Camera’s circular motion path, shooting toward the center, unexpected results

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Level 1

52 points

Camera’s circular motion path, shooting toward the center, unexpected results

I have that nasty feeling that I solved that problem few years ago with the help of someone on this very discussion. Unfortunately, I coud not find the thread… But there it is again…

I need to move a camera 360 deg on a circular path with the camera lens pointing at all time toward the center of the circle. Not a big deal, right?

Well, I created a camera, drew a circle on the 0,0,0 coordinates on the XY plane, added a Motion Path behaviour. Expectedly, the camera follows the path without changing its shooting direction whatever that was. So far so good.

Then I tried fiddling with more camera behaviors: Snap Alignment to Motion, and Point At, after having created some 3D text created roughly at the center of the circle, All that to no avail.

I have no idea what I am missing here. Understanding Motion logic is often very challenging and I am not sure where to explore in the end after many unlucky tries.

Motion 5.9

Any idea?

Posted on Feb 10, 2025 6:40 AM

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Answer 1

fox_m

Level 6

12,853 points

Feb 10, 2025 12:16 PM in response to claude_210

The circle needs to be moved in Z space in order to give the camera a perspective distance from the Text subject. Otherwise, it will only "look at" the top/sides and bottom of the text. If the text is 2D, there's nothing at all to see!