Flying Van

There are several things going on in this animation. The background is a photo on a large polygon. This makes it give the illusion of a real background because it doesn't move with the camera, unlike using a background image in Lightwave. I was playing with that and the movement of the wings and engines on the van which is a multi-layered object. Obviously, I wasn't too concerned with the smoothness of the motion path or with the details of the model. I did play with the graph editor for the motion path a bit as Lightwave is too in love with placing arcs where they aren't desired.
Another thing I did was to create a null object in layout. I placed it in the center of the van initially, then I parented the camera to the null. Instead of trying to keep the camera at a set distance from the van, I just kept the null close to the van, but always in line with the center of the van. This makes the camera follow the null and maintain a constant distance. By moving the null only left or right, the camera only moves left or right.
Yes, I could have constructed it so that the van cast a shadow on the ground but it wasn't a goal for my exercise.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• CGI
• Animation
• amateur
• tips