Digital Art Zone

I’d be most grateful if someone would tell me where I’m going wrong.  I’m going through the tutorials and have got to Lesson 28, and have loaded the supplied ‘Animation-start’ file and have followed the instructions exactly through lessons 26 to 28.  The next instructions (in Lesson 28) are:
3. Place the cursor over the camera. Ensure the cursor is a single arrow, not a cross. Do not drag the camera by the blue handle….
4. Drag the camera to the interior of the room… A blue point appears where the camera was just located and a blue trajectory line links the first point with the new camera location.

I can see the camera (Camera to Director, Top View) as a feint triangle with its base pointing at the scene and a blue point at its apex. if the cursor is over the blue point the cursor does indeed change to a cross, and the ‘standard’ arrow appears anywhere else in the canvas, including over the camera. But when I try to drag the camera, I see a narrow box being drawn (black lines) that disappears when the mouse button is released; the camera stays where it is and no blue trajectory line appears.  I’ve checked and double checked that I’ve followed all the previous instructions - ensuring Auto-key is selected, etc….

I am using the Artist Guide that appears when choosing Menu Help -> Help Topics, which gives Bryce 6 Artist’s Guide. Has something changed in Bryce 7 that requires a different method? Or am I just being stupid and missing something obvious? I’ve searched through the forums and other documentation on the DAZ web site but can’t see this problem described anywhere.

Any advice will be gratefully received. I obtained Bryce 7 Pro in order to make short scenes to be used as backdrops for a green-screened ‘real’ walking actor (walking on the spot, legs not in view!) so I really do need to know how to track the Bryce camera.

There is a Bryce 7 AG;  last rev. 3 Jan 2011 (that I know of)

I think it is on-line at DAZ but I was able to download it (file dated 3-14-11 on my PC) as a .pdf file and it has animation etc. info

I suggest you look there.

http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/artzone/pub/software/bryce/bryce_7_ag_wip_0204.pdf for the guide

I’ve had a quick look thru the contents and this version doesn’t seem to have a tutorial section like the AG v6 has, I’ll have another look tho.

As far as I know, nothing was changed concerning animation from 6.1 to 7.1. The Artist Guide 6.1 should still be valid. I’m not an animator, but what I’ve gathered from reading the forums, a thing or two might be broken.

Many thanks for your replies so far. I’ve found the V7 AG and there is indeed no equivalent tutorial section.  Looks like I’ll have to find out and understand all about Bryce animation to get the answer! My guess is that the camera is not selected - or is not selectable - I’ll get reading tomorrow.

I tried camera movements (after setting up the animation times etc.,) in both Bryce versions - 6.3 and 7.1, and had no problems with no narrow box being drawn as I move the camera. Would it be that you’re not moving the scrubber at the bottom of your screen firstly, before then moving the camera?

Jay

pete - 20 June 2012 07:40 AM

I’d be most grateful if someone would tell me where I’m going wrong.  I’m going through the tutorials and have got to Lesson 28

There’s your problem. You’re using the tutorials.

But when I try to drag the camera, I see a narrow box being drawn (black lines) that disappears when the mouse button is released; the camera stays where it is and no blue trajectory line appears.

Relax. This isn’t an animation problem. This is a modeling problem.

These black lines you speak of… Are they solid black lines, or fine dotted lines?

If they’re dotted, it’s likely you have a locked object between you and the object you’re trying to select (the camera), or the object itself is locked, or you may be inside an object that is preventing you from selecting the camera.

Cntl-click on the camera. A pop-up menu should list whatever objects and/groups are directly under the cursor. Select the object you want. Check to see if it’s locked in the Edit Attributes… dialog.

As additionally clicking on the object to move it doesn’t work because there’s something stopping you, I suggest either using the Move tool in the Edit toolset, or moving your Director further out of the scene to get clear of the debris.

I obtained Bryce 7 Pro in order to make short scenes to be used as backdrops for a green-screened ‘real’ walking actor (walking on the spot, legs not in view!) so I really do need to know how to track the Bryce camera.

Uuhhh… Bryce can do greenscreening, but… Bryce doesn’t do live motion tracking. The Bryce camera can track any Bryce object that’s visible or hidden in a scene, but Bryce cannot auto-create live motion trajectories based on video, nor import video generated trajectory data.

The best you can do is generate a relatively static shot in Bryce, or perhaps a model moving on the spot, greenscreen that, and bring that movie into a video map with a motion tracking plugin and track your Bryce model to your live action footage.

Good luck

Many thanks, one and all, for your replies. I’ve solved my problem - I KNEW it would turn out to be me doing something stupid. The provided Animation-start file has small dimensions, so it appears in a relatively small box in the centre of the main Bryce pane; I had to zoom out several steps (in Camera to Director, Top View) in order to see the whole scene including the camera, so all the objects are pretty small. My big mistake was to assume that the pyramid outline with the blue ‘dot’ at its apex was itself the camera (with a large lens hood!). So I was trying to drag the pyramid. Because the blue ‘dot’ was so small, when I moved the cursor over it, it changed to crossed arrows. But I then found that by moving the cursor ever so slightly, it appeared as a black arrow (rather than the white-with-black-outlines arrow that I was trying to drag with). So from then on I was able to complete the tutorial. I now realise that the pyramid represents the camera’s angle of view and focus plane. and that the blue ‘dot’ is the camera (and looks more like one when zoomed into it!). I also now realise that the document resolution can be changed to something larger, to fill the Bryce main pane (and be changed back to a smaller size for rendering if required).

You might have (correctly) assumed that I am a complete novice with Bryce. I’m really an amateur ‘live action’ movie maker, and for our forthcoming production we want a scene with our actor walking through an unreal scene. So really I was trying to see if Bryce could be used to help us do that. The idea is to create the scene, with no characters in it, in Bryce, and make a movie with the camera tracking backwards through the scene. Then shoot our actor, with a green-screen background, walking on the spot (head to waist) and use my Edius editing software (which has some good green-screen processing functions) to marry the actor to the scene. Completing this tutorial, and seeing pictures of some of the scenes that others have created, have convinced me that Bryce will be just the job. So it will be worth my while to learn to use Bryce properly!

Thanks again to everyone for taking the trouble to help me - please accept my apologies for my stupidity. But perhaps this thread will be of help to some other novice. I might be back with another problem some time in the future….!

Glad you got it sorted, not quite at that part of the artists guide yet, but when i am, this will be very helpful