I am still on my Demo period, and was playing around with CTA, I really love it.
But Something I couldn't understand, I added a scene and two characters, I know how to record a zoom-in/out or moving camera, but I wanted to record a spot A to spot B without letting the camera move.

As example: I want to focus on the face of Character A and shoot that spot, then after few seconds I want that the camera spots the Character B without moving to B, just Cut Cut Cut. How can I achieve that ? I tried different methods but the camera always move from A to B when I preview the result.

I hope my post and question is clear, and will be very thankful for any tip.

Hi waseem

Try the following example and see if it helps. In this i'm switching from a closeup of one character to another at frame 300.

1) Switch on Camera Recording (Camera Mode Switch).

2) Move the camera into closeup position of Character 1 at Frame 1 (Transform key is set).

3) Copy the transform key at Frame 1 and paste it at Frame 299.

4) Move to Frame 300 and now move the camera to a closeup of Character 2. (Key is set)

5) Repeat as required for further camera switches.

Now when you press Play the camera should stay on Character 1 until frame 300 when it will switch (not pan) immediately to Character 2.

Give it a try and see if this is what you are looking for.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Yes that's exactly what I want to do, thank you very much for the reply.

But I guess CTA should have easier way for that, I mean if the developers added some different options for the camera mode where we can achieve this easier way. But this method does the trick.

Thanks again,
Best regards.

How should it be any easier?  it's already quite easy, and emulates standard timeline based keyframe animations.

I don't mean editing from the timeline is hard, but if there was more options for the camera mode to do that instead of copying and pasting the frame several times would make the process much much easier.

As example, if you click on the Camera button, more oprions will pop up, like Zooming, Moving from target to target, put on specific spots etc.. This should help the beginners like me, because I really was confused the first 3 days just to figure out how to do that instead of having the camera moving around my targets the whole time till Peter helped me out :D thanks to him.

You don't necessarily have to copy and paste the keyframe.  Set the camera on frame one, and in the timeline, open the camera transform channel, press the Add Key button.  (Actually there should already be a key at frame one but in case rthere isn;t).  Move to frame 299, press the Add Key button.  Move to frame 300 and move the camera to whereever you want, a new key will automatically be made.  Now let's say you want the camera to hold there for 50 frames, so move ahead 50 frames and press Add Key button, move to frame 51, move the camera to whereever you, a key will automatically be made.

Thank you wizaerd, this is a bit easier than copy and paste keyframes.. That lets me enjoy the program much more now :)

Another question, instead of opening a new topic for it I would like to ask it here if you don'T mind ..

If I want to change the Scene (the whole background) like changing the place from Home to Street, how can I do it in the same project ? Do I have to edit that in the Timeline also or is there another way ? Because I tried by moving the cursor to the frame I want it to be the start of changing the scene, then clicked on a scene, but this changed even the whole background from the frame one.

I appreciate any tip and hint.

Are you referring to having more than one scene in a project?  Because if so, you cannot.  But you can animate the opacity channels of the scenes items, thus making some visible, some invisible and effect a change of scenery within a single scene. 

This is the way I do it. I have three scenes.

1. Guy walks to his house.
2. Guy enters his house.
3. Guy sits down on a chair in the living room.

I open a project, and create scene one, save and render it.
I close scene one and open a other, new project and create scene two. then render and save it.
Same procedure for scene 3.

Lets say tou rendered the scenes as wmv (or AVI, whatever)

I then go to a video editor like Premiere pro and import the scenes. Place them on the timeline in the right order and export the movie to the desired format.

Think in scenes, create for every scene a new project. Saves you a lot of rendering time and you do not go crazy figuring out where is what on the timeline.

Cheers,

René

You are correct that the Add Key button will work perfectly for individual camera switches but personally if you intend to switch to the same camera position several times, like in a two way conversation, then I find it easier to copy and paste as required.

There are normally several ways to achieve the same thing in CTA though. Everyone should do whichever method they find easier.  :) 

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com