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Wednesday, 4 May 2005 | Levent OZLER
Craft Animations Releases Craft Camera Tools
with Camshaker
Craft Animations Releases Craft Camera Tools with Camshaker
Craft Animations, the inventors of the innovative HYPE engine, releases the commercial plug-in suite Craft Camera Tools with CamShaker for Maya Windows.
Craft Camera Tools, earlier released for 3ds max and autodesk VIZ, is used by animation artists to control and record camera movements through different kinds of physical simulations directly in the viewport, in real-time, with a joystick.
The included products are Craft HeliCam, Craft AeroCam (with CamShaker), Craft SpyCam (with CamShaker) and Craft SpaceCam.
About Craft HeliCam
The algorithms used in Craft HeliCam are based on state of the art and beyond research in modeling of helicopter physics. The major advantage of these algorithms compared to prior ones is that they make the helicopter very easy to maneuver. Within an hour of training one can fly as skillfully as a professional helicopter pilot.
An important feature is to connect a helicopter mesh to the camera. When this is done steer the helicopter mesh from a perspective view (instead of the HeliCam camera view), or better with a camera that has the target linked to the helicopter mesh.
About Craft AeroCam
Craft AeroCam behaves like an airplane, however simplified to be usable as a camera tool. The camera is quite difficult to navigate and requires a great deal of practice to master. The easiest way to use it is when performing dogfight like situations far away from surrounding objects. In such situations you link your airplane mesh to the camera after some flying, and create a new camera with which you follow the previously created one. With this method one can create quite realistic flight maneuvers.
The camera is equipped with a horizontal regulator (joystick fire-button) and translational breaks (joystick button 2). Use the horizontal regulator to automatically flatten out your airplane to horizontal pitch and roll angles.
The camera is also equipped with CamShaker, which have two kinds of shake modes. The first one is applied with the turbulence button (button 3), and will pitch the camera in a sinusoidal manner up and down giving the impression of fast fly turbulence. The second shake mode is a random noise shaker (button 4). It can be used to simulate explosions, earthquakes, crashes or other corresponding vibrations. This random noise shake mode should be used in combination with the horizontal regulator to keep the camera from tipping over.
About Craft SpyCam
Craft SpyCam is quite straight forward, and is usually used to fly in the scene with high controllability. The camera gives a smooth human feeling to the recording when following moving objects, especially by making the camera rotate around the target. It is also great when shooting inside complex architectural buildings, to just move around and show the interior.
The camera is equipped with an orientation memory regulator. In the joystick picture below the second button is called memory button. When this button is pressed the cameras current orientation is saved to memory. Then whenever the orientation memory regulator button (the fire-button) is pressed the camera will automatically turn towards the memorized orientation.
The camera is also equipped with CamShaker, which has two kinds of shake modes. The first one is applied with the turbulence button (button 3), and will pitch the camera in a sinusoidal manner up and down (e.g. it can be used to quickly give the impression of
a human walking). The second shake mode is a random noise shaker (button 4). It can be used to simulate explosions, earthquakes, crashes or other corresponding vibrations. This random noise shaker mode should be used together with the orientation memory regulator to keep the camera pointed in the wanted direction.
About Craft SpaceCam
Craft SpaceCam is modeled after a craft (such as a satellite) moving in zero gravity with rockets in every direction, and various break rockets.
The way to use this camera is to put it in a correct, and usually slow spin and translation, and just let it flow past the scene being recorded. This gives the camera recording a smooth, weightless feeling. We have actually thought of changing the name to FlyByCam.
This plug-in requires quite a lot of practice to master. To aid the camera man controlling the movements 4 kinds of breaks have been added. Button one is called an Airplane Break and breaks all rotational velocities and all but the forward translational velocities. Button two breaks the translational velocities. Button three breaks the rotational velocities. Button four breaks all velocities.
http://www.craftanimations.com
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