Project Problems and Questions

# 1 06-08-2006 , 10:12 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2006

Posts: 3

Hey all-

So I started a simple and easy Maya animation project. I wanted to create a 1st person scene of a 'fly over' where the camera is flying at high speeds close to the ground down a fairly straight route. So I started by creating a Plane that would be my immediate environment, and stretched it out along one axis really really far so I would have plenty of flying distance. I thought that a Nurbs plane might be best, because then if I made hills and valleys and such it would look very natural. [Ideas?] so now I have a really long rectangle. but I can't view the entire thing at once. Because it is long, when I zoom out to be able to view it all, one or both ends dissapear, so I have to scroll from one end to the other, which gets annoying. [Advice?] and even then if I make the camera *really* fly and give it a good sense of speed, the huge stretch of land i made ends quickly because of how fast I have to go to make it look good. [Responses?] and then there is the environment. If I just have some flat background it looks weird because its static and not really moving.

Its a fairly simple project, but my level of experience [read: lack of it] is making it complicated. If any of y'all have some advice, tips, ideas, or anything else helpful on any or all of the things mentioned, I would love the feedback.

"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof. " -V

Last edited by Kouga; 07-08-2006 at 04:55 PM.

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# 2 07-08-2006 , 04:49 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: May 2005

Posts: 240

It's disappearing because your clipping distance is too short...not 100% sure where the option is, but it's in Window->General Editors->Settings and Preferences.
Look around in there and increase the far clipping range.

Unless you want a massively long nurbs plane, i suggest you attach the camera to a motion path, and just have it loop along the path. This involves going into the graph editor and setting the curve to cycle-infinity once you have the camera attached.
You'll also need to make the beginning of the path and the end relatively the same so it flows, and doesnt look like the scenery has changed dramatically.
also, there's a setting when you assign a motion path to have it follow the curve of the path...so if you set that it can appear as though the camera is swaying and swerving more naturally instead of just looking straight all the time.
Do a search for motion paths on the internet for more information.

you can also slow down the speed at which you'removing the camera and just add a lot of motion blur. it iwll appear as though the environment is moving faster than it is. that way you don't loop so often, and it won't seem as repetative.

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# 3 07-08-2006 , 04:53 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2006

Posts: 3

Originally posted by errethakbe
It's disappearing because your clipping distance is too short...not 100% sure where the option is, but it's in Window->General Editors->Settings and Preferences.
Look around in there and increase the far clipping range.

Originally Posted by

Ah, the clipping distance. That rings a bell - thank you. I hate it when I can't see everything at once..the rest was equally helpful, especially the motion blur bits. Now for the motion blur, is that something you add to it afterwords? or is that something during the Maya rendering process you can do? i've only really done modelling so far, not any special effects or anything yet.

and the loop sounds good. Dunno why I didn't already think of that :p Thanks a lot user added image