Maya to Terragen camera issues

Started by rolland1013, July 20, 2017, 07:11:57 PM

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rolland1013

Hey all,

I've created an animated camera in Maya, and I want to place and orient it within Terragen.  I can place it in the general area I want by using Import offset.  But I can't figure out how to orient (rotate) the entire camera animation.  Basically I want the animation to face the opposite direction.  Does anyone know how to do this?

Thanks,
Niel

Oshyan

Hi Niel,

Is the issue that the import is coming into Terragen incorrectly (in which case try the source rotation order options perhaps?), or is it that you for some reason want the camera oriented differently in Terragen than Maya? Can you not just change the camera orientation in Maya? That would be the currently suggested approach because Terragen's ability to manipulate whole camera paths and large numbers of key frames is limited at this time. So ideally you just setup your camera exactly how you want it in Maya and it comes in correctly. If you're having problems with the actual import not matching what you expect, that would be a different issue to investigate.

- Oshyan

rolland1013

Hey Oshyan,

Thanks for replying.  I tried your suggestion of changing the source rotation order, but nothing changed.  However, reorienting the camera in Maya seems to work!  I do feel this could be a labor intensive solution if subtle tweaking is desired.  Can you tell me, is there any plans for better camera import/manipulation tools in a future release? 

Thanks,
Niel

Hannes

Actually it's quite easy to rotate the camera after you have imported it, even if there are lots of keyframes:
open the animation panel, go to the Y rotation of your camera (double click on the green Y), drag a marquee around all keyframes to select them, go top the bottom of the page, type in "180" where the 100 is, and hit the button next to it on the right side and choose "move by value". And voilà, the camera orientation is rotated by 180° for the whole animation.

Oshyan

Hmm, I guess maybe I misunderstood the original question and request. But yes, you can bulk edit keys, that's true! :)

- Oshyan

Hannes

Well, now that I read it again, I'm not sure if what I wrote is really what you wanted. Of course you can rotate the camera like I said, but now I think you asked for a solution to rotate (mirror?) the whole animation?  ??? ??? ???

rolland1013

I could see the confusion with what I was asking.  I've created an animation in Maya to better explain.  I've also attached a tgd file with that camera animation rotated in the method Oshyan suggested.

Niel

bigben

I think that's beyond TG.  Why not just do it in Maya and import?

rolland1013

It looks like that will have be the pipeline for now.  As I mentioned, it could become a time consuming process if subtle tweaking to position and orientation in desired.

digitalguru

Have you tried my Maya script?

Should enable you to place your animation precisely in Terragen (just bake out the Terragen terrain using the Micro exporter to use as guide in Maya).

There's a link to a tutorial video that should get you up and running.

https://www.highend3d.com/maya/script/free-terraman-for-maya

rolland1013

Now that looks interesting.  I'll give it a try.

Thanks!!