Max Voigt said:but still get a strange horizontal sliding motion at each keyframe. I've looked at the keyframe spline editor but can't find a way to edit it and get what I require.Any guidance on this would be welcome.
If you have some jitter in the camera position you can adjust them when you enable the keyframe/splines see below:
You can adjust the position of the camera as well as the rotation at each keyframe by right-clicking at each keyframe.
Thanks David, but no - the spline editor does not seem to be able to control the camera in a continuous 360 circle. I can't see how it is at all useful to control the camera (doesn't plot its position relative to a target object).
Were you able to play the video I posted? It only seemed to work in my Microsoft Edge browser.
Max
Perhaps we could set this up as a challenge; Who will be the first to create a smooth 360 flyover in LumenRT?
Attached is a LRT live cube, with a clip setup in the movie editor to get you started.
Good luck!
test 360 fly.zip
Hi Max,
Using your LRT file I was able to create a good orbit using the camera options for Link and Look At. (see attached zip file)
3465.test360flyRSJ.zip
I placed a car in the scene and gave it a path that runs around your geometry. I then Linked the camera to the car and set it to Look At your geometry. I scaled the car up to make it easy to link to, and set its speed to 360km/h, so it would make one orbit in about 9 seconds. I had to adjust the camera focal length and position to get it centered in the view.
One issue with LumenRT is the space in which the camera can navigate is limited to the space allocated for the original export from MicroStation to LumenRT. Your geometry occupies most of that space, so the focal length needs to be adjusted so you can move the camera in closer, which gives the camera more space to move around. Otherwise the camera sometimes reaches the boundary of the available space and can't move smoothly and keep the geometry centered in the view.
Regards,Ron
Creative thinking, Ron! I had a feeling you would rise to the challenge.
It's a fairly elegant solution - although a little disturbing to know that somewhere down there, an Audi A4 is driving around my project at 360km/h.
Your file didn't have the Look at linked to CAD export when I first opened it, so I was confused at first - but got it to work. One limitation that comes to mind is - what if my project has terrain & buildings; the car would change z height continuously, so the camera would bounce around too?
Where I'm going with this is that I don't think LumenRT has the right navigation tools in place to create flexible and predictable animations. I'm able to accurately and smoothly move around my scene with a 3D Connection controller, but the same level of control is not possible when defining keyframes in the Movie Editor.
The same principle applies to many aspects of the Microstation> LumenRT story. If LumenRT is intended to be a tightly integrated companion to Microstation, then is should start to perform the functions of Microstation. For example - in Microstation, I can create an animation showing a perfect 360 degree rotation over an object, but the same basic visualization task can't be performed in LumenRT.
It's not only navigation that falls short. If I instruct a material to cast no shadows in Microstation, I should expect LumenRT to respect that instruction; https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/microstation_visualization/f/visualization-forum-1977638070/156209/lumenrt---material-with-no-shadow/468496#468496
If I can render a plan view in Microstation, I should be able to render a plan view in LumenRT; communities.bentley.com/.../400582
LumenRT has opened up a whole new world of opportunity to visualize projects, but I hope Bentley keeps focused on developing tools and functionality that reflect the cad world driving it.