In APEX workflow, what's the intended way to animate camera?

I know I can still animate camera the old way, but then it's at a completely different level... the character is animated in APEX, and I have to jump out to /obj or /stage level to animate the camera.

Is there a better way?

You can probably create a placeholder joint to represent your camera transform that you rig and animate using APEX

Then downstream from APEX animate evaluate it's animation and either use as parent transform for Object camera or import directly to LOPs as Camera primitive or at least as transform override for existing Camera

I would like more info on this as well.
Its very inconvenient trying to do this especially because of the nature of node display. I noticed that on the turbulence short almost all the camera shots were still.
Do you have to go to maya to do things like layout because that kind of defeats the purpose of doing the animation in APEX.
I would also like a workflow that someone is actually using to deal with this limitation.

Hey all, unfortunately we weren't able to get this in for h20.5's release, but camera and lighting workflow for animators while in apex is definitely on the list. Please add any RFE's for features/love to have's etc

oh that sucks.
Would it be possible to somehow bring in a joint into apex and then copy its parameters to a camera in the obj context as a work around for now?

Escanut
oh that sucks.
Would it be possible to somehow bring in a joint into apex and then copy its parameters to a camera in the obj context as a work around for now?

yes, you can use CHOPs to export transform and other parameters to Object level cameras

however much easier is to bring it back to LOPs as you can either create a camera or override properties on existing camera easily just using SOP Import

Ok, if you want to animate the camera in apex while animating, here is a bit of a hack that might help. Again, just a hack, not a proper workflow, just something that might help in the meantime instead of having to go up to obj level. So take it with a grain of salt.

In the video attached, I do it 2 ways. I object merge the cam shape, then scene addprop to make the camera a prop (I moved where the pivot is on the prop by adjusting the rest postion to .25), and now we can animate it as normal in sceneanimate. This also allows all the apex anim tools to be used, anim sliders, motion paths, layers etc. Now to get that out to the obj camera, use a sceneinvoke.

This is where I do it 2 different ways, for whatever works best for you. In one I use the camera.charBase.rig/output Base.shp and in the other the Base.skel

Then in object level, for the shp one, I use extract transform, and set the source and destination as noted.

For the .skel one, since you are only pulling out 1 point, you can just add a 0 the path for the cam out alt in the constraints parm on the null. Please note for this way, the cam gets parented at that point, so you need to offset the trans the opposite amount you changed the pivot in addprop

One caveat to this hack is that there will be a delay between moving the cam and seeing it update. Also, set a key on the frame and then move. Again, this is just a hack and not a proper workflow. I haven't tested it, but this should also work for obj lights I would imagine.

Anyways, hope this might help, and yes, just want to mention once again, just a hack, not a proper workflow

Works great, thanks a lot Warren.

I'm noticing the Apex scene crashes Houdini a lot more now.

Escanut
I'm noticing the Apex scene crashes Houdini a lot more now.

Welcome to APEX (and Houdini in general). In theory it provides endless possibilities. In reality it crashes the second you start doing something slightly unusual.

raincole

Escanut
I'm noticing the Apex scene crashes Houdini a lot more now.

Welcome to APEX (and Houdini in general). In theory it provides endless possibilities. In reality it crashes the second you start doing something slightly unusual.

What's weird is i can freely move the camera and objects, after a while the moment i click K for keyframes it crashes instantly.
Really strange behavior.

Escanut

raincole

Escanut
I'm noticing the Apex scene crashes Houdini a lot more now.

Welcome to APEX (and Houdini in general). In theory it provides endless possibilities. In reality it crashes the second you start doing something slightly unusual.

What's weird is i can freely move the camera and objects, after a while the moment i click K for keyframes it crashes instantly.
Really strange behavior.

If you can reliably reproduce the crash, please report it to SideFX.

It might need a recording since it's likely dependent on your desktop, and various mouse actions leading up to it.