AM Post editing

[Jeetman]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm still relatively new to AM so please forgive me if these sound like a stupid questions.

 

I've seen some incredible animated shorts posted at AM Films. I'm working on one myself ("The Door is Stuck" exercise). My question is, How do you create a final render with different camera angles?

 

I was told it can't be done in AM but people are doing it some how. I'm hoping you can do this completely in AM and not have to buy another software package.

 

Specifically,

 

Is there a way to see camera changes in the previewed animation before rendering?

If no, then why allow you to turn camera's on and off?

 

Basically I want to make my "Door is Stuck" short, using more than one camera but 1) I can't play a preview that shows in the view the animation switching from camera to camera to see how it plays out.

 

Is this possible?

 

If I can't do this, does this mean I have to render each camera separately then combine them? If so, can this be done in AM and how?

 

Last Question:

 

If AM can't do this what reasonably priced software (freeware would work for me ) do you recommend I buy/download to be able to do this?

 

Thanks,

Jeetman

[luckbat]

Here's the quick-summary version:

 

1. No, A:M can't cut from one camera to another within a single render.

 

2. But, you can animate the camera, so if you want it to jump from one position to another in mid-animation, just move the camera. (If you set the camera's Interpolation to "Hold," it will teleport from place to place instead of travelling.)

 

3. You switch between camera views by hitting '1' on your numpad.

 

4. A:M can also act as a simple video editor, so if you want you can render the animation from multiple camera POVs and cut them together in A:M.

 

5. VirtualDub is free.

[KenH]

Or if you want to have two cameras. You could have one camera out of shot of the other one. Then when it's time to cut to the next camera, just animate the second camera to it's cut position at that time.

[thumperness]

From Arkaos in another thread:

 

I like to set up one camera for each position and an additional "Main" camera to do my rendering from.

I set up translate to and orient like constraints in my main camera to each of the other cameras. Then I set enforcement to 100% for whichever camera's position I want to render from. It works really well for me. You can also vary the constraints between 2 camera postitions to "dolly" from one shot to the next. I have done this a couple of times and it works pretty good.

 

This is how I do it.

[Jeetman]

Excellent!!! That makes so much sense now.

 

I especially like the idea Thumperness posted from Arkaos!

 

Thanks for the help . I'll post my animation as soon as I finish it.

 

Jeetman

[Stuart Rogers]

If you render separate sequences, one from each camera, you can then have each sequence overlap a little. This gives a bit more latitude for editing - you can adjust timing, use soft transitions, etc. If you translate/orient your main camera to other cameras, then you have to make fine-scale editing decisions earlier in the process.