Preview - Sketchup Floating Camera [Update 2011-03-19]]

bentleykfrog

Thanks guys,

It's however a little hard to see how it performs in the video.
Is the small jerkyness in movements also present without screen recording software?

There's two issues causing the jerkyness in the movements. The first was the screen recording software that I used. I'll have to play around with some encoders until I get something acceptable. The second issue is the script itself. I've been putting off optimising the code until now and there are a few measures that I can try to improve the performance of the script. There's also some boundingbox degrading that Sketchup does naturally when you modify the Sketchup.max_draw_time to something below what your system can handle, but I haven't been able to replicate this when the script is running.

@pixero said:

I especially liked when the camera walked down the stairs. I though I saw some damping in the movement.

Heh, thanks. The unusual way that the camera walks down the stairs in the video is due to the speed set on the camera (20km/h). This speed is equivalent to a quick jog down the stairs so you see some unusual movements at this speed. I've noticed that in some video games the camera moves up stairs even faster than this, and I think they use some hidden smooth ramp to make sure the camera moves in a nice fashion. I'll have to modify some of the dampening to mirror this, but its a bit complex.

mitcorb

Congratulations on your work so far. This is a significant development.
I was going to ask the same questions regarding the relative smoothness in negotiating the stairs.

Chris Fullmer

Yeah, this is looking really super! I better go fix my script's inability to handle FOV changes then I guess

Chris

JClements

Looks pretty neat.

I do like the idea of holding the camera at a fixed altitude.

If you could then have ability to focus on a point or selected object or just the center to the screen and orbit about it at a fixed radius, that would be very useful .... like what what can be done in Google Earth with the Shift-Alt-left-arrowkey or Shift-Alt-right-arrowkey combinations.

wimve

Wow looks great. Although not tested yet I have a question already: is it possible to include a "flightpath" ? So a predefined camera path.

For instance when you want to walk through several rooms it is hard to move around nicely with only the keyboard keys. But if you draw a line at the desired eyeheight which the camera has to follow this would be easier.

dtrarch

Just brilliant.

And in a $495 program !
It looked like there was a path option but please if possible so that one could create that first and then run the camera gestures.
WOW

dtr

bentleykfrog

@jclements said:

Looks pretty neat.

I do like the idea of holding the camera at a fixed altitude.

If you could then have ability to focus on a point or selected object or just the center to the screen and orbit about it at a fixed radius, that would be very useful .... like what what can be done in Google Earth with the Shift-Alt-left-arrowkey or Shift-Alt-right-arrowkey combinations.

Good suggestion, that would be a cool feature to have. In this release I'm just focussing on navigation from the human proportion coupled with the ability to float if you need to I'll look into more sophisticated methods of camera animation in the next release.

bentleykfrog

@wimve said:

Wow looks great. Although not tested yet I have a question already: is it possible to include a "flightpath" ? So a predefined camera path.

For instance when you want to walk through several rooms it is hard to move around nicely with only the keyboard keys. But if you draw a line at the desired eyeheight which the camera has to follow this would be easier.

I haven't looked into this but it could be possible, but its sort of going in the opposite direction to what the plugin does currently. I'll elaborate a little.

First off, I think Rick Wilson's plugin FlightPath2 handles flight paths, or there's also SU Animate. Have you tried these plugins? This is what comes to mind when I think of implementing a flight path in the plugin, are you thinking of something similar or do you have something different in mind.

In my current internal build of the script, you can use it in combination with either Chris Fullmer's Camera Recorder or Pixero's version of Chris Fullmer's Camera Recorder to record the Camera's flight path whilst using the Camera Float Tool. In Pixero's version, you can then modify this path (ie. remove all the bumps from the flight path) and then produce a final animation from the revised flight path. I used this technique in the first video to get a 'more-smooth' animation through the model and to produce a video that is rendered with shadows (obviously navigating with the Camera Float Tool with shadows on will slow down your movements significantly).

Also from your query, I decided to test the tool on a very tight model (Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye by Robert-34000 on the 3d Warehouse). This model has insanely tight stairs and a ramp and its internal arrangement is all over the place (IMO obviously). I've recorded the video for you to see how it faired:

[flash=800,480:3r7gzeob]http://www.youtube.com/v/fXncZU60Ftc[/flash:3r7gzeob]

If you notice at around the 42 second mark, I accidentally jump onto the ballustrade of the ramp. You should be able to edit this out using Pixero's version of Chris Fullmer's Camera Recorder. Also notice, that since I couldn't be bothered removing all the doors in the building, that I disable collision every time I want to pass through a door.

I'm also planning to add a different scale for looking up and down so you get better control whilst navigating through your model.

Pixero

Looking good! Can't wait to try it.

Bertier

Hello,

is it possible to try your plugin ?

rombout

how is the plugin coming?! has been a couple months already really want to try it

Phil Rader AIA

Any news on a release date?

bentleykfrog

@unknownuser said:

Any news on a release date?

Hi Phil, you can try out the public beta at Floating Camera Public Beta 1.x Thread. I've updated the main post with a link to this too.

tspco

I think I missed something, I tried a test "float" everything was great and working real well until I ended up underneath my model, I could see that was going to happen. I see there is a toggle to maintain camera height, but I can't find a place to enter camera height. So far I like this plugin.

bentleykfrog

@tspco said:

I think I missed something, I tried a test "float" everything was great and working real well until I ended up underneath my model, I could see that was going to happen. I see there is a toggle to maintain camera height, but I can't find a place to enter camera height. So far I like this plugin.

Hi Ryan, I'm working on user input for camera height and field of view for the next version. In your case this would be an issue since camera height works by checking if there is any geometry below the camera position. Since you're underneath your model, there's no geometry, so there's no camera height, so you'll need to move the camera up until you're above the model. The default keys to move the camera up and down are shift and control respectively.

Also, you can modify or find out the keys for specific movement in Floating Camera by loading the controls dialog (click the icon in the toolbar that looks like a c-key).

Hope this helps.

-niall

tspco

After working with it again, I realized what happened I was over the model and as I was moving I was headed for the ground. Not sure how, I did a short video at a higher level, and other than I was not high enough to fly over my light poles and the camera bounced over them, it looked real good.
As I was flying I could not manage to make nice sweeping curves, but that may come with practice.

tspco

A short video using Floating Camera and Camera Recorder
http://youtu.be/9mDYQBtYC04

cmathisson

Hi I wonder if this plugin still is work in progress or it is placed on a shelf somewhere? i have tried it and it feels promising, but I'm missing some features and bugg fixes. I'm playing around whit my playstation 3 controller and a program called GamePad Companion 3.2 and it works nicely for emulating mouse and keyboard for diffrent controllers and I'm thinking of using that together with this plugin. Thanx for anything that could help

-Chris

Nostrathomas85

You know, this is a nice plugin to use with a xbox 360 controller.
The controller allows for a more natural feeling of moving the camera.

I use joy2key to map the keys to the controller, really works good using joysticks.
joy2key is free if anyone is interested just have to find it on google.

This is my first post and I hope it isn't seen as spam, I just wanted to suggest an
alternate way of controlling this plugin and to say thanks for the plugin.

derei

Ok SketchUp 2015 it doesn't want to load... giving me this error:

Error Loading File floating_camera.rb Error: #<SyntaxError: C:/Users/######/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/floating_camera/mixin/load_instructor.rb:239: invalid multibyte escape: /^\x89PNG/ invalid multibyte escape: /^\xff\xd8\xff\xe0\x00\x10JFIF/ invalid multibyte escape: /^\xff\xd8\xff\xe0/ invalid multibyte escape: /^\xff\xd8\xff\xe1(.*){2}Exif/ C:/Users/######/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/floating_camera/mixin/load_instructor.rb:366: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting keyword_then or ',' or ';' or '\n' when 1: puts "file failed (invalid t... ^ C:/Users/######/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/floating_camera/mixin/load_instructor.rb:367: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting keyword_then or ',' or ';' or '\n' when 2: puts "file failed (unknown):... ^> C:/Program Files/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/Tools/RubyStdLib/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:45:inrequire'
C:/Program Files/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/Tools/RubyStdLib/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:45:in require' C:/Users/######/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/floating_camera.rb:49:in class:CameraFloatTool'
C:/Users/######/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/floating_camera.rb:48:in <module:CControl>' C:/Users/######/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/floating_camera.rb:45:in <top (required)>'`