Original subtitles

- [Instructor] In this video,

we are going to set up our camera.

Initial goal of this combo animation

is not to teach you how to frame your character.

I think the camera now will help us take some decision

during the position stage.

Since I don't have a clear direction

regarding the framing of this animation,

it wasn't planned ahead,

what I'm doing is that I'm just positioning my 3D view

and see how I can frame my character.

Play a few frame of the animation and see if it works.

By default Blender 3D view is set

to a 50 millimeter focal length.

So this is something we have to take in account

whenever we are trying to frame our character,

pretty freely for the time being.

On the initial pose when I'm facing the character,

it looks pretty cool.

His base pose reads pretty well and we do understand

that his objective is the punching bag.

But when I play the animation,

the punches don't look that powerful

and the character is often hidden by the bag.

When we have build those first poses,

we have intentionally created straight shapes

for our character.

So there are big chances that those shapes

will read well from side view.

In this regard, we will probably

favorize a side view for those two initial punches.

Whether we are facing the inside of the character

or the outside or back of the character, when he's punching.

While I'm pretty convinced of the framing

for the beginning of the combo,

when the hook happened, I don't feel like it reads well.

While if I rotate the 3D view to face the character,

I better see the anticipation and I also

better see the arc built by the fists.

So I know that I will have to transition from a side view

to a more frontal view of the character.

Also I think like it looks a little better

when we get closer to the ground to frame the hook.

The characters look more impressive

and he's dominating the view.

Now regarding the kick,

the anticipation looks very good from there

but the character get hidden by the bag

during the kicking pose.

And there is a lot of verticality into the pose

so I feel like we lose a bit the orientation of the kick.

While if we continue rotating a bit the camera,

we get a very interesting framing

because we can see the eyes of our character

in the negative space drawn by the leg and the arm.

We still I've have a very strong

orientation of the kicking pose,

so it doesn't ruin all the work we have done before.

One thing we can do to improve those close range action shot

is to increase the angle of view

by reducing the focal length of our 3D view.

I will switch from 50 to 30 millimeters

and while it doesn't really improve the side view,

when it comes to spinning strikes,

like the hook or the kick,

it does look way better for sure.

The characters look stronger and the arcs reads way better.

Finally, that will be cool if in the end,

the punching bag was still framed

and projected away from the camera.

Because it communicates the fact

that our character has extra human power

and he kicked so hard that he has

broken the chains of the punching bag.

So it does improve the understanding of the current shot,

so it does improve staging.

Now regarding the camera initial position,

here is a cool trick I've learned from Daniel Dettol

while I was working on this specific animation.

He explained me that it's better to set the camera

so that it rotates the opposite way as the character.

Our character is pivoting around this side of the bag.

So if we place the camera to the side

and we follow the motion of the character,

we will mostly be looking at his back.

Plus in the end, we will probably have to

revise the camera position a little backward

to be sure that we properly frame the kicking pose.

But why if we place the camera on the other side?

We will have a continuous rotation of the camera,

with an easing at the end into the kick,

and it will move the opposite way of the character.

So it will increase the rotation feeling.

When you are following a car on the highway,

you feel like the car is pretty static.

While when the car is running

the opposite direction as you're,

both speed are added on top of each other,

and it feels like it goes super fast.

So let's add our camera.

If it's not already the case go to your preferences,

add on, and search for camera,

and activate the camera, add camera rigs.

This is the same add on we've been using

for our squirrel character scene.

From there make sure you are in object mode,

press Shift, A, go to camera, and add a dolly camera rig.

With the dolly camera rig object selected

press Control, Tab to switch to pose mode.

But we need to create an action to control the camera.

So I will switch to the action editor,

create a new action, give it a relevant name,

and click the shield icon

so that I'm sure I won't lose the section.

With all the camera controllers selected

I will press I to insert the key frame on all transformed.

Or you can choose to use only rotation and location

since there is no scaling influencing the camera frame.

From there, I'm testing each controller

and see what range of motion I can have with them.

For example, this one, I can just move it.

I can't rotate it nor scale it.

So I will just get rid of all the transform channel

but the location transform channels.

The camera offset controller

can be moved and rotated, but not scaled.

So I will get rid of the scaling transform channels.

I know that the aim controller can only be moved in space,

it can't be rotated nor scaled,

and the root controller can be moved and rotated,

but the scaling has no (indistinct)

so I can get rid of them.

You can basically key frame any of the properties

of the camera but in the end the only one

we are going to use is the focal length.

So I'm going to add another key frame onto the focal length.

From there I will switch my secondary 3D view

to the camera view by pressing zero.

From there I will use the main camera controller

to move the camera, and the aim controller

to target whatever I want to be framed.

I advise you to only use those two controllers,

that's way enough.

And the less controller you will use,

the smoother will be your camera motion.

But my next advice is to push

the passepartout opacity to 100%.

This way you won't see what's out of frame

and it won't distract you.

And what you will have on screen

will be what will be outputted

whenever you are going to render your animation.

From there, animate your camera

using the less key frame as possible.

First find the right position for the first frame

while the camera stays still,

then find the position of the camera

whenever it's facing the character for the hook motion.

From there reach the kicking pose

and set the camera and the aim target

so that you frame it as you have planned

And whenever you are moving the 3D view.

Then everything is about smoothing

the motion using the graph editor.

I must say that I'm not a specialist of camera framing

or camera shooting as a gameplay animator

so I will keep it as simple as possible.

But if you're up to, watch as much anime reference,

movie reference, whatever style of animation you like,

and try to understand how the camera move.

This is the best way to learn.

Just watch other animation

and try to mimic their camera style.

So as explained before, I'm just setting a key frame

on those two controllers on the golden poses.

I'm slightly traveling toward the bag until frame 25.

Then on frame 41, I'm lowering the camera,

I'm reducing the focal length to 30 millimeters,

and then I make sure that I'm facing the character.

Just focus on your current composition,

on the current pose, on the current frame.

Tweak the target and tweak the camera position

until you are happy with what you are framing

during the punch and during the anticipation,

and then go directly to the kicking pose.

In my case, it's going to be frame 74 and from there,

I don't care about the camera motion

or what it has been doing before.

I'm just focusing on framing the character

so that I check all the details I wanted to have.

I want to read the directionality of the kick.

But since my character is watching left,

I want to frame him on the right third of my camera.

And finally, I want to make sure that I read well his head

in the negative space drawn by his leg and arm.

From there I will jump on the frame

where the bag hit the ground,

and I will make sure that I'm framing everything.

From there, load the camera

in the beginning of your animation.

So duplicate the keys on frame zero

until frame five or seven.

What we don't want is the camera to stop moving

as the character hasn't stopped moving.

Once you are done make sure that you are easing

into the different camera position.

Think of the camera as a very heavy object

so you can move it fast,

but it won't settle into the next pose very quickly.

As an example, let's take the X location channel

off the camera controller.

There is a very fast motion between frame 25 and frame 38,

but the camera reaches its final position only on frame 48.

So it's easing until frame 48.

So basically your graph editor will look like that.

You will have a pose,

then you will have a next extreme pose.

So it could be the motion between

the straight punch and the hook.

And what I do to make the camera ease is that

I will duplicate the extreme movement

by 10 frame for example,

and then I will move the value of the curve

where the camera was supposed to stop

towards the previous frame a little bit.

This way the camera will continue on moving,

but it will slow down until it reaches its final position.

This is pretty easy to use illustrate with this cube.

When it does only two keys,

it slows until its final pose pretty rapidly.

But if we modify its curve as we did previously,

we do feel like the cube is slowing down

as if it was heavier so it looks way more natural.

So now that you have your extreme poses

for your camera controller,

you should do this on each channels.

The thing is that once you have created

this easing on all your channel,

you can perfectly switch back to the action editor

and offset the keys if you're not happy

with the timing of your motion.

But at least you have created this natural feeling.

But now to add some extra detail to your camera.

Spot the frame where your character is hitting the bag,

then select the aim controller of the camera

and select the Z location curve.

What we'll do is that on each impact on the bag,

we will add a slight noise modifier

to create a camera shape.

To get access to the modifier stack,

make sure you have at least one key active,

one key you have clicked.

From there in the modifiers panel,

click add modifier and choose noise.

Your whole curve will become a mess.

So we need to restrict the frame range

of the noise modifier by clicking the checkbox.

From there start your noise on that impact frame,

the frame 43, and end it five or six frame later.

And then make sure that you blend

out of the noise over five frame for example.

From there, make sure you reduce

the strength of the noise modifier

or the camera will shake as if

a T Rex was entering the stage.

The value of 0.1 should be enough.

And this is exactly the same setup I've created off camera.

Then you can copy the current modifier

by clicking this icon.

Then you can paste it a couple of time,

clicking the icon next to it.

Put the next impact on the bag

and then set the second noise modifier accordingly.

In this case, the kick occur on frame 74

and the noise stop on frame 80.

And I have increased the strength to 0.2

since the kick is a more powerful strike.

So it makes the camera shake a little more.

And then for the third noise modifier,

I've set the range around the frame 95,

when it hits the ground.