I'm just glad that after several hours of tinkering with slowtiger's file I was finally able to get a test to loop properly. There were no keyframes to study except for the tracking camera. "How does this thing work?!"I scrubbed the timeline, colored one of the layers purple, unchecked visibility... Thanks for supplying a file that I could study!
Of course there was no keys except for the camera - we built a set and wanted to move the camera in it!
Glad that it worked out for you. I really like discussions like this because I always learn more about my own perception of a program or problem in contrast to others', and about careful wording of descriptions.
ST, I will refer to your method as the "Slowtiger oscillating camera technique" unless there is a better way to characterize it. It is tailor-made for complex scenes such as moving along roads, fences, poles etc. I think there are a good many possibilities.
I posted a clip which is jumpy but I know how to eliminate that. I just wanted to see if I could animate on this loop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YEC_oe3sSI
To clarify: it's good enough for creating a looping background. To put something else into the scene, like a car or a plane, it saves time to render the loop as video, and import it into the new scene with the plane.
Slowtiger means whatever object/character you want in the scene. By rendering the loop and then adding the object/character to a new scene with the loop, it keeps things from getting messy (you won't have to worry about the camera messing up the placement of objects and such)
you don't import directly into the video, but rather use the video as a background for your character much like a green screen is used. it's a good technique i've used a bunch.
Aha! I know what you mean. I've been frustrated when I've assembled separate files into a sequence. I lose all my camera work.
Wow. I've just learned a bunch in this post. I will use the rest of the day to assimilate everything.
