Record Camera Motion Into Animation
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Hello-
I was looking at this little gadget:
http://www.3dconnexion.com/3dmouse/spacenavigator.phpand I started wondering if there's a way to record an animation based on camera movement.
Does anyone know of a way I can hit "record", then reposition the camera, and have what I saw on screen become the animation export?
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That is an interesting idea. I'm pretty sure its possible, but has not been done before that I know of. It could be interesting.
Chris
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Hmm, thinking more about it, it might require re-writing the navigation tools so that they don't de0activate the recording plugin. And that would not be compatible with the space navigator I'm pretty sure.
So this might not actually work
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OK, I take it back. Using the view observer, a ruby script could log the camera location and direction, regardless of what tool might be active. Therefore it would be possible to start recordin, log all camera positions and directions, and the time that location was recorded to a file. Then use that log to export a series of stills that coule be turned into a movie using quicktime or similar software.
Chris
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or it could export a page maybe every second. That might even help smooth out some of the user shakyness.
Sorry, this is turning into a little brainstorm session...feel free to jump in. I might move this over to the ruby ofrum though,
Chris
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Keep going Chris. I like your thinking so far
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I'm sure it's been done - just a matter of finding it.
http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/recordersusix.rb
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Hmm, looking very quickly at the code, it looks like he has more commented out than actually working. I'm not if the plugin works, though I didn't test it. I started piecing something together too. It seems to be working, but I am struggling with saving the images out. I don't normally use the file system through ruby, and its always challenging to me....grrr.
Chris
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Wow, Chris.
Perhaps you could focus on the "scene every second" first.
Will you use a constant target distance? -
I would plan on just using whatever the user has set. Wherever they are looking, and their perspective would be what gets used.
Chris
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ok, I went ahead and wrote something. It can be found here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=23517
Chris
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Amazing!
I'll go look at it now.
As far as reducing user "shakiness," that little 3d navigation hardware is the answer for that.
Google earth has this exact feature: you can hit record, navigate however, whereever you want, then save it as an animation.
One of the nice things, is that you can save "scenes" (placemarks in google earth), and jump to them while recording.
I'm assuming this would work with a similar solution in sketchup.
The result would be a powerful tool, which would allow you to have different intervals between scenes in a linear animation.
Enough chat for now.
I'm off to check out the fruits of your labor.
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Great, go look at it. But I've got an update for it hopefully today. So check back later and see if I've updated it. The new update will allow you to export a scene for each recorded frame. Hopefully this will make my plugin compatible with all renderers.
I hope it works for you,
Chris
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Amazing!
What are the limitations as far as what this will record? I noticed, for example, that if X-ray mode is switched on during the recording, the X-ray switch is not shown on the animation playback.
The path tool is interesting. I'm assuming the marks are shown everywhere a frame is recorded?
Is there a tool out there that allows the creation of a camera path like this, which can be edited?
This is very cool. Does it work every time like this: Has anyone seen a plugin that... and then, poof!, Chris replies with a hot-off-the-press plugin? (JK
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Hey, so it took a day longer than I expected, but I got this plugin updated finally. Here is the plugin thread where you can download it at:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=23517
Once I verify that this new version is working on PC and Mac, I think I might send email it over to the folks at logitech. See if they are interested in doing a little write-up on it or anything. I think it does add value to their line of 3d mice.
Chris
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