner than swooping accross the livingroom, down the hallway and rotating around awkwardly (and wasting lots of time looking at empty walls or corners) in a tight space and pointing into the bathroom.

Editing is key. The same story can be told much more effectively and much more efficiently with good editing and framing than you ever could with the "walkthrough" stereotype.

[trick]

...How do you guys overcome the 4GB file limit...

I'm not sure if this is what you need, but I have 20GB files and larger on NTFS partitions. I know there is a max.filesize if you have FAT32

[mike.edel]

there can be a size limit within the file system as well as in the avi format

the old avi (based on video for windows) supports only up to 2 GB
newer ones (direct show) up to 4 GB
and then there is an avi format (OpenDML) supporting quasi unlimited sizes - this has to be supported by the application though

virtualdub and later premiere versions do support it for sure


file system limits:
fat16 --> 2 or 4GB (depending on OS)
fat32 --> 4GB
Ntfs --> almost unlimited (several terabytes)


http://neuron2.net/LVG/filesize.html

[trick]

I never have hit a ceiling on NTFS when exporting uncompressed or lossless compressed avi's from After Effects and Digital Fusion. Also Sorenson Squeeze can take all these large files for format conversion...