Hi!
None was able to answer how to fix the rotation problem. I understand how Blender sometimes thinks we want it to rotate the camera 360 degrees the wrong way, but I can’t figure out how to fix it. Do you use Clear/ Apply in the object menu to fix this? If so, how? I can’t figure it out and it’s driving me and my students crazy!! They have great work and it is ruined by there 360 degree camera spins.
Thanks!
You can try the old 3DSMax correction trick, yes 3DSMax has this problem too. Add another key frame in between to help Blender know which way you want to go. Say you have a key frame at frame #1 and a keyframe at frame # 30. You are experiencing the rotation flip, so go to frame #15 and set another rotation keyframe, in between to help specify the direction.
Adding intermediate keyframes can help in some situations but in others it isn’t effective because Blender often interprets any rotation value above 360 deg as that value minus 360 deg. The best way to manage the direction and value of continuous, additive rotations is by editing the IPO curves, as I mentioned before – their slope indicates whether the rotation is negative or positive (because the values of the keypoints determine the slope), and you can fix any error in Blender’s interpretation of the rotation value by simply resetting the Y-axis value for the keypoint at any give frame in the IPO Editor window. I do this constantly while setting keys for my character’s eye-tracking system, the main element of which is a simple rotating “gimbal” made from an empty. Since eyes rotating backwards to look into the skull aren’t really very useful, it’s necessary to make sure the slopes of the rotation curve don’t suddenly change direction and go “retrograde,” which happens often when setting keyframes (I-KEY) with values above 360 deg – some of my rotations go well past 1000 deg because they are cumulative and continuous as the figure spins about (she’s a dancer), so I’m constantly editing the IPO curves to correct for Blender’s mis-interpretation of the rotation values.
So take the time to learn what the IPO curves are actually doing so you can edit them to make your objects rotate exactly as you wish. If you want to post an example .blend with a problem rotation involved, I’d be happy to take a look at it.
Another thing to consider is multi-axis rotations – sometimes, creating continuous and cyclic rotations on an object in all three axes can lead to some odd-looking and unexpected results, as if the object suddenly reverses its rotation – this is a consequence of the constant re-orientation of the rotation axes this kind of thing causes.