camera problem

[pipjor]

i have a camera constrained to a spline that travels down a curved road, when the camera curves it's very jerky, i've tried normalize spline, dividing segments of the spline, adding more steps, any suggestions?????

thanks,

[Claudio Branch]

Hi there,

 

I do roads with cars and cameras alot.

 

It sounds like your geometry may be too far away from the origin in Max. Did you import your geometry from CAD or Microstation data? If so, go back to CAD and move all of your geometry to 0,0,0 and then re-export.

 

I work in CAD and do about 90% of my road or site modeling there.

 

After that, I go into Max and my workflow goes like this:

 

First off, my geometry is converted to editable poly. I choose an "edge" and use the "loop" command. Next I use "create shape from selection" and select "smooth" (not linear) from the dialogue box.

 

Now I have a smooth spline following the roads edge. From there I select "offset" and enter a value that gets the newly created portion of spline to line up in the center of my lane. Finally, I delete the portions of the original spline that will not contribute to the path of my traffic.

 

This approach has always gotten me satisfactory results.

 

I hope this helps.

[Koper]

you don't need all those vertexes in the spline, only where the corners start and end. select the vertexes, right click and select smoothe, right click again and select bezier. Now you have handlers, move the handels that are on the outer side of each vertex back to the line so that you get a straig entry into the curve, then if you move them towards or away from the vertex the curve changes.

 

hope it helps

[pipjor]

thanks Claudio,

my work flow was.

1. received center line from AutoCAD(client)

2. imported this Center Line into 3DS 7, moved orign 0,0,0

3. created road profile, 4lanes w/median then lofted this profile along Center line, applied text with shape id's.

4. used this center line for my camera path, auto paths etc, usting the same method you mentioned about "outline" etc..

 

I tried your poly/edge suggestion but my camera still shook when going around cornors, anything you can think of i may be doing wrong??

thanks for your time.

[IceAged]

Try unticking 'Constant Velocity' (under the Motion panel when the camera is selected). I've found that when this is ticked the camera tends to shake around in the final render.

[pipjor]

i selected all the verts and changed from "bezier" to "smooth" and this seemed to fixed the problem