Greetings, I am trying to achieve the effect of a camera orbiting a scene at a high angle with precise aim at a central object. Setting "spin" and "point at" does not seem to do the trick since if I adjust the camera to roll down to the object, for instance, the plane of rotation likewise assumes a diagonal. I want the camera to orbit Z while maintaining a down view of the object at universe center some distance below. Essentially I am trying to get a twirled trajectory with a result similar to that of a satellite in orbit. Any solutions will be greatly appreciated. David Normal

This is kind of a trick. 1 Put in your camera, set the point at behavior. 2 Group the camera into a new group (i.e., select the camera and hit control G). Set the camera where you want (the radius of orbit) and then put the hot point for that group in the middle of the object you want it to orbit. Then set the spin behavior onto the group. Try that. Not sure if you can get the spiral the way you want without using some kind of motion path. -Kix

You could also just set the camera's hot point to the center of the object you're orbiting and set the spin behavior on the camera. Then, you could animate the hotpoint of the camera which would allow you to alter the spinning path of the camera. Just a thought. - Dex

Picking up from Kix- 3) Keyframe 0 start the camera center out at the farthest orbit. 4) Jump to last keyframe and move the camera center (not the hotpoint) in to the closest point. I think that will work for a spiral. I was actually trying to do the orbit thing last night- serendipity! Markd

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try 'em out and let you know how it goes. Seems like grouping the camera and thus creating an additional hot point as Kixum suggests should do the trick. I'm not trying to spiral, I'm trying to twirl. (I don't know, but "twirl" , I think, signifies the motion typical of a lasso or skip rope, i.e.; revolving at an angle from the axis). While I'm thinking about it . . . is it possible to import beziers for motion paths? Earlier I tried to import a circle path (as an .eps) from photoshop, but it never arrived in carrara. -DN

OK. My camera is orbiting now - no problem. I experimented with making a spiral. I animated the camera's zoom so that at keyframes spaced evenly with the completion of every revolution the zoom hit an increment of a fibonacci series, and so the lens traces the trajectory of a spiral. I suppose that this could be done with a shallow depth of field to get some rather dramatic effects of movement through space, no? -DN

Cool! Glad it worked! -Kix

Animating the zoom should add to a very intense 'satelite falling out of orbit' kind of feel. Very cool! Can't wait for the animation! Are you gonna post it? I found the whole grouping-a-single-object thing very helpful, since most behaviors haven't worked for me if I just keep adding them to one object. But by adding them to the groups, they work correctly.

Hmmm . . . I hadn't thought about posting it, let alone even renderin g it. It's part of my process of learning the program, and I have just been poking around all the nooks and crannies of Carrara in preparation for use in a video project of mine. Actually I intend to post some stuff soon (what I am doing with vertex modelling), but probably just stills since I am on a dial-up account (no practical alternative here in Bali, Indonesia) and don't want to upload video files. -DN