camera help please

Hey all. I am trying to get this demo here:
http://justiceknights.net/comic/p17f1f2aEDITED2.cohdemo

to work all the same as it currently is but move the camera in a few feet to better A) Frame the two and B) make it so I dont have to zoom the final image in far thereby pixelating it to hell.

Can someone please help me out with this? Never been able to get a camera edit to work properly in demos.

-Sin

I would also be interested in camera commands for demos, as it would really help with some of the videos I'm making.... Is anyone an expert in this?

"The One"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

Add me to the list of folks that needs help understanding how to move the camera in demo records.

Might I recommend...

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Demo_Edi...al_Information

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I think Dark meant to post this link:
Demos on Paragon Wiki

here's the basic concept for moving the camera, or any object, around in a demo file:

0 CAM POS -7.9456 27.687576 303.360352
0 CAM PYR 0.228 -0.13625 0

the Line with POS in it is the Position statement. It tells the engin where in a 3 dimensional space the camera is. Remember in grade school working with a 3 dimensional grids? You have an X-coordinate, a Y-coordinate and a Z-cooridinate.
X is how far East/west the object is,
Y is how far North/south the object is,
Z is how high/low the object is.

So what you have is the demo saying:
CAM POS X Z Y

The second line:
0 CAM PYR 0.228 -0.13625 0 is the object orientation. Every play flight sim game? Remember Yaw, Pitch and roll? Same things. You're rotating an object inside of a sphere by parts of Pi (Remember Pi? 3.1415926?)
So Pitch: is a rotation forward or backward. You can go up to 3.14 and down to -3.14.
Yaw: Is the same thing as Pitch, except it's left to right. 3.14 to the left, -3.14 to the right.
Roll is the tricky one. It's literally the objects roll. Think of a plane doing a barrel roll (anyone else remembering Star Fox right now?) The plane is rolling.

Hope that helps.

DEFINITELY helps! Thanks a LOT!

So, say for example, I wanted to rotate the camera view 360 degrees around a hero while he was going through an attack animation...

...I would have to start out with the orignial camera positons, and then in the lines directly under that put the ending position of the camera? Or is it a lot more complicated than that with a full 360 cam move like that? Would I have to enter the new positions every 45 degrees?

"The One"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

it's a lot more complicated then you think it is. Here, I'll illustrate (please excuse the crudity of the images):

Lets just work with a grid of 100 x 100. The Dot is the object (Your character) the red line the path you want the camera to take and the camera is.... well the camera.
We'll say the object is position 50 50 50, meaning he's 50 feet west, 50 feet up and 50 feet north of 0. The camera will be at 45 50 50


Now, you want to rotate the camera around the character, while still keeping the camera trained on the character:
Like this:


You will need to change 3 sets of data multiple times.
you will need to change the following: X coordinate, the Y coordinate, the yaw value and the pitch.

So you will need to this with the camera pos and pyr information:

10 CAM POS 45 50 50
0 CAM PYR 0 .1 0
10 CAM POS 45.5 50 50.5
0 CAM PYR 0 .2 0
10 CAM POS 46 50 51
0 CAM PYR 0 .3 0
10 CAM POS 45.5 50 51.5
0 CAM PYR 0 .4 0
10 CAM POS 46 50 52
0 CAM PYR 0 .5 0
10 CAM POS 46.5 50 52.5
0 CAM PYR 0 .6 0
10 CAM POS 47 50 53
0 CAM PYR 0 .7 0
10 CAM POS 47.5 50 53.5
0 CAM PYR 0 .8 0
10 CAM POS 48 50 54
0 CAM PYR 0 .9 0
10 CAM POS 48.5 50 54.5
0 CAM PYR 0 1.0 0




now, with the example I just posted relise that will produce the following move:



Also all the numbers I used in this example are completly arbitary. You would need to move the camera more then 5 feet and change the pitch by more then 1.0 but the idea is there.

I don't have it with me right now, but I think I remember finding a wizard that did this exact move in Balshor's Demo Editor
if memory serves I think it's listed as "Vanity Wizard" or something of that nature. I'll check when I get home tonight and post the info.

good examples, Torroes!

AlienOne, for the specific CAM movements you were asking about, I would offer a shortcut. Bare in mind that this is only for that and you would need to alter CAM commands for other things, obviously. For the 360, the easiest thing to do is be in-game and turn on your demorecord. Scroll out to the distance desired and hold your mouse wheel which locks the camera in place and then use the key that you turn left or right with which will circle your character. You know have all the POS and PYR commands you need. Go back and edit in your combat moves at the time you want OR create a 2nd in the same spot doing your combat and then from #2 demo, remove all CAM and PYR commands. Copy and paste the #1 POS and PYR commands to the #2 demo, in essence combining them.

Anything you can do in-game the better off you are because it is done for you already. Tip: using a toon with Hover or Fly and in 1st person view can make a pretty good camera if you practice your angles first then record. Tip: using landmarks (such as a parking space, statue, etc) can help if you do your camera movements around that landmark and then in a separate demo, perform at that landmark location then combine them.

Good luck!

Oh..and while holding down the mouse wheel and turning the camera, you can move the mouse around to move the camera up and down for varied angles.

Yeah, I actually have "attempted" wide, camera arc sweeps for a video promo I put together here, but a lot of the times they weren't as smooth as I would like them to be. Plus, the closer you get to a character, the more pronounced any slight movement of the character is going to seem--so, to do a "perfect" angular arc move (best example: slo-mo bullet shot move in the first Matrix movie), it would seem you would have to enter exact commands for it--especially if you wanted to have some form of "slowing" happening when the camera gets close to a character (start fast in the distance, camera slows down considerably about 25 feet from character and finally comes to a gentle halt)...

I see what you're saying though... Accomplishing as much as you can in-game and then just editing that is MUCH easier... I'm just trying to think in terms of doing some "character story" videos with "pro" cam moves during action scenes, rather than my *usual* "turn on Fraps and record an entire TF" way of thinking...

If I could actually "master" the code/commands necessary for really cool cam movements like that (and many others), I'd be one step closer to creating a "live action" comic book series, without having to have a college degree in Animation, if 'ya know what I mean...(haha)

Torroes, thnx for the detailed help you've posted as well... Since my career profession is Television & Radio broadcasting with an emphasis in video editing & videography, I have a good grasp of what you're talking about with camera movements, but not so much when it comes to entering commands into a text file to make a camera move. It's a lot different than operating a camera in r/l, that's for sure!

"The One"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

Another trick I've found, When you take a demo file, make the player a puddle. I know it sounds a little funny, But it's like this:

0 1000 Player
0 1000 NPC PUDDLE

The "player" designator tells the engine what to render and how far it can render.
The NPC puddle is a non-visible entry used for FX place holding. So by making a puddle the player object, it effectively makes the camera man invisible.

I used this trick when I did this video:
Times Broken Arrow

Notice how the camera man can never be seen no matter what move it makes. Like I said, the puddle is an invisible entity.

That's EXTREMELY helpful.... That cam move you did of a 180 degree move while slowing to a stop to eventual focus the shot on Imperious is exactly the type of things I'm talking about... Did you program/edit all those camera moves in? Or every camera move in that video was you controlling your invisible player?

"The One"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

and project 2552 enters the pile.

You should have said,

"Ok, I'll have it done... Soon™."



"The One"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..