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Tess Monash
Participating Frequently
July 8, 2013
Question

How to extract a moving camera from C4D using Cineware?

  • July 8, 2013
  • 4 replies
  • 21970 views

Hey guys,

I've set up a complex camera move in C4D which I am trying to bring into AE using Cineware.

However, when I hit the "extract" button on the Cineware panel, a new camera pops up in the timeline that has only one keyframe at the beginning of the comp (which matches up with the first frame of my C4D camera) but no other keyframes, so it does not animate.

Is there a way to bring in a c4d camera with keyframes?

Thanks,

Tess

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    L
    lxrcan123
    New Participant
    October 4, 2016

    so the questions have been answered regarding baking the camera, the best way to do this is through Xpresso, however the steps above are a little more than there needs to be.

    here is a quick guide to baking animation with ONE xpresso connection.

    How to Bake a Vibrate tag in Cinema 4D on Vimeo

    basically, create a second 'slave' camera, and pump your animated ones Global matrix into your slaves.

    The reason we need to do this is that cineware doesn't see parent/child relationships, so making multiple levels of animation in c4d will result in onto the animation on the actual object itself you import.

    secondly, only the first frame of your animation will come into AE via cineware if your Output settings arent set to the legnth of your project, it will only export the frames you have set in your frame range. (a default scene is set to the first frame).

    fix these and you should get all you animation in nicely

      A
      Anonymous
      August 18, 2016

      I know this is an old conversation but if someone is reading this like me because the camera from C4D didn't match when using crane or any other rig or null I found also a similar solution without expresso.

      my camera was using a crane, i guess is the same if you got it on a null. when I baked it and import it on AE it didn't match.

      so I duplicate it. then create a new morph camera and leave it always in the first camera. then bake the morph and now it works perfect in AE.

      freebird2000
      freebird2000
      New Participant
      August 31, 2016

      THANK YOU Mariano!

      Your method WORKS. I've looked everywhere for the answer to this and can confirm it works.

      I used it to bake an animated camera that is inside an animated null. Using your method with the Camera Morph and baking that is the only way I've found to correctly import the data into AE.

      You're a life saver!

      Thank you

      J
      J_Poley
      New Participant
      November 21, 2013

      Here's how I just worked round this (quite frankly irritating bug, I love my xpresso). I had a camera nested to a null, I was using xpresso to just animate user data fields to control the xyz pos/rotation & z pos of the camera for zoom.

      - Created new camera.

      - tags/c4d tags/xpresso

      - Linked the nested cameras global pos and rotation to the new cameras global pso and rotation.

      - Selected the new camera in the timeline then function/bake object.

      - saved and extracted perfectly in AE CC.

      Irritating to have to bake but the origional camera is preserved, so its relatively easy to adjust when the client feedback comes in.

      Stephen Barrante
      Stephen Barrante
      Inspiring
      December 19, 2013

      Hey guys, this is really helpful. I'm so close to getting my camera sorted. Couple of quick questions. I'm using the CSTools DocuCam, which adds some camera wiggle and snap zoom, etc... I linked gobal pos and rotation, as well as zoom, and baked the keyframes but it's not carrying over the action from the orginal camera.

      Is there are more absolute link, e.g. "All properties", tag I can use to link the new camera to my scripted cam? I'm just trying to get all the motion that's coming out of the camera, in the most efficient way. Part of the problem is that the new camera isn't picking up the rotation generated by the target.

      Hope that makes any sort of sense. Ultimately, as the rest of you have, I would like that new Camera to be the Net result of anything that happened to the DocuCam which I already animated all over my scene.

      Thanks!

      Steve

      Stephen Barrante
      Stephen Barrante
      Inspiring
      December 19, 2013

      SUCCESS!

      In case anyone is trying to work with a more scripted camera, setup the Xpresso Group like this.

      Then here was the kicker for me. Ensure that you have enabled keyframing for those 3 properties (Focal Dist, Focal Len, Zoom), by CTRL clicking the o next to each property.

      Then, hit F9 on the first frame to add one keyframe so it appears in the Timeline view.

      Then in the Timeline window, select that New Camera (in my case DocuCam-Net), go to the functions menu and select "Bake Timeline", it will now bake the Global values as well as the 3 additioanl parameters (make sure you select Parameter check box)

      Thanks everyone for the leads to this point... it was looking grimm there for a while!

      S

      R
      Rick Gerard
      Adobe Expert
      July 8, 2013

      You're not selecting the right camera in C-4D. Or rather, you are not setting up the camera properly in C4D. If someone does not beat me to it I will post a screenshot when I get back to a computer.

      T
      Tess MonashAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      July 8, 2013

      Thanks, that would be very helpful. Only one camera in my scene so I must not be setting it up right.

      R
      Rick Gerard
      Adobe Expert
      July 8, 2013

      c4D has a default camera and any cameras you add. To extract the data the Scene must be set up to use the camera, not the default camera. It's really that simple. In the Camera section of your view port check and make sure you have the camera selected and not the default camera. Then after you extract the camera change the setting in Cineware to use the Comp camera.

      I would bet that if you typed c4d extract camera in the AE search help field it would point you to a toturial or two. If I remember right Adobe TV has at least two videos on C4D and C4D lite workflow.

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