Displaying the Camera Path

When a movie has multiple cameras, it may be useful to make the path of one camera visible on another camera. To do this, first set up the Flythrough box as described on RenderingMovies. Then create a StreamDisplay^? from the decoration menu. This box will display a single stream in a configurable way. Connect the camera location output from the Flythrough to the StreamDisplay^?'s only input, and connect its output to the camera it is to be displayed on, as follows:

The resulting image will look like this:

There are five options for what to display about the stream, as shown in the list of StreamDisplay^? commands above:

showHull

Draws lines between each of the keyframes.

showHullPoints

Draws spheres at each of the keyframes.

showPath

Draws a line following the path.

showPathPoints

Draws spheres at the locations on the path corresponding to each frame of the movie.

showCurPos

Draws a sphere at the current location of the stream, to track the camera location during the movie.

The last display option shows just the camera location, but it may be useful to also indicate which direction the camera is looking. For this, use the Line box, also from the decoration menu. It has two inputs, corresponding to the two ends of the line. To display a camera's view direction, connect the camera location and look-at outputs from the Flythrough to it, and connect the output to the camera. The result is as follows:

The resulting image will look like this:

-- TimPeterson - 13 Jun 2006