3D Art 1: Modeling Lesson 7.1.3

Is the camera angle in the same place for each frame?

Blender

Materials:

• Be kind and respectful
• Ask questions
• Don't spam the chat
• Have fun

CLASSROOM EXPECTATIONS

7.1.3 Learn to Animate the CAmera

KeyframesParenting CamerasFollowing motion paths

Today's Agenda

Did you see the new place to find the Geniallys? Is this helpful?

In Blender, it is important to use a camera to render images and movies. Blender will not let you complete a render without a camera in your scene. Simply using just your viewpoints or orbiting in your viewport will not enable you to render your file as an animation. Also, without a camera, you will be able to save a working file, but not a result of special lighting and so forth. With cameras, almost any kind of shot can be achieved on Blender to create 3D movies. There are three main ways to control your camera's captures, and great shots are achievable as long as you can:

• animate the camera in the 3D Viewport using the Keyframe timeline
• use a few controllers like the Parent Object controller
• make sure that the camera follows the path set by you by using the Follow Path functionality

Camera in Blender

Keyframe animation is the process of recording/noting a certain action of an object on your timeline. A keyframe is a marker of time that shows the smooth transition between points in the animation. You previously learned about the Auto Key functionality. While it is useful, it is also important to know other ways to set keyframes. You can set keyframes by hand according to the frame numbers on the timeline. You can set a start frame and an end frame to control the length of the animation. Another way to control the length of an animation is to change the frame rate. The frame rate refers to the number of frames that appear in a second of the video. For example, a video with 200 keyframes with a frame rate of 20 frames per second would be 10 seconds long. Keyframes can be adjusted on the timeline at the bottom of the Viewport in Blender. When you set keyframes, you will see a movement in the video after you play the animation. There are three main ways to control your camera's captures, and great shots are achievable as long as you can:

• animate the camera in the 3D Viewport using the Keyframe timeline
• use a few controllers like the Parent Object controller
• make sure that the camera follows the path set by you by using the Follow Path functionality

Keyframe Animation

Parenting is when you have one object (the child) that inherits the transformations of another (the parent) in 3D modeling software. Imagine the scenario of a family of a duck and her ducklings walking together. The ducklings will always follow the duck as she is their parent, but can also play around individually. If you apply this logic to Blender, it is like a parent-child relationship, only with objects. Here are a few points to keep in mind about parenting:

• The child will always follow the parent.
• The parent will not follow the child.
• The parent will always control the child. When the parent moves, the child will follow along, but the child can move individually too.

This type of control can be created between any two or more 3D objects.

Parenting Cameras

In Blender, a camera usually gets parented to a newly added mesh object, such as an empty cube or another shape or form, to better control the camera. Empty or dummy objects do not show up in the final renders, so this is a harm-free method of working. A camera can have controls set to move to a certain location, much like when cameras are set on moving dollies. To create complex animations, you can use paths to guide the movement of your camera as it captures an object. A path can be a line, a curve, a circle, or any other freeform or geometric shape. One type of path is a bezier circle - a type of shape used in computer graphics. You can either draw or import this path as a readymade path on Blender. The bezier circle will define the motion of the camera with the help of constraints. Once the camera is set to the path, keyframes can be generated to record the animation, and then start/end frames can be set. Read on to learn more about the importance of paths.

Attaching a Camera to a Path

Importance of Using a Path Keep these points in mind regarding paths:

• Paths make camera animation much simpler.
• You can control the path to control the camera animation.
• Paths are easy to edit if needed.
• Complex motions like a circular camera movement can be achieved easily.

Set a Camera to Follow a Path To create a follow path constraint which lays out the path that the camera must follow, keep these pointers handy:

• have a camera
• create or import a path (curve)
• have a dummy object (empty object) to which you will parent the camera to
• make sure the dummy object (empty object) will be constrained to the camera

Attaching a Camera to a Path

And briefly talk about the extra information to the left...

The teacher will now demo the previous steps with a camera in Blender.

Teacher Demo Time!

See you next time!

Camera Language & Storytelling

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