Camera flipping is making me flipping exasperated! :)

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1

I have been pulling my hair out trying to find a fix or work around for a camera that is flipping in a certain orientation with a ‘track to’ constraint … I have tried a bunch of stuff already but since they haven’t worked, I am looking for some more suggestions!

I have so far tried:
1 - all sorts of basic finagling of track to constraints from the camera to the empty
2 - parenting the camera to an empty then using a track to constraint between the empties.
3 - constraining the camera to an empty using locking rotation and location to an empty while having a track to between the empties

I am actually defining the position of the camera with a script or a modified script and due to the other animations and things going on rotating the scene to work better with the camera just is not really an option I want to deal with.

some other ideas:
a - IPO control… read about this (eg here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=83461&highlight=track+flip) where one works the issue with IPO constraints according to position so when it gets in that region it would flip automatically, but the problem is, as I understand usually this is done manually, and since the flip isn’t instantaneous and difficult to calculate in a flexible script when it would be needed.

b - now I just thought of another, based on this post:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=75382&highlight=camera+flipping
translating and rotating the empty and parenting the camera to it instead.sigh that would unfortunately mean rewriting most of the script. :frowning:

would appreciate some ideas, tips, solutions, explanations why this happens?.. whatever you may be willing to contribute!

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hmm, well since you insist. :slight_smile: My first thought is to simply remove the tracking constraint.

I don’t know a thing about scripting but can you tell the camera to look at a certain point with python?

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I was really hoping to not have code it all. If that is the only way, I would have to rewrite much of the current code and then there will be some headaches; albeit I do think it is possible. Including camera control just adds a level of complexity that I honestly am not sure how to deal with effectively.:o

thanks for your input. :slight_smile:

4

Yah, coding is . . . someone elses career.

I also don’t have a lot of experience with blender’s animation tools so I don’t really know if this is correct. But, when you animate something you set key frames, or in blender ipo’s (I think). One frame your camera is here, the next frame you camera is over there. Ok. So you want a smooth transition. To do that you have to ease the transition and to do that you use curves. If your camera is pointing in the right direction and you ease the transition at critical points your animation won’t really even need a camera track-to constraint?

Just thinking out loud.

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5

Of course there is the follow path constraint? You are using that and the camera flips as travels over the zenith or some such I guess. Again, need to stop thinking.