Creative Way to Create a Turntable Camera Tutorial
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Total Running Time: 4:50
In this video tutorial, you’ll learn about a creative way to animate a camera in a circle around an object without an align to spline tag. This way enables you to still animate the camera independently.
8,120 views
This was exceptionally helpful! Thanks Tim!
nice helpful tutorial!
Inversely, you could also make the camera a child of the null instead and set your axis center to the appropriate point… This works well for more complex scenes, or if you’re like me and don’t want to reorganize your hierarchy : )
How about a target tag and animating the circles radius?!
As always…there are many many ways to do the same thing…this is just the method I like to use….
This tutorial was pretty useless.
It is not the same effect. Because of the lights.
When you rotate the object, the lights stay fixed and the object gets a new lightsetup every frame.
If you move the camera, the lights and object stay fixed and the light doesnt change.
It makes a whole lot of difference. Basicly in OPENGL it looks the same.
To get the same effect as splinealign, just parent the camera to the null and rotate that null.
I guess you are welcome to your opinion. Obviously several other people DID fine it helpful.
I notice you didn’t include your REAL email address…nice.
As for the lights, if you put your lighting in the null with everything else your lighting would stay the same. In this tutorial I didn’t use any lighting, so the autolight is on. In that case, yes the lighting would be different because you can’t include the autolight in the null. However, no one in their right mind would ONLY use the autolight. See the lighting tutorials on the site for help with that.
sorry but i have to agree with CD4luv. kind of pointless tutorial.
why on earth would you want to move your objects instead of the camera?
you’ll lose your lighting setup and if youl’d use GI, you would have to set it to full animation not camera animation and lose lots of render time.
it would take 5 minutes max to create a really easy xpresso setup with user data sliders to move and rotate the camera like that, or just parent it to a null. or use the align to path tag and animate the radius of the circle.
Again…you are welcome to your opinion.
Every technique is useful in it’s own way so thanks Tim. I would say the best thing to do however would be make the camera a child of a null and then assign the align to spline tag to the null. This makes moving the camera off the spline really easy and to control where the camera is pointing just give it a target tag. While not being the most flexible set up it’s certainly got it’s uses and allows for a nice range of movement. If you’ve got a camera rig that you’re fond of using it’s a simple matter also to assign it’s root null the align to spline tag. It’s like creating a real camera track for a real camera rig. Quite powerful.
Hi there is something wrong because after about 80% of the film clip it stopps and will no´t continue. Very enoying. Please fix this.
We have tested and the video is working fine from our end. In the past when people have had problems, it is usually an outdated version of Flash, or a problem with a graphics card or driver. Unfortunately this means there is nothing we can do from our end.
I have to agree with Daniel on this one. It would be easier to animate the radius. In fact, I would animate the radius first, and then the position on the tag. In my opinion, the downside of the ATS Tag lies in the fact that you can’t animate the position beyond 100%, so you can only rotate the camera up to 360º. Still, in that case, I’d just rotate the actual circle spline, or something like that. Still, this is a good technique for simple scenes. Maybe you could do another tut that could go more in depth into the various uses or Null Objects. I know they’re very useful for fixing hierarchic problems, etc. I love your tuts, keep at it!
–Miggy
It’s what I love about this program.. as they say.. more than one way to skin a cat… I think that is how it goes.. and however that phrase started.. I’m not sure I want to know.. haha.. but anyway… I noticed at least one other was thinking like I was… just ANIMATE the CIRCLE (The Dolly Track) Just start out with a large circle and place it low or high… shrink the circle as it is raised or lowered… that way it will allow you to spin not only the inside characters etc.. but the room around it as well.
Hi Richard. I think that’s true about so many things in life. Never just ONE right way to do it! Thanks for your comment.
Cool tutorial! Thanks!!!
Thanks for your site.
I love the fact so many C4D artists are prepared to help those of us just starting out by making tutorials.
The software manuals are full of facts, but sometimes that doesn’t help with the creative process.
Keep up the good work.
helpful tutorial, thanks for share.
Hi there, thanks for the great tutorial, i however have run into some issues – a cinema 4d newbie here so sorry in advance if i have made a stupid mistake. I followed it step by step but when i play back after key framing the position nothing happens? please help thanks :) When i found this tut i was like yay as i had been having issues animating around objects so thanks
Keyframing in Cinema 4D is a little different if you are used to After Effects. You have to keyframe the first position, move the time indicator, change the position and keyframe again. Hope that helps…