Fly through tutorials for Max

[Robur]

Hi,

Anyone know of a good fly/walk through tutorial for MAX? Ie nice camera moves

Thanks.

[unknown]

dont think that will ever exist. Flythroughs by there nature are dull.

you need to look at film making, shot composition, narrative, and putting this alltogher in a nice flowing edit.

here are some tips, find a narrative, good architecture, characters, details etc. Dont try and look at everyhting. Build an edit with previs shots or stills, get the flow, add some music, shuffle your clips. Then build it up that way. Always start with draft outputs, then dont be afraid of chopping and being brutal

if your interested my colleage is doing a cinematography lecture at imagina as part of the vismasters section. and it should be good, he came up with all the best films that Smoothe ever did. Rotunda, Chips etc etc.

[percydaman]

well unfortunately, elderly people looking to buy a retirement condo, aren't necessarily interested in a bunch of neato camera moves. Or at least our developer clients dont think they are. Best way is just to do it, and gain personal experience.

[unknown]

percy. this is true. But I find that clients are actually up for more than most think. Obviously some arnt.... but the typical property client cant use their imagination, so until they see somehting good, they never ask for anyhting they have no knowledge about.

using your example, they might not want neat camera moves, but a well thought out film( incorporating careful shot selection), showing all thing srelivant to retirement couples, like focusing on luxy details, accesability, activities etc, would be worth alot more than floating robot cam.

but i guess thats kinda digresing from the question. So try yourself, do some cams, whack em in premiere and start editing. oh, and try and plan before you start.



its like trying to polish a turd. i hate flythoughs.

[Neilg]

You could always take some inspiration from a film called irriversible. Should be good fun setting those cameras up, at least.


(as far as just motion goes) Smooth flythroughs just take time and practice, really nice well done ones just take a serious desire. Pay attention to camera movements in films and try to think about their position relative to the rest of the set too, you'll realise a suprising amount about what you can and cant get away with.

[Robur]

Guys - thanks for the input.... yeah I can see that watching real film work with eyes on the camera motion would help a lot... It would be great to push the red button so that we can see the footage from the camera filming the camera .... my aim is to avoid that disembodied, floating through space feel that I have been so good at to date

Would you say that sticking with a spline path for the camera is a good option..... or pure key frames?

Cheers.

[studioDIM]

Either way, you get spline interpolation (between the fist and last key of the spline controller, or between the hand keys. turning trajectory display on will show you a spline-like object for the camera motion, with small white dots between keys showing camera positions at different frames).
The only way i ever animated a camera in a "right" way was through continuous preview and tweaking, until it looks good, whatever the method chosen.
In general, it helps heaps to have an idea of where you want to go from an editor perspective, and split up motions in small chunks, so that they can be easier to tweak (in max, or in post/editing), and do not bore the viewer to death (i personally loathe those looooooooong camera moves. they reek of bad CG from miles away ).

In short: keep them short, keep them simple, and experiment as much as time-constraints allow you to on a simplified scene version.
And use an editing/post production software to change the camera speed in realtime once the clips are sitting on a timeline.

Lele

[Neilg]

Would you say that sticking with a spline path for the camera is a good option..... or pure key frames?

I tend to use a spline for the camera path and keyframe the target manually. Well, If i'm using one, depends on what the shot needs.

[tricky]

if your interested my colleage is doing a cinematography lecture at imagina as part of the vismasters section. and it should be good, he came up with all the best films that Smoothe ever did. Rotunda, Chips etc etc

Look forward to this - myself and my colleague will be out there supporting the British CG crowd. We saw a talk by Neoscape (I think it was them anyway) in Boston last year about producing good cinematic animation which was all very interesting. They're end product wasn't so hot though in my opinion.

[jhiler]

One rule we tend to follow when doing animations is to not stick with one camera and path. It can be hard to show everything with one camera so split it up into multiple views. Plus with one camera you may get some really jerky movements that when you use multiple cameras you can smooth it out more.

Using Splines isn't a horrible thing but they can add jerks (more than just the clients...) to your animation. We try to keyframe it as much as possible and by keyframing it you can control it a little more. Some people here hate the Target camera and will only use Free cameras, but I work with both.

[Robur]

... more thanks folks.... much appreciated

Heck I wish I could make it to Imagina..... looks like a great event.

Cheers

[unknown]

gack. try not to use the target camera, unless the shot is locked off. Otherwise you can get a weird paralax movment, if you move the camera, and the target, but they arent moving in the same way.
i tend to stick to free cams where possible.


try this. the motion capture utility, its great for wobble person cam. make a dummy, put all the movement on it, link a free cam, set up the mocap, and plugin a joystick, link it all up, see the manual for this. cant be bothered explaining it, its not too tricky. attach zoom to a keyboard key. roll the camera, and off you go point and shoot. zoom as your camera move around the scene.

add a little noise to the dummy using a list controller, for some subtle jerks, and you there you have. confused in a hurry cam. Fun to play with tho. I haev used this for a few shots.

another great one is. motion capture on a biped, link the camera to the head, and away we go. great for handy cam shots. i have used this a few times, add some grain and you get a rgeat 8mm hand held look.