camera position management, revisited

[shadowphile]

This was an old topic, so I'm restarting it anew.
I've been using placeholder cameras to bookmark my views-of-interest but the system is still a jumbly mess.  It's way too easy to accidentally move my view and screw up the camera position.

In addition, I ran into something that seems like a serious bug.
My understanding of the shader preview window is that it's really just another 3D preview engine.  It has all the view camera options and such.
BUT...when I try to change the camera in that preview to a camera I have near the ground, the view doesn't change, the camera does!  My ground-level camera gets moved into the same view as the preview camera view.  Clicking through my entire saved camera view list screws up every one!  They all end up with a .1 hFOV and extreme altitude.
Guess I won't be trying that again for a while 

[jo]

Hi,

This was an old topic, so I'm restarting it anew.
I've been using placeholder cameras to bookmark my views-of-interest but the system is still a jumbly mess.  It's way too easy to accidentally move my view and screw up the camera position.

I don't understand what you mean. How do you mean accidentally move your view?

Don't forget you can undo.

In addition, I ran into something that seems like a serious bug.
My understanding of the shader preview window is that it's really just another 3D preview engine.  It has all the view camera options and such.
BUT...when I try to change the camera in that preview to a camera I have near the ground, the view doesn't change, the camera does!  My ground-level camera gets moved into the same view as the preview camera view.  Clicking through my entire saved camera view list screws up every one!  They all end up with a .1 hFOV and extreme altitude.
Guess I won't be trying that again for a while 

I see what you mean. I'll have a look at it.

Regards,

Jo

[Feenixnz]

not sure if this is of any help but, are you checking to see if the camera you're wanting to change to is assigned as the render camera within the render settings?? I could be mis interpreting your issue though so if I am apologies   

[shadowphile]

nope, just have to figure out how the cameras are MEANT to be used.
I keep a 'render' cam permanently assigned to the renders, and use the other cameras as reference points only.  When I want to pan somewhere else, I then switch to 'perspective' camera, which follows you wherever you go.  Once I've lined up a shot, I snapshot it to the render cam. If I want to come back to that spot later, I'm forced to create a new camera just to mark the spot.
The hard part to learn was switching to the perspective cam.  Otherwise, when I pan around, I'm turning whatever camera that I switched to, ruining it's reference point  Having a lock for the cameras would be nice.
Even better would be a different system.  I'd like just one camera and a flexible bookmarking sytem. (more cameras are ok, although I don't really see the advantage.  A really good bookmarking system could also remember different camera settings like FOV and exposure.)

[Henry Blewer]

I use the same method I use when hiking. I look at the features around me, then I can always get back to about where the camera was.
A little trick I have is to use the menu next to the circle arrow. Return to render camera. Unless I need to mess with a distance shader, I only use one camera.

[cyphyr]

If you have the animation version you could always just keyframe points you may want to come back to. Just remember to switch off motion blur.
Richard

[Feenixnz]

Apologies for the silly question but how does one turn off the motion blur??

[dandelO]

set the blur length to '0' in the camera node.

[jo]

Hi,

nope, just have to figure out how the cameras are MEANT to be used.
I keep a 'render' cam permanently assigned to the renders, and use the other cameras as reference points only.  When I want to pan somewhere else, I then switch to 'perspective' camera, which follows you wherever you go.  Once I've lined up a shot, I snapshot it to the render cam. If I want to come back to that spot later, I'm forced to create a new camera just to mark the spot.
The hard part to learn was switching to the perspective cam.  Otherwise, when I pan around, I'm turning whatever camera that I switched to, ruining it's reference point  Having a lock for the cameras would be nice.
Even better would be a different system.  I'd like just one camera and a flexible bookmarking sytem. (more cameras are ok, although I don't really see the advantage.  A really good bookmarking system could also remember different camera settings like FOV and exposure.)

Yes, a bookmark type system would be good and is something I've thought about.

Regarding managing the cameras, possibly some of the confusion comes from the fact that whenever you move the render camera it switches automatically to the perspective camera. The other user cameras behave differently, you always control them directly. At some point we may change things so you always control the render camera directly, which would let us to get rid of the "copy to render camera" button that I still forget to press half the time after years of using TG2!

There are still improvements we can make to camera management, for sure.

Regards,

Jo 

[Henry Blewer]

I finally started to remember to do this.  I sometime hit the copy button by accident, so it would be nice to change this.

[reck]

I finally started to remember to do this.  I sometime hit the copy button by accident, so it would be nice to change this.

hehe yeah me to, that's if I even remember to click it.

njeneb are you a girls aloud fan? Is that pic from Biology?

[Henry Blewer]

@reck  Yes I am. Some think I'm tone deaf. Yes I am. I like their music and enjoy their videos. My two favs are Nicole and Cheryl. Nicole has the best voice and Cheryl is just trouble.  I am drawn to women which are trouble.    The pic is one I found off the web, and it's on their site.

[monks]

Is it possible to copy the current view (coords, etc) to a newly created camera? I want to set up bookmarks if you like of render positions on my terrain.

monks

[dandelO]

Highlight the camera you want to save positions for in the node network and then press 'ctrl+D'(default duplicate-node/s command for TG2 in Windows), or 'duplicate' in the 'edit' menu.

You could also just create a new camera and copy the coords but duplicating is much quicker all round.

[monks]

Thanks DendelO...I'll take another look at this later.

monks