I just thought I would address this annoying little nuisance that I constantly stumble into. Perhaps someone knows a solution?
Often when animating a camera, I like to use an empty object and assign a track to constraint to the camera using the empty as a point to look at. It makes animating where I want the camera to look much easier sometimes.
Problem is… later, if I ever want to remove the constraint, blender refuses to do it. I hit Alt T when the camera is selected, nothing happens… I hit Alt T when the empty is selected, nothing happens… I even hitting space and doing it from the tool selection in the 3d window… then I even try removing all parent relationships to these objects… but the darn thing just refuses to get rid of the track to, and continues to look at the empty.
Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else fights with this.
Oh, and also, if anyone knows how its possible to tilt the camera if the camera is tracked to an empty… Its come up a few times where i need both, but while the camera tracks to, it won’t let you rotate the horizon axis of the camera because of the constraint (is there a way around this?)
To remove or temporarily deactiveate the constraint, select the camera, go to the Buttons/Object pane, Constraint panel. Click the X to remove the constraint, or change the influence to 0 (the influence can be keyframed with the Key button)
If you adjust the influence to less than 1.0, it will still track, but also allow you to rotate the camera. The lower the influence, the more “sloppy” the tracking will be and will increase the allowable amount of indenpendent rotation.
parent the cam to a new empty, instead of linking to a track to, and then remove the consrtaint . you’ll perhaps to apply scale and rot(ctrl-A) before …
try this !
Mike_S, there is not a constraints panel for camera objects… To track to I have simply been using CTRL+T when both objects are selected. It’s not like constraints with armature objects like i believe you’re thinking of… Unless I am mistaken
Delic, but what if i Don’t want to delete my empty? I might need it’s ipo location curves later in animation editing…
ah, wait but you didn’t mention i had to delete the empty… okay i think i see what you’re getting at. i’ll give it a shot…
Okay, nope… I created a new empty, then I parented the camera to that empty like you said. Then I attempted to ALT+T with the camera and the old lookat empty selected in order to remove the track to constraint. Still does not remove. Still Tracks to original empty.
Hm, perhaps this is just some kind of software flaw? Because when I hit ALT+T a select dialog appears and I select “Clear Track.” Any other instance in blender and I do this, it does what i tell it to… it clears the track… I don’t get it… anyone else with any thoughts on this?
Setup a track to constraint between an empty and your object of interest, say a Suzanne for testing.
Add copy location and copy rotation constraints to the camera with the empty being the target. Then turn off one of the axis’s in the camera’s copy rotation constraint.
I gpt it to work by setting the empty’s trackto constraint with align set to -Z, up: Y, and then turning off the Y axis in the camera copy locatoin constratint. I’m not sure why that works, as it then frees up the Camera’s local Z rotation , but it seems to work.
