Cool 3D 3.5 - Moving the camera instead of the object

[dnavarrojr]

I created a group object and animated it the way I want. However, I need to move the camera in the sequence. Essentially, I want to start out with a distant shot and zoom in.

No problem, I found the Distance/Lens properties for that part. However, I need the camera to track over a predetermined path to the object. I have the lighting exactly how I want it and if I rotate the object to get the effect I'm looking for, the lighting changes at certain parts of the animation, messing it up.

I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to place the camera in 3D space so that the object never moves. Are there any tutorials on this?

Thanks!

[Ron P.]

Short answer, you can't. C3DPS is not the same as other 3D modeling applications, where you can place a camera, control it's movement in 3D space, or multiple cameras.

The lighting is based on your objects location. Move your object and the lighting changes. You can change the lighting, using keyframes in the Lighting Timeline, just like other attributes. There are 3 types of lighting, Directional, Spot and Point. You can have up to 4 lights.

Clicking on the pull-down menu in the Lights Attributes panel you can choose the type of lighting. There are 2 icons under the Location/Direction section, labeled POS (Position) and ORI (Orientation). Clicking on either, will give you control to move, and point the lights. This is done by dragging on the stage. You should see some small triangles somewhere to the sides, top or bottom, along with lines. Dragging around you will notice these lines and triangles moving, which reflect the directions of your lights...

Hope that helps ya...

[dnavarrojr]

Ugh... Not the answer I was looking for.

Alright, I'll see what I can do. But my opinion of C3D just went down. I see it's only for the simplest of things which is too bad because it has so much potential.