Hi,

I have a scene where a Camera is animated looking at an Interest point while also Rolling. Due to limitations in our exported format we need to bake (plot) the animation curves before exporting.

After plotting the relevant Camera properties however I expect the Interest Point to be unnecessary. However if I remove the Interest Point then I see the Camera making weird movements. It looks like it needs the Interest Point to behave correctly.

Is there any way to solve this? Ideally I would like to deal with just the Camera and not its Interest Point for the exporting.

Hi nazcaspider,

If you have Subscription support setup for MotionBuilder you should log your issues with the Autodesk Support Team. They can provide additional feedback on issues and look at any sample setups you’re working on.

I’ve provided summary of how I think you can get the data plotted to camera for your setup.
Standard Camera in MotionBuilder needs Camera Interest- the Camera Interest acts as an Aim Constraint in directing where the Camera points to, without the Camera Interest(when deleted) the orientation(or aim) of the Camera will not be Keyed.

You can work with Camera’s without Camera Interest, though you will need to animate rotation of the Camera manually instead -or- if you have a Camera with existing Interest that you want to remove, you will need to get the rotation plotted across to the camera itself. Try the following.

1. Go to Navigator View and select your Camera to open the Camera Settings.
2. From the Camera Settings Window, go to the section labelled Interest: This shows what is currently set as the Camera Interest. Select the ... Box to open scene View and deselect Camera Interest so that the Camera is no longer using the Cam Interest.
Note: Although the Camera Interest has been de-selected for the Camera, the Interest object is still in the scene with animation.
3. Go to Asset Browser- Constraints folder and Alt+Drag an Aim Constraint into scene.
4. Go to the Navigator View and select the Aim Constraint to open the Constraints Settings window.
5. From Constraint Settings Window, Alt+Drag the Camera into the ‘Constrained Object’ field then Alt+Drag the ‘Camera Interest’ into the ‘Aim at Object 1’ field.
6. Activate the Aim Constraint by hitting ‘Zero’ in Constrain Settings which will Zero the Constraint to default, lock the constraint and activate.
Key Controls and choose Animation-Plot Selected (All Properties)

Result: the animation for the camera aim will be plotted as rotation on the Camera, the Aim Constraint can then be de-activated from Constraint Settings and you will no longer need the Camera Interest in scene.

Best Regards,

Lee

Another idea would be to duplicate the animated camera, del. the interest and animation and then parent constraint it to the old camera and bake it.

If you need some other aspect of the camera sent to the new one I would feed it with the relation constraint.

I have not tested this but have done the same sort of thing in Maya.

Brad Clark
Co-Founder: Rigging Mentor -Teaching the art and science of character rigging
Author: Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging
The Character Animator Toolkit for Motionbuilder :available now:

Hi,

I tested with new ‘Free’ Camera parent constrained to the old one then plotting- the Roll animation does not transfer in Parent constraint from original cam- which is why I suggested other workaround of recreating/plotting the interest with aim instead- to maintain original Roll on same Cam.

To get the Roll across to new Camera, as Brad suggests:- I think you’d need to use realtional constraint or other to transfer as basic rotation, The Roll is not stored as Rotation on the Camera as you’d expect.

Best Regards,

Lee

Hey Lee, if you copy/duplicate the camera the existing roll animation will be on the new cam all ready and then parent constraint/bake works fine. 

If you created a new Free cam, the you can still do parent constrain on the free cam, and bake, then copy the origCam, select new Free cam and do a paste-special (ctrl b) and select roll , un-checking the t/r/s properties.

Just a few other ways to do it.

Brad Clark
Co-Founder: Rigging Mentor -Teaching the art and science of character rigging
Author: Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging
The Character Animator Toolkit for Motionbuilder :available now:

Yes Brad,

That is correct, sorry I didn’t reaad your post in full. Basically it is different way to do same thing.

The other problem is that they need the Roll as basic rotation on camera for export to game engine- any thoughts on how to get that across?

Regards,

Lee

one way would be to set an upvector for the camera , then then use that instead of roll to animate it.

or you can pipe roll in relation to x rotation of cam while its constrained under the orig cam to allow it to bake out.

Brad Clark
Co-Founder: Rigging Mentor -Teaching the art and science of character rigging
Author: Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging
The Character Animator Toolkit for Motionbuilder :available now: