need help with path animation!

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Im doing an animation where I move the camera through a really simple maze. I’ve been able to do it simply by moving the camera then pressing IKey every 25 frames and so on but the speed of it is not constant as it slows down when I get the camera to turn corners (cos I put more frames in this bit to turn the camera) . Is there any way I can avoid this and make the speed constant?
Also, some one said I could do a similar animation using path animation, but all the tutorials on this are for earlier versions of Blender (i have 3.42), and other ones totally confused me! Can anyone point me in the right direction? I tried drawing a path, then making the camera the parent to the path, then clicked on add constraint > follow path > curve follow, but the camera went no way near the path! what am i doing wrong??!

2

The slow down is due to the way keyframes are added to the IPO system. It adds a curve by default. I am like you, however, and would rather see a straight line as the deault. So you have to go into the IPO editor and change the start and end point of every single key frame from curve to linear. (what a pain, hey that’s what the animators get the big bucks for eh?)

Path Animation:
Load up the default scene with the cube. Press space bar and add a Bezier Circle Path. Press the TAB key to take the new cuircle out of edit mode (it will turn pink outline). Scale it up a bit. Select the cube and add a path constraint. Type the name of the circle into the provided field (typically “CurveCircle”). Now select the CurveCircle and Press F9 to bring up controls. Click the CurvePath button and then move your mouse into the 3D window and press ALT-A. The cube will move along the circle as a path animation.
Notice, you did not have to parent anything to anything.

This link expains how to edit the IPO curve of a path animation.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=86768

3

thanks for the advice! I tried doing it, but when i choose which axis ‘points forward along the path’ , if its z, the camera itself doesnt move, just a dotted line, if I press x the camera starts behind the start and doesnt follow on the path itself, and the same happens if I press y. What am I doing wrong?!
Also, is there a way I can get the camera to always point in the direction of the path, at the moment its always pointing upwards so kinda defeats the object of what Im trying to do!!
Thanks, Rachel

4

if I press x the camera starts behind the start and doesnt follow on the path itself, and

Use Shft-Ctrl-P instead of Ctrl-P. Track Y and Z-Up.

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5

Set Fw:-Z, and Up:Y and also select camera and press ALT-G, ALT-R to reset the location and rotation.
Mike

6

Just press “A” / Select all (while in CURVE mode), then change the interpolation mode, it will change everything at once :slight_smile:
Mike