[~C4 - C5] Create and animate a Targeted Camera with Carrara

[Thomas]

In this tutorial, we will learn to create a Targeted Camera, which we will animate at the end of the lesson step-by-step using the Curve editor in Carrara 5 Pro. This kind of camera, which is not include in Carrara, is useful to create smoother animations and offers a lot more possibilities for your camera movements.
The most interesting aspect of the target camera is that you can animate it by using translations, which are easily animated with the curve editor and allow smooth rotations of the camera itself.

Notes:

• This tutorial can also be applied to targeted lights as the creation and use is exactly the same.
• The first part can be created in all Carrara versions. The third part is only for Carrara 5 Pro, because the Curve editor is only included in this version.

[Thomas]

First part: Targeted Camera Creation

Start this project with an empty scene and switch to Director's camera view. Step back until you can see the default camera. Select it and put it in the middle of the scene. If necessary you can center the hot point of the camera, which is on the front of it. Insert a Target Helper Object and put it on the front of the camera, as shown in the picture below.

Now, in the Modifiers tab of the property panel of the camera, click on the small "+" (1) and choose "Point at" (2).

Once applied to your object, choose the object that will become the target (Red arrow below).

A window pops up in Carrara 5 (you have to enter a name in previous Carrara versions), choose the name of the Target help object (named "Target" in this scene) and validate by clicking OK.

Now, the camera “looks” at the target. If you move the object, the camera will automatically update itself and continue looking at the target. Notice that the camera updates its position when you release the target. Please note that animating the target with keyframes doesn't create keyframes on the camera, even if it changes orientation. You’ll want to be careful of this for your animations.

[Thomas]

Second Part: Animation with the Curve Editor and the Targeted Camera

Add to your scene a kind of simplified car. (Below is a sample of a simple shape, modeled in the vertex modeler. On the left, the Assembly room preview, on the right, the vertex modeler preview). This model will help you to learn a little bit more about the curve editor as well as the Targeted camera.

Create a simple animation for the car: put your timeline manipulator at 1 second (1) and, with the help of the Move manipulator, move the car forward (2). In this example, only a translation on the X axis (red one) has been done. If everything goes well, you should see that a keyframe was created in the timeline (3).

First thing to do to the animation is to change the tweener. It's important to take care of this interpolation because it defines the kind of movement and speed between the two keyframes. By default, Carrara creates linear interpolations, meaning that as the object moves from A to B it does so at a constant speed, without increasing and decreasing speed at the beginning and end. This is not natural in 99% of the situations you will animate. Carrara has several kinds of tweeners, and the one we will use is the Bezier tweener. Start by clicking between the two keyframes in the timeline of the car animation (1). The line changes to a yellow color. Next, in the property panel, click on the "Linear" label. In the popup that appears (2) choose Bezier from the list. The new curve in the preview is now more "natural" (3). If we play the animation, the car has now a more natural movement.

[Thomas]

Third Part: Animation of the Target and Curve Editor

In the previous scene, start by aligning your target with the car, like the picture below shows. It will set the starting position of the target and then the animation. Because of the Look at modifier, the camera looks at the target, and then the car. If needed, open another viewport window and set it to the camera. By doing this you will have a monitor to preview what your camera is looking at.

Now it's time to switch to the curve editor. In the Sequencer, a small button on the top left (shown with the red arrow) lets you switch between the default timeline and the Curve editor.

Click on the Target line title. On the right side a set of colored dots appears. This means that actually, for the selected element, no animation is yet set. Now, take care of that graphical part: two red and blue dotted lines are visible, along with a green one. Why so many lines? Because Carrara shows the animation’s data for rotation, scale and rotation, horizontally for the time, and vertically, for the value. Because this object doesn't have any animation, the curves are flat.

Go back to the 3D view and go the 1 second point (at the end of the car animation) ,select the target (1) and put it on the opposite alignment to let it seek the car movement (2).

Take a look again at the curve editor and you will see a modification has been applied to the curve: the lower red one rises to the top of the editor and now has a small square at the end (like other flat curves). This means that at 1 second, a keyframe has been created and has a value of 18 while at 0 seconds the value of the keyframe is at -6. The straight line means that the movement is linear (like the car animation at the beginning).

Now it's time to focus on these curves. To have a better view of them, we have to zoom on them using the zoom function (1) and filter these curves by opening the target information on the left part of the curve editor until the position (X,Y,Z) line is selected. You should have only three curves left: position X (red), Y(green) and Z (blue).

It's now time to change this animation, as it is too linear. For the first step, select both keyframes of the X (red) curve, at the beginning and end (1) and click on the Spline Tangent button (2). You should see two small red dots on the line (3).

If we focus on the preview-generated dots, we can see that clicking and draging them creates a Bezier curve. The principle is to drawing the curve position/time by changing this Bezier handles to modify this curve. Pick the handle of the first keyframe at time 0 (1) and put it down, like laying it on the floor (1), then do the same for the second keyframe at time 1 but lay on the top (2). The curves now look like the tweener of the car we modified before with the Bezier type tweener. Play the animation and you will see how the target starts, accelerates, has its constant speed, decelerates, and then stops, as the car did.

But using the curves like that is a little bit restrictive because using the tweener preset is a lot faster. The real advantage of the curve editor is that you can create different animations without creating extra keyframes. Again pick the handle of Keyframe 0 and move it down (1). The curve itself goes down to the original value (2), which means that the movement will go backward before going forward... and without changing the original keyframe! (3)

Below is the animation of the target from the camera’s point of view. If we look closely, we’ll see the target go backward before going forward, creating a "counter movement".

For the conclusion, it is important to notice that a keyframe can be added only on one curve (Y for example) and then define a movement only on this curve, without affecting the other curve. On the same scene, you can select the Y/Blue curve and edit its handles and put both of them on the top... and watch the result! This was only a small sample of what you can do with the Curve editor, but keep in mind that it's a really powerful tool for animation. You can even use it for animating shaders, morph targets, and more!

[Noviski]

Cooool, Thomas! You´re the best! Thanks!

[Doug.S]

Thanks, much appreciated and I'm anxious for C5 to arrive; lots of new stuff and looks like a much improved UI too.

[are]

Thanks for this - beyond my skills at the moment - but I will get to it one day....

[Corndog]

... all new to me.
Learned some features and some animation tips to boot.

Ty Thomas

[LoneGunman]

Nice tutorial Thomas !

However, as a begginer and mostly modeler, to show my models better in 3D view, basic thing I need is perfect circular camera motion arround the model itself, any tips how to do that ? Thanks

[Moonglow]

Thanks Thomas,
Must have missed this when first posted. Great tutorial as usual.