Erratic Camera

[Bells of Freedom]

I have a camera in my scene that is behaving very erratically. I have spent much time tweaking keyframes in the graph editor but to no avail. I've changed them from TCB's, Beziers, Linear, you name it, with very little progress.

The scene is an animation another artist did in Cinema4D. I imported it into LW via FBX (the only way I could get the objects and all the motion data). Creating a new camera and keyframing it to match the old one is not an option (already tried it) as this project will have to be handed on to another artist and all the motion data must remain exactly as it.

What I mean by erratic is that it flips up, down, and backward from one keyframe to the next many times throughout the animation. For a few keyframes it's pointing straight, then the next keyframe it points straight up, then backward, then forward again.
In the Motion Options panel, I've set to Align to Path and to Keyframes but there's very little change.

How do I fix this? Are there any motion modifiers in the Graph Editor or Motion Options to help? Fixing individual keyframes hasn't helped thusfar.
Thanks in advance :)

[SteveMoody]

If you go into the graph editor you can delete the keyframes on the rotation channels for the camera. This should stop the camera pointing at off angles but keep the motion as it is.

[aeres]

I'm guessing it has something to do with C4D employing quaternion rotation calculations while LW is still stuck with Eulerian.

EDIT: Have you tried the "QuartenionBooster" motion plugin?

[Bells of Freedom]

EDIT: Have you tried the "QuartenionBooster" motion plugin?

I've never heard of QuartenionBooster. How do I use it? Is it a native LW tool?

[aeres]

It's under the motions panel -> Add modifier drop down list.

[Bells of Freedom]

I tried the Quarternion Booster, but it had little to no effect. Are there any other options or modifiers?

Is this an issue anyone else has run into - "importing animations from other programs equals crazy camera?"
It's frustrating. I have no qualms with tedium, such as tweaking each keyframe in the Graph Editor. (As an aside, call me crazy, but there is something strangely satisfying about the meticulousness of keyframe tweaking by hand. The electronic version of "elbow grease" :))
However, it just hasn't helped in this instance.

[Bells of Freedom]

I've found some more info that may shed light on this issue. Wondering if anyone had any thoughts. (Background: I have Vue 6 Xtream for LW. Original animation was done by someone else in C4D. I have to bring it into LW to add atmospherics with Vue.)

In Cinema4D, the animation goes 350 frames. But when it is exported in FBX format and brought into Lightwave, the animation takes 422 frames? What's going on? Same thing happens in Maya. In LW, I have to bring it in using FBX 5.0. In Maya I can use FBX 6.0. Same problem. Plus, in Maya (which from my observations, seems to handle FBX imports better than LW) the same erratic camera problem is there.

I've tweaked the keyframes in the graph editor a lot, and that isn't solving the problem. There has to be a deeper issue here.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance :)

[Professor Moriarty]

I could be wrong here, but it sounds like your frames per second aren't consistent between Cinema4D and LightWave. When you select Edit-->General Options in Layout, does the "Frames Per Second" field on the General tab match the FPS of the scene in Cinema4D?

[Bells of Freedom]

I could be wrong here, but it sounds like your frames per second aren't consistent between Cinema4D and LightWave. When you select Edit-->General Options in Layout, does the "Frames Per Second" field on the General tab match the FPS of the scene in Cinema4D?

Wow, good call! That helped a lot. The camera is still a bit "wonky" but that totally fixed the number of frames issue. Thanks!

[Professor Moriarty]

Glad to help. :)