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[jimvfx]

To preface, I am not a Maya expert by any stretch but am trying to solve a problem of converting a Maya camera move to a real world motion control move.

Imagine a camera with a simple x translation dollying past a static object. Looking through the camera, we appear to push into the object, then pull out, as it rotates in frame.

I want to convert this motion that so I now have as much of the relative movement as possible be represented as object rotation.

In this example, I would then have an object rotation and a camera X translation that pushes into the object and then pulls back.

I have been able to partially do this by setting up an aim constraint on a locator that is parented to my object. The locator always faces the camera. Then by using a measure tool I can always determine the distance to my object.

That only gets me part of the way there though. What I really want to do is to control when the conversion happens as an animatable parameter. At one extreme I would have static object and moving camera and at the other extreme I would have as much of the movement be rotation as possible.

The end goal to is to shoot as much of this camera move as possible in the real world or do something where we start with the orginal move, then as it progresses, we introduce more rotation. (This is all because there are real world limitations to how far and fast a camera can move).

By the way, I have done exactly this thing about 10 years ago but I forget how it was done.

Any ideas on how to do this? More constraints?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

J