Learning Kinemac 4 – Using multiple cameras

In the previous tutorial, we created multiple objects and then grouped them to form a simple animation.  In this tutorial, we will duplicate that group and use two different cameras to view parts of the animation.

Lengthening your animation

Open the file you created in the last tutorial.  You will have grouped the objects at the end of the last tutorial giving you a grouped sprite of 1000 ticks in an animation of 800 ticks.  We’re going to need a longer time frame for this tutorial so the first thing to do is to lengthen the animation.  On the Stage tab of the Inspector Panel, change the Animation Duration to 1600 ticks.  This lengthens the whole animation but does not affect the sprites you have already created.

Duplicate your group

Using the same method, as in the previous tutorial, copy your group (command+C) and paste (command+v) it into the sprite window.  This gives you an animation with two sets of objects moving together.  You can drag the whole group along the timeline (say 100 ticks) and have the second set of objects moving separately from the first.

Viewing from two different angles

One of the powerful ways that Kinemace helps animators is through the use of multiple cameras.  We are going to create two camera sprites so we can view the animation from two points of view.  Go to the Objects Menu and select Camera or press control+option+command+C.  This will place a camera sprite at the Time Marker.  If you stopped your animation at a random point and your camera sprite is placed there, you can simply drag the camera sprite to the point you want it to start.  The camera sprite will have the default length of 800 ticks so in the sprite tab of the Inspector Panel, reset the duration of the sprite to 1600 (the same as the whole animation). Note that the end of the sprite also changes to 1600.  You can also change that value and the duration will change automatically.  We’ll leave the position settings for that as they are.

Create a second camera sprite, and lengthen it to 1600 ticks too.  Change the Eye settings in the sprite tab of the Inspector Window to x = 400, y = 400, and z = 800.  This will offset the camera to the objects to give a different view.  Later, you can change those values to see the effect of the camera position.  If you play your animation now, it will appear no different from the original.  When the cameras were created, they appeared at the bottom of the sprite window and are automatically aimed at objects directly below them in the sprite window.  What we need to do is aim each camera at separate groups of objects.  We can move the camera to above the object or group of objects that we would like to focus on. So, move each camera to above a different group of sprites as indicated.

Change your view to Sprite Movable Cameras (from the Views Menu or press S).  You can now see your animation using the two cameras.  One group of objects will be moving toward you while the other is moving diagonally across the stage.

You can improve the animation by offsetting one group from the other simply by dragging the beginning of the group to 100 ticks. Now you have two sets of objects moving through different spaces and at different times.

Completing the animation

At the beginning, we lengthened the animation to 1600 ticks.  We also created the cameras at 1600 ticks long.  But, with our sprites only 800 ticks, we have a long bare stage showing at the end.  We can fill this simply by copying each group of objects and pasting them at the end of the original.  Note that if you allow Kinemac to place them at the bottom of the sprite window, they will all appear as viewed by your second camera.  To fix this, drag one group of objects to above the Camera-different settings sprite.  Be careful of placement as you want the cameras to see the objects.  Move them around to see the effect of placement of sprites and cameras.

Kinemac gives you many options with the camera sprites allowing the development of more complex animations.  This tutorial introduced multiple cameras.  The next tutorial will start to investigate the animation of the sprite cameras.

Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 2:22 pm and is filed under thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.