A while back, Wes McDermott updated his CameraMan for Maya app, which allows you to use an IOS device to control your 3D camera in Autodesk Maya in real time. This seems like it would be a specific and vertical product, but CameraMan for Maya provides a great way to get some natural motion to Maya scenes easily.
Here, Wes demonstrates with a demo scene, how easily camera motion can be added, and what a divided difference it makes to a scene where a building is exploding, in this short, but markedly great example.
This is a quick video showing how using CameraMan motion can help to add a natural motion to a scene
CameraMan for Maya 3.5 has added the ability to save the motion to a file allowing you to add that motion to any object in Maya, not just cameras. Also of note is CameraMan for Maya 3.5’s new ability to set the motion cache interval, fine tuning the time it takes to apply the motion cache to the Maya timeline.
The concept of adding digital motion in analog ways is not a new one, as an example, Craft Animation tools will allow you to “drive” cars around your Maya scene and record that motion, albeit at a much higher price point.
For a look at how simple CameraMan for Maya is to use, you can check out a previous post showing how to use CameraMan for Maya here.
CameraMan 3.5 Demo Scene from Wes McDermott on Vimeo.
