import camera

[scaron]

in order to make terrain specific for a shot (visual effects and animation) we need the ability to import a camera, maybe use fbx? to do this?

[WFab]

Yes that would be immensely helpful! I second this request!   

[Remnant]

Hi there,

I've definitely received this request multiple times over the years.

As its more of an "interoperation" feature than than a WM one, can you explain what it would let you do more fully?

[WFab]

It would let us import popular camera animation formats into wm, and animate camera accordingly. A few examples would be importing camera from maya, nuke, vue, boujou etc. If we can get camera animation in wm, even if it's just for previewing, not for exporting image sequence, it would help us a lot.

[Tangled-Universe]

A bit off topic and may be my user error, but I would like to have camera controls similar to TG/Maya.
At the moment it seems I can only rotate the heightfield and tilt & zoom the camera. I'd also like to be able to really pan/move the camera, ideally.
Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
Martin

[Hotshot]

I second with Tangled Universe

[WFab]

Well martin's request has to be implemented first anyway, so I second it too!

[e2clipse]

Putting animation inside worldmachine would mean you should have a renderer emplemented to
How else would you get your screenshot/animation to be spot on perfect.

I think many people would like to see many programs roled into one.
But isnt that were your game engine/mudbox/3dsmax/maya are for?

I read a lot of ideas and if remnant added them all, he woulf have an engine himself
With probably more options then cry or uni..
Would be funny though

[WFab]

A renderer is already built into worldmachine. How else would you visualize a full resolution terrain with raytraced lighting in the 3D view and preview window? what we are asking for is a way to free camera as an object, by introducing a second camera. Then the second step would be to animate the camera by importing some camera information from other programs.

[e2clipse]

Theres a difference in quality i guess...
Never seen WM raytracing mudbox would...
If your going for screenshots or animation i would stick to a secondary program

[Tangled-Universe]

Well IMHO World-Machine should primarily be and stay a terrain modeller.
Rendering terrains for evaluation, feedback and pre-viz is good functionality and as far as I'm concerned it's sufficient now.
If one wants to render a terrain in a more fancy way + animated camera moves then one should move the modelled terrain to a dedicated app and do it there?

Cheers,
Martin

[WFab]

Well camera projection is a method that has been an integral part of environment design. Why not get the tools for it in the terrain modeller. Lets cover all corners!

[Tangled-Universe]

Well I just do not agree with that, because what's next then? Volumetric lighting? Clouds? Water? etc. etc.?
Before you know you end up with a lot of clutter and fragmented features, which will never be quite there since it isn't software dedicated to the task specifically.
I generally don't believe in software which "covers all corners".
Nor do I believe or think that the developers intend World-Machine to become such a piece of software, simply because there's so much out there already which does it for almost decades and much better.
Like I said this is all IMHO, but World-Machine is a dedicated terrain modeller and if one wants to do camera moves/projection, rendering of environments etc. then they should do that in software which is dedicated for that task.

[WFab]

Okay Martin I get your point. Stephen would agree I'm sure! 

[Tangled-Universe]

It's no problem of course if you disagree as we all have our long lists of wishes
I was merely trying to support my ones.

[dematerialist]

+1 for the OP's suggestion. Right now we have a shot where the camera is locked (it's a flythrough), and I need to test things like collisions with the terrain by the camera by bringing the terrains from WM into Maya. If there was a camera .fbx import feature in WM, I could simply skip this back and forth testing process altogether.

No need to get fancy with it (we don't need to mention rendering at all), but a camera import feature would really be nice.

Even if cameras were static, for static shots, you could get a nice sense of composition and how what you're doing in WM will look in your 3d software package. That's as far as it needs to go, really.



(I also second the ability to have more Maya like controls for navigating a terrain. But if it was a toss up between either/or, I'd go for the camera import )
Cheers,

[scaron]

two years later... still no camera import

@Remnant

If you ever get to this, my request is in line with dematerialist's post. I need to check my composition and the camera path (no need to create a full blown timeline to import animation, just allow a frame/time parameter on the device). No need to do realistic renderin.