Can you change the point of origin of a camera focus cone so you can move a camera in a tight space without distort the scene.
An example.
If you are moving down a hall and have the camera turn to a window. Just like as if it is a person.

As the camera is setup if you change the focus on the camera it will distort the scene. And if you keep the default focus you will have to remove the wall and swing the camera out beyond it to get the shot. Is there something in A:M that will move the camera focus point back behind the camera but not to be blocked by any object or wall?

I don't quite understand what you're saying, you can change the focal length of the camera if that's what you mean, heck, you can animate the focal length (good for those BSG/Firefly style zoom effects)

The camera location is always the origin of the camera cone.


You really mean "focal length" right? Focal length controls how wide the view of the camera is.




That's the choice you have to make. In real life they build sets with removeable walls so they can do that. In CG you can hide your walls. But you gotta do one or the other.

That answered that question.
I know in real life you are limited by the cameras design. But is CG it should be no problem to given you the option to change it. Just like they do in video games. It would cut down on some fancy shuffling of the models in the choreograph. I think I will add it to AM report as a feature. But in the mean time I think I can use the fish eye rig with some modification with its optics to do the same thing.

The feature already exists. Temporarily hide the wall or move it. It works for Pixar.

It is so straight forward to hide or move objects in CG, I don't see what the problem is. Something is missing here.

Geometry is geometry. If you want a certain view with a certain focal length you have to put the camera in a certain location. To put the camera in one location and make an image as if it were somewhere else... there is no need for that when it is so easy to put the camera in that somewhere else spot.

You said you didn't want to distort the view. But now you do? Something is missing here.

Evan thou the original question was answers “And that was a no”

And yes I am putting it in the A:M report since it would offer a solution to a lot of work around and open up many possible scene that are currently impossible or difficult to do.(the video below shows an example of a scene that can not be done as is but is no problem to see in a game)

I am surprised they don’t have this option in the first place. In all your first person perspective video games they have to offset the perspective behind the players point of view. So the scene is not distorted and the player do not feel like they are looking thru a zoom lens. Also you can move up to anther character and still have a good view of the character.

The first image shows the problem. You have to give a fare amount of space between the camera and the object you are filming. This is a hold over from how a normal camera works. This is a program you don’t need to eat up so much space. Whether you realize it or not everyone has to build the scenes around the space needed for the cameras instead of the scene it self. I have seen people put cameras in windows, corners, turning off walls and as last resort change how they do the scene.

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The following videos will show this better.

The first one is a camera with normal settings. It moves down a path then stops next to the character then the camera turns to the character. The end of the hallway looks ok but when it turns you get a good shot of her nose.
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The second I changed the focus. You can see what happens
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The third
I removed the side wall and offset the camera 10' back. The hole scene looks good except the missing wall.
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Four Put back the wall. And there is no work around for this scene.
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I did have a Fifth video that used a mirror (not a practical methed but it did enough to show it) but the file was to big to upload. It did show the consepet better.

Have you tried using a Orthogonal camera? That might get you what you are looking for.

Yes I look at iT no such luck.
Thanks anyway

I remember watching the movie Bound written and directed by the brothers who did the Matrix. There is a great sex scene with the two main stars both women. In the shot the camera enters the room and swings around the characters. The room was too small for the camera and crew. I couldn't figure out how they did it.

In the commentary they explain that the walls were moved back when they were not in frame to allow the room for the camera and crew. Picture a delicate perfectly timed dynamic room that never allows the walls to get to close to the camera as the camera approaches the walls.

A novice would say to just move the camera closer to the subject to avoid the walls but then you need to use a wide angle lens to get the subject in the shot and worst than that the subject is distorted depending on how wide the angle of the lens is. In AM it would be how obtuse the camera cone is.

In AM we have a much easier solution than having a bunch of P.A.'s and Grips picking up walls and moving them out of the way in the middle of a shot.

We can turn off the wall. In the chor click on the Object/wall and turn off the Active option just before the camera gets obscured by the wall. So long as animate mode AKA Record Keyframe mode is ON you can animate the wall ON or OFF create the effect you desire.

Your feature won't solve the problem. The camera is already a virtual viewpoint. Where ever you put that new virtual virtual viewpoint the camera is going to see what it would see from that point.

Suppose you did shot 4 with your feature. At what point would it stop seeing the wall? To satisfy your description the wall would have to be visible at the beginning and become not visible at the end. When does the wall disappear?

My solution does work for shot 4. all I need is the project to show you. Its true the camera move would need to be altered a little but the solution will work.

It appears the camera trucks in than dolly's in an arch. This is not a move you would see in the real world very often if at all. Mainly because it looks bad.

Solution.

Truck in as before.
Pan slightly left avoiding the wall on the right side of the frame at the end of the truck forward.
Turn active off for the right wall.
Dolly in a arch to the right while in conjunction Panning left to frame the subject aka animated girl.

Is this close to what you want?

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If it won’t work then this video should not be possible ether.
You can fast forward to about 2:28 but there are many more scenes in the video and more videos out there that show similar situations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrnBtbCF_aE

The hallway is about four or five feet wide a small space.
But there cameras gives you a pretty good shot for a small space.
and they don’t need to remove a singe wall.

Somewhat unrelated: Perhaps you can render from a light (one that doesn't light anything) instead?
We do have that capability in A:M.

Not sure about the walls but.. for the walls could you have the the normals all pointing in and then render/capture the shot with back face culling off? This should cause the walls to automagically disappear.

What I'd probably do for optimal control might be to use compositing. (Don't forget to set Alpha Channels to On when rendering)
- Render the interior scene without any walls.
- Render again with the walls on (for maximum control render each wall separately)
- Use the walls you need in each scene
This might be the virtual equivalent of moving each wall into and out of the scene.

If all walls were rendered separately you could use this technique for a quick down and dirty way of disappearing or changing objects anywhere in a scene: Make note of which frames have the walls covering your shot and drag and drop/replace those images with fully transparent images. (Note: You might be able to just delete those images/frames as I believe A:M just ignore the missing image files. It would unfortunately terminate an animated image sequence)

It turns out the lights only zoom/enlarges the screen. When you use perception mode on the lights they stay in orthogonal mode but zoom in. Nice try any way

Also the above scene was setup so you could not use the “hiding the wall trick” to demonstrate the problem of the cameras needing space.

I don’t need it on any of the scenes I am doing right now. It would have made some of them a little easier to do but there is no show stoppers.

I am just surprised that the video gaming industry had solved this problem a long time ago but the film industry never added it in when they started using animation software.



I remember stumbling on that once before. But for the life of me I don’t know where you turn that on and off?

have you even looked at the one I posted? you never answered if that was close to what you were looking for

Sorry
Yes I did look at it.
It would have been a good alternative if I needed to do a scene like that.

But in this case it was just an exercise to demonstrate the camera space problem.

Thank anyway

P.S. Did you manage to do that shot with out hiding the wall?

yes I did manage to do that without hiding walls or anything like that. I simply animated the focal length to get wider when the camera does the rotate around the character

Show Back Facing Polys is set under Tools > Options > Rendering. But it is only selectable with Quality set to Realtime or Shaded. If you render in Final Quality, the faces are not culled. If you render in Shaded or realtime, the wall must not be solid geometry or you have to flip the normals on the outside of the wall to point inward.

The clip on Youtube you give as an example is most likely because of the FOV that the default first person view is set to (75 degrees).http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Field_of_View For the first person view, the camera does not go outside the walls. This is how they give the impression of viewing from the first person point POV.

This is only my opinion, but in your example 4, if you keep the same focal length as you pass by the character, you loose the effect of a hallway. As a real person walking down a hallway, you would see only a small portion of the person and would have to pan up and down to take in the whole body. It depends on what effect you are trying to present to the viewer.

Other possible solution: a material effector. Box type - easiest to match to the Camera view. material set to 100% transparency. You could probably constrain it to the camera and use Expressions to size it. you would of course have to manually angle it to match the walls/ objects to want to see through.

Coming to this late, but a question about what the shot is about. Is the intention that someone is just walking down the hall and casually turning to their friend to talk? Is it POV of another character? Your solution may just be to do a cut. Start the turn and then jumpcut to the shot the way you would like it (with the wall now out of the way, so your camera can be back to the distance you want.

Something akin to this:

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I did this quickly, but it works. (It would work even better if I'd spent the time to match the speed of the camera move. You could also spend some time to make sure the figure stays a similar scale to what you're expecting.

Thinks




Yes I notes that the focus length is a little off it should be 70. But I did not what to add to the confusions.



That would be correct.
The option I mentioned was from the point of view of a programer as how to get it to work.

Here is a example in reverse. If you move the point at which you take the pitcher forward and move the X,Y,Z control of the camera with it. You will be able to make a shot as if you are standing right next to the object but make it look like you are further back from the subject with out using the focus length. In a scene where you need to move the camera around. The more you change the focus length the more your scene start to distort.
This dose away with the hiding trick and the focus distortion.
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One thing you mist.. You made the hallway a lot bigger to get the shot. (and that is the point)

If and when A:M gets around to add the option to the camera I bet you guys will find a lot of uses. And find your scenes far easer to set up.

Before I get into trouble this is the end of the topic. And I need to get back to what I was doing.

Thanks guys

you can bring the focal length point closer to the camera, I'm still quite confused by what you want, but I suppose the more experienced people probably know what you're talking about

I didn't turn the camera within the hallway, so that really doesn't matter. It's two shots. The first shot within the hallway, the second shot with the side wall of the hallway removed. The viewer follows the movement of the first shot and accepts the second shot as what they "expect" to see.

If you move the perspective focal point back it will act like a revers zoom lens. You will get a wider shot with out the distortions you get from focus length.
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In the zip there are three clips and the project.

I am showing a top down shot of the cameras moving down a hallway. Think of a killer chasing someone,

The first one used a normal camera..
As the clip reach one of the turns pause it and look at how much of the cone is touching the wall. That is what you will see in you film. And it dose not do to well around the corner ether.

The second clip shows the camera on a dolly. When it gets to the turn you would get a go shot of the end of the hallway but the camera swings out as it turns.

If you can pull back perspective focal point it would be like the third clip. First the camera never leave the hallway.

Since the focus has not change the scene remains in the correct perspective. And you get a good wide shot of the end of the hallway as you turn. You can look closelly and see the new camera position.

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