Camera functionality

[Jeetman]

Hi all,

 

I'm looking at trying to do post editing completely in AM and create an animation showing that you can do post effects without having to spend big money for programs like after effects (I'm not a student so I'd have to pay about a grand for the professional version of after effects).

 

My question is, can you control the shudder of the camera to create fade effects? I've got a work around that works very cool if not but I'd think you could.

 

If so how? I'll tell you my work around after I get responses.

 

Jeetman

[Fishman]

I assume that you meant to say shutter rather than shudder. If the desire is to create what I think is typically called the iris effect where a circle of diminishing diameter slowly reduces the visible portion of the screen until it is all black, you can do that. I think all you would have to do is put a simple plane object with a hole in it and then animate the diameter of the hole for the fade effect.

 

Scott

[Dearmad]

Rats and here I was about to mention the channel window and all... <shudders>

[noewjook]

If you want to make a fade in AM you can create a black plane , put it between the camera and the scene

an animate the transparency of the plane.

[Jeetman]

I assume that you meant to say shutter rather than shudder. If the desire is to create what I think is typically called the iris effect where a circle of diminishing diameter slowly reduces the visible portion of the screen until it is all black, you can do that. I think all you would have to do is put a simple plane object with a hole in it and then animate the diameter of the hole for the fade effect.

 

 

I thought about this post yesterday. I was thinking like a still picture camera (duh). I know very little about cameras as you can see.

 

All I was looking for was a simple fade. Thanks Noewjook. That was my work around. Just thought there'd be a feature built in the software to do this. Oh well the effect looks awesome.

 

 

Fishman, the iris effect sounds pretty cool. I'll definitely experiment with that. How would you soften the the circumference of the iris? Seems to me that you'd have a solid edge.

 

Thanks for the help everyone,

Jeetman

[robcat2075]

Fishman, the iris effect sounds pretty cool. I'll definitely experiment with that. How would you soften the the circumference of the iris? Seems to me that you'd have a solid edge.

 

Instead of modeling the hole in the plane you could use a transparency map (created in a paint program) with a soft edge and apply that to the plane.

[ZachBG]

Re: fades.

 

Although I haven't tried this, Yves once suggested using a Tint post-effect, with both colors set to black, and then animating the percentage from 0 to 100.

[Stuart Rogers]

Fishman, the iris effect sounds pretty cool. I'll definitely experiment with that. How would you soften the the circumference of the iris? Seems to me that you'd have a solid edge.

Instead of modeling the hole in the plane you could use a transparency map ... with a soft edge and apply that to the plane.

I find that using transparencies tends to increase render times considerably.

 

If you use a modelled iris you could get softened edges by setting a depth of field for the camera and then placing the iris closer to the camera than the near focus.

 

I usually do fades as a post process with my movie on a flat patch with ambience=100% and no lights. It's just occurred to me that a fade to black can then be attained by animating the ambience to 0% over time. This would be quicker than using a transparency.

[Jeetman]

Awesome suggestions!!!

 

Thanks all

 

Jeetman

[robcat2075]

I find that using transparencies tends to increase render times considerably.

 

refraction in a transparency will lengthen render times, but I can't detect that a transparency on a plane (not using refraction anyway) invokes any more overhead than any other decal, which is negligible.

 

?

 

 

Update: In a brief test I find that a transparency map applied to a patch in the scene does add about 2 seconds per frame.

 

A patch with an actual hole in it added about 1 second.

 

However, a rotoscope on the camera with a transparent hole in it seems to add no time.

[Stuart Rogers]

I find that using transparencies tends to increase render times considerably.

refraction in a transparency will lengthen render times, but I can't detect that a transparency on a plane (not using refraction anyway) invokes any more overhead than any other decal, which is negligible.

The last time I did this was with V11 for my Mattress movie, for which I had my movie on a plane, and several semi-transparent planes - whiteout panels, titles, and credits. Planes that weren't in use were keyed inactive. Each plane was at 100% ambience; there were no lights, no shadows. Rendering took several seconds per frame. This struck me as rather long.

Update: In a brief test I find that a transparency map applied to a patch in the scene does add about 2 seconds per frame. However, a rotoscope on the camera with a transparent hole in it seems to add no time.

Then we have a fast solution!