Better camera animation control?

Hi,

I’m not getting any luck animate the camera.
I want to start with the camera close up on an object 10 meters up from ground rotated in Y -90° then slowly move the camera backwards rotating it back to normal and then accelerate doing a big swoop over the whole area and finally ending up slowing down looking at an object 2 meters from ground.

Can anyone point me to a tutorial showing some nice camera animation techniques for better controlling the camera?

I have tried a few camera along path pointing at an empty that animates but i just don’t feel i get much control to change speed and distance to achieve the above scenario.
Other tutorials i’ve found is basically a camera rotating an object or going from point A to point B.

I’d appreciate all tips and help i can get!

It seems the problem is not so much the tools used to move the camera (the path and empty) as it is the control of those tools.

Animate your camera along the path using key frames on the evaluation time. Put a key frame at the beginning and end, and anywhere (position wise) you want the camera slow down or speed up.

Do the same thing for the location of the empty. Putting a key frame at the beginning and end, and anywhere you want the empty movement to change.

Now You need to open the graph editor and the dope sheet. The dope sheet is a simple way to move key frames around. Watch your animation loop in the view port, then select and “slide” the “diamonds” on the dope sheet timeline and watch how it effects the timing.

The graph editor is where you can adjust the values at the key frames and adjust how the object speeds up and slows down. I usually like to start by turning everything into a vector, then to free so I can adjust everything individually.

To get the camera movement perfect is a simple matter of playing with the path, the empty, the dope sheet and the graphs.

It just take some time…

place57, Thanks for the tip.

I realized that each time i changed the path i needed to remove and set a new key frame for the camera ending position otherwise the movement went all weird.

My animation was in two steps and i couldn’t get the transition between the first and second part smooth.
Step 1 (5% of the distance) was a close up with a slow camera moving backwards rotating and step 2 (95% of the distance) was a faster swoop over the room with a ease out ending.
The start was a fade in match against real video footage of a product and the end was a fade out against another real video footage of an warehouse environment.
Now it runs smooth and the way i want.

Thanks for taking the time to try explaining.

Cheers.