Easy and simple, a little ramp downwards at the start, then a turbo and some long left curve to the finish...
1. Place a trigger on the Start Block.
2. Insert a "Custom camera" track at 0:00.
Select the Start keyframe and our value section will popup.
First of all:
Select the Block and set the "Block End" to 0:06.00. Six seconds is about the time the recorded Ghost needs to drive from Start to Finish.
In addition, activate "Keep on Playing", because you never know how slow a real player will be ;-)
Exercise: Free camera
By default, the "Target" Value is set on our Mediatracker Ghost. Set it to "None".
Now your camera is completely free to go wherever it wants to go...
You already learned "How to move the Camera", so select the Start keyframe and place your camera behind the start like in the picture.
Now go to your End Keyframe at 06:00.00 and Copy the values from your Start Keyframe to your End Keyframe.
The Endframe still having selected, move forward with the camera, so your it's somewhere near the Turbo.
Let the Camera look towards the Finish line...
Now you can preview your Clip. This is how your finished Camera play will look like.
Summary
The camera starts behind the Start ramp and takes 6 seconds to reach its final destination at the Turbo.
While the camera moves, you could see, that keeping the car in the middle of the screen didn't work too well...
That's because the "Free Camera" will just follow it's own given path from keyframe to keyframe in it's given time range, no matter what the driver is doing (he might be slow, he might crash etc) ... With a free camera, it's a matter of luck if your car is really visible during the Camera play...
Conclusion: This "Free Camera" might be good for flying around in the stadium (e.g. in the Intro or in a GPS clip) , but it's not good for keeping focus on the real driving action!
Exercise: Target
For the next exercise we have to start from scratch. Delete your old Block and insert a new one at 0:00.00 .. Set the "Block End" to 0:06.00 again and also activate "Keep on Playing", just like in the old block...
This time, keep the "Target" value set on your Ghost... The "Target" value automatically controls the camera's orientation, telling it what to look at.
When trying to move around now, you'll realise that the Target will always stay in the center of the screen, no matter what position your camera has.
But let's be precise for a better understanding:
The Target is not just ~the car~, it's the car's exact geometrical center point.
In the Start Keyframe, place your camera in front of the Start ramp.
See how the Camera will automatically focus the car.
Then go to your End Keyframe and position your camera like it would sit on the right pole.
Again the Camera will automatically focus the car.
Now preview your clip. Isn't that great ?
Summary
The camera starts in front of the Start ramp and takes 6 seconds to reach its final destination at the top of the right pole.
Although the position of your camera is moving steadily towards it's destination, it will always look at the Target car, even if the car doesn't drive as expected.
Conclusion: A "Target Camera" is the weapon of choice to keep focused on a car.
Drawback: The Target camera will always keep it's head straight, so nodding your head from side to side (Ctrl + Right Mousebutton) will not work.
A little help for moving the camera in "Target" mode
If you think that positioning the camera is a bit uneasy, you can help yourself by deactivating the Target (=getting into "Free camera" mode), then move your camera to your desired location and then switch back to the "Target".
Exercise: Anchor
And again ;-) For the next exercise we have to start from scratch. Delete your old Block and insert a new one at 0:00.00 .. Set the "Block End" to 0:06.00 again and also activate "Keep on Playing", just like in the previous block...
This time, set the "Target" to "none", but set the "Anchor" on your Ghost.
The "Anchor" value automatically controls the camera's position during the camera play, telling the camera from where to look.
The camera is placed relative to the Anchor, which means that your camera will always move with the Anchor, keeping the defined distance to the "Anchor" at all times...
Let's be precise again: The "Anchor" is not just ~your car~, it's the exact geometrical center point of the car.
In the Start Keyframe, place your camera in a way that your car appears on the lower right corner.
Actually, you could let the camera look at anything you like, but keeping the car in the corner will give you some orientation of what's happening.
Select the End Keyframe and copy the values from your Start Keyframe to your End Keyframe.
Now the car will appear in the lower right corner again.
By copying the values we can be sure that the camera's relative position to the Anchor is the same, from Start to Finish.
Now preview your clip.
Summary
You'll see that the camera always stays in the same relative position to your anchor, no matter what the car does.
During the whole play the camera doesn't really look at anything particular, it's only the camera's position in relation to the Anchor that is automatically controlled.
Conclusion: An "Anchor Camera" is the weapon of choice to automatically to keep the camera moving along with the car.
Exercise: Target + Anchor
Agaaaain ;-) For the next exercise we have to start from scratch. Delete your old Block and insert a new one at 0:00.00 .. Set the "Block End" to 0:06.00 again and also activate "Keep on Playing", just like in the previous block...
This time, set the "Target" AND "Anchor" on your Ghost.
As you can guess, this time the camera will always keep focus on the anchor and in addition, the camera will move along with the anchor as well..
Place your Camera in Front of the Car on the Start Keyframe, copy the values to the End Keyframe & preview your clip.
Summary
The Car is always in the center of the screen PLUS the camera always keeps the same distance to your car... almost like a default driving cam.
Conclusion: An "Anchor+Target Camera" is the weapon of choice to focus on the 1:1 driving action of a car.
Drawback: Neither Anchor or Target will automatically turn the camera depending in which direction your car is driving.
Why? As I told you, it's always the geometrical centerpoint of the car, which Target+Anchor are aiming at... both functions can't visually display the fact, that this little center point is able to rotate (which happens as soon as your car changes its direction!). In chapter 4 we will present a solution for this little problem.
Ok, you've completed the "Basics". You're already able to move your camera, keep the camera on the car and keep the camera moving with the car... Not bad , but let's get into detail...
Chapter 2 : Camera position
While moving around with the "Free Camera" & while playing your clips, you've seen lots of values change quickly and drastically. We will now explain these values in detail.
X / Y / Z
The Values X / Y / Z are responsible for your camera's absolute position in the stadium.
While X and Z are responsible for movement along the floor (horizontal axis), the Y value changes the height of your camera position (vertical axis).
Besides using your mouse, you can also fine-tune these values by entering them manually.
This is our little track from above. Here you can see the values of the X and Z axis to get an idea of the scale we're talking about.
Of couse, your camera can move freely, so don't be surprised too much if you see bigger values or even negative values, depending on where your camera is.
Influence of "Anchor" on absolute Camera Position
When an Anchor is set, the camera will move along. This means that the Anchor automatically controls the absolute position of the camera within the Stadium.
The X/Y/Z values only describe the relative position of the Camera to the Anchor.
Chapter 3 : Camera Orientation
Just because your camera is in a certain position, you still don't know what it's doing there.
Besides using your mouse, you can also tune these values by entering them by hand.
Pitch, Yaw, Roll and FOV values are all Degree/Angle values.
Attention! An angle of 0° is not the same as 360° !
360 would mean that the camera makes 1 turn around its axis ! This will show if the Cam moves from frame to frame.
The camera's behaviour, which is required to look at something, is called "Orientation".
Pitch
Imagine you're looking through your camera and the camera moves in the direction of the arrows.
In reality, you would be looking up and down.
Yaw
Yaw means turning your (camera) head to the left and to the right.
In free camera mode Yaw:0 causes the camera to look north, along the Z-axis.
Roll
Roll means leaning your head to left and right, while looking straight ahead.
FOV (Field of View / Field of Vision)
The FOV is a quasi-zoom, describing "how much" the camera can see from it's position, using an angle/degree value for its vision field.
While angles from 30° (narrow view) to 90° (wide view) can be considered as "natural" viewing, values below 30 and above 90 will start to bend angles in an unnatural way, similar to a fish-eye lens.
The mousewheel can control the FOV from 10-100°, all other values must be entered by hand.
Because it's not so easy to handle, people often ask about this setting's details and about a useful application... not knowing, that the FOV has some great potential for creating astonishing camera FX.
Here's a video example, "zooming" into a track from above, from a FOV of 175 to a FOV of 10, moving the camera around a bit.
Looks pretty flashy, eh :)
Influence of "Target" on Camera Behaviour
When a Target is set, the camera will always look at the Target. This means that the Anchor automatically controls the camera's behaviour.
Therefor, any attempt to manipulate "Pitch" or "Yaw" manually has no effect anymore. In addition, "Roll" is disabled in Target camera mode anyway (always at 0°), so only FOV is still useable.
Chapter 4 : Creating a driving cam
Exercise: AnchorVis
Forget about this option, I never met anyone who knew what it's good for.
Exercise: AnchorRot
Back to our Track ! Again ;-)
For this special exercise we have to start from scratch. Delete your old Block and insert a new one at 0:00.00 .. Set the "Block End" to 0:06.00 again and also activate "Keep on Playing", just like in the previous block...
Select your "Anchor" and set the "AnchorRot" option, set "Target" to "None"... for both Start/End keyframes.
Now let's create some Egomaniac camera ;-)
AnchorRot (Anchor Rotation) will have a major effect on the camera:
It aligns all 3 axis, X/Y/Z along your Anchor (only if an Anchor is selected!).
In easy terms: The camera will always follow each and every move of your car. It's like you mounted the camera directly on top of the car.
Edit your Start Keyframe values according to the picture on the left.
X:0 means that your camera looks through the middle of the car.
Y:2 means that the camera is a bit above the car.
Z:-5 means that the camera has gone backwards a bit.
Go to your End keyframe and copy the values from your Start keyframe.
Now play the Clip.
If you drive like a total donkey, it will look awful, but it will clearly display what's happening.
Pretty cool already, but maybe a bit hysterical..
Influence of "Target" on Anchor Rotation
The steady turbulence of the AnchorRot will be reduced a lot when "Target" is added, because, as you know, "Target" will supress any "Roll", even the natural body roll of the car (which occurs whenever the car changes direction).
Drawback: Now the car is in the middle of the screen again :ß This problem will be solved in chapter 5.
Beware!
It's strength, the elimination of any Roll is also its weakness, because when driving walls or slopes, the camera can't follow the rotation of the anchor.
So think before you add "Target" if it's ok to do so...
Chapter 5 : Target position
Let's fix the hysterical camera from chapter 4.
As you read at the end of chapter 4, adding the "Target" option to an AnchorRot influenced camera will cause the camera to focus the car in the middle of screen again... useless for a decent driving camera.
Remember what I said before ?
I said "The Target is not just the car, it's the car's exact geometrical center point."
I said that twice, now I'll tell you what for.
"Target position" is able to move that point away from the middle of the car. And that means, that our "Target" camera will not look into the middle of the screen anymore, but at the "new" position of the Target.
AnchorRot is selected too, so our X/Y/Z values are aligned to the Anchor itself and now we can easily position the Target with X= left/right, Y=up/down and Z=forwards/backwards.
Select the Start Keyframe and enter Z:10 as seen in the picture.
Copy the Start Keyframe's values to the End Keyframe as well...
Now that the Target's new position is "10 ahead", the camera will automatically take it into the middle of the focus.
Desired side effect: Our car is now at the bottom of the screen ;-)
Now play the Clip.
As you can see, we created a nice and much more relaxed driving camera...
A little note for moving the Target position
In our case, I could just put the target "10 ahead" because the track was flat.
In complex situations (e.g. entrances to loopings), it might be more clever to raise the target with y:2 and push the target just a bit away with e.g. z:5 ... you'll have to experiment a bit, if you face a situation where things are more complicated.
Congratulations, if you read all this, you know a lot of about Trackmania Cameras :-)
We just have some tiny bits *COUGH* left to learn ;-)
Chapter 6 : Moving from Key to Key
Until now it was pretty easy, because we just a Start keyframe and an End Keyframe. Now we'll take care of the camera movement if you have multiple frames, which the camera must pass.
Preperations
This time you should be sure that you recorded a Mediatracker Ghost, which doesn't take more than 6.00 seconds from Start to Finish (at least not a lot more)...Record a new one, if necessary.
Delete your old Block and insert a new one at 0:00.00 .. Set the "Block End" to 0:06.00 again and also activate "Keep on Playing", just like in the previous block...
Between they Start keyframe (00.00) and the End keyframe (06.00), we'll insert an additional keyframe at 03.00.
Look at the different keyframes. Ensure, that "Anchor" and "Target" are not selected.
(1) Start keyframe (00.00)
We'll face the Car from the front this time.
Please ensure that you use the same precise values as in the picture, you best enter them by hand.
(2) 2nd keyframe (03.00)
The camera just moves backwards, until it sits directly on the top of the pole.
Please ensure that you use the same precise values as in the picture, you best enter them by hand.
(3) End keyframe (06.00)
From the pole, the camera now moves to the right until the finish is visible in the lower right corner...
Please ensure that you use the same precise values as in the picture, you best enter them by hand.
Interpolation : Simple explanation
It's clear the camera will move from Start keyframe -> 2nd keyframe -> End keyframe.
But there are different ways the camera can do this ...
This option handles camera movements between keyframes.
Interpolation: Hermite (default)
Hermite will smoothen out the camera's path between all keyframes, so the moves will always seem like one fluid motion.
Interpolation: Linear
Linear will make the camera move in a straight forward way, from point to point, no smoothening.
Interpolation: None
No movement between keyframes at all is beeing made. Good for snapshot / standstill camera effects..
Interpolation: FixedTangent
This is not simple stuff, see the next chapter for a detailed explanation. If you don't care for mathematical details, forget about it now.
Now you can try the different Interpolation method in our test track, just to see how it looks like. Just don't forget to use the same Interpolation method for all keyframes !
Interpolation : Detailed explanation
Hermite
Although this method is very convenient to use, there's something special about it:
The curvy movement of the camera is not only calculated out of 2 consecutive keyframes, but all keyframes in the block.
In mathematical ways, the curvy movements are described by Tangents (the blue arrows).
The "Hermite" function will calculate all Tangents between all frames (red squares) in a camera block automatically, so everything will be smooth.
When playing your clip, you will often see the Tangent values change, automatically beeing calulcated by "Hermite", so you can't edit them manually.
Drawback
It's biggest strength is its biggest weakness:
Because all tangents are automatically calculated, that also means that, changing 1 keyframe's camera position will automatically affect all other keyframes as well.
Example
You have a camera flight in the Intro, letting the camera pass various really narrow locations, setting lots of different keyframes, so the camera doesn't fly through any objects.
Now you insert just another keyframe further away and just because all values are recalculated, the curvy movement will make the camera now go through several objects. And now what?
It gets worse
And that also means, that there will be curvy movement between 2 keyframes, even if the positions are the same in both keyframes (look at the Tangent picture, 3rd and 4th red squares).
Example
You have a camera flight in the Intro, nice and smooth. At a certain spot you want to make the camera stop, stay there for 2 seconds, then continue it's smooth flight. Most probably you'd insert 2 additional keyframes with the same camera positions to make the camera stay there... do you really believe there will be no curvy movement between those 2 keyframes, just because the camera position is the same ???
Both problems can be solved
If you want a different kind of action, use different blocks! As soon as you think that the "Hermite" automated calculation will cause you trouble, just quit the current Camera Block and insert a new one directly afterwards.
Then copy the position values from the End keyframe of the last block to the 1st keyframe of the new block and you will have a seamless transition between both.
Fixed Tangent
In opposite to the "Hermite" function, "FixedTangent" will let you define all Tangents manually! Keyframe by Keyframe... What a joy! Praise the lord !
As you've seen in the Tangent picture (Hermite), every Tangent leaves its keyframe towards 2 directions, with different attributes.
That's exactly what is meant by "Left tangent" and "Right tangent". The "Left tangent" values point towards the previous keyframe, the "Right tangent" values point towards the next keyframe in the timeline...
X/Y/Z should be clear by now.. you can experiment a bit, I won't explain it in detail...
Pro
You can define every single detail of how the camera should move. This way you also won't suffer the drawbacks of automatic calculation, as described for the "Hermite" function.
Contra
You won't live long enough to finish your work. Although this function is really powerful, it's a complete waste of time, because you'll never need this much detail.
So we've come to the end of this tutorial.
My final recommendation is, that you experiment a lot with cameras, there are lots of cool effects that can be obtained by a sophisticated camera useage.
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tm yaratici sunan online oyunlar, elektronik bilgisayar donanim ve ders internet programlama hizmetleri, ücretsiz müzik cep telefonu veya grafik yazilimi (HiFi lüks) örnegin gibi. 2D/3D doku modelleme ve DVD satin alma ve bluray de desteklenmektedir.
The FOV is a quasi-zoom, describing "how much" the camera can see from it's position, using an angle/degree value for its vision field.
"Target position" is able to move that point away from the middle of the car. And that means, that our "Target" camera will not look into the middle of the screen anymore, but at the "new" position of the Target.
In mathematical ways, the curvy movements are described by Tangents (the blue arrows).
In opposite to the "Hermite" function, "FixedTangent" will let you define all Tangents manually! Keyframe by Keyframe... What a joy! Praise the lord !
