Watch for Creating Motion Graphics for After Effects Volume 2: Advanced Techniques by Trish and Chris Meyer. Demonstrated are techniques for translating camera moves from LightWave using the TransMotion Utilities Pack, plus techniques for integrating LightWave plus several other 3D programs (Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Electric Image, and others) with After Effects. And much more...
Available Spring 2003
Overview:
The key to matching cameras between any two applications is to make sure that their Field of Views agree. In the screen capture below, the LW camera Zoom Factor is superimposed on the Camera Settings panel in After Effects. Notice that in this case the Horizontal FOV in LW is equal to 45.24 degrees, the same as the Horizontal Angle of View in After Effects. But if you want to export this camera setting, it will always appear in the Graph Editor as Zoom Factor. Likewise, in AE, the parameter available to accept pasted data is Zoom, in pixels. Note that a Zoom Factor of 3.2 in LW is equivalent to, in this case, a Zoom of 384 pixels in AE.
One could match the two by adjusting the Zoom value in pixels until the Angle of View (in parentheses) matches the FOV in LW, but this could get to be tedious, especially if the parameter is animated. Fortunately, there is an easier way. But first, here's the conversion:
AEzoom = ((frame width / 2) / (tan(HFOVrad)))
where
HFOVrad = 2*atan( frame aspect ratio / LW Zoom Factor) / 2 = LW Horizontal FOV, in radians
Simple enough, but who wants to go through that for every key in a baked camera zoom? I promised an easier way, and here it is:
With the camera selected in LW, open the Graph Editor and select the channel Camera.ZoomFactor. Go to Keys > Bake Selected Curves to make sure that you have data for each frame of the animation. Then right-click on Camera.ZoomFactor in the Channels list and save the data as a LW envelope.
Next, run TransMotionENV, select the envelope file you just saved, and select "Convert camera zoom to AE." The other settings are shown below.
An After Effects keyframe file will be created (in this case, "CamZoom.aek"). Open the file in Notepad or other text editor, select all and copy the data. In AE, select the Zoom channel under Options for the camera in the timeline, and paste in the data. TransMotionENV does the work of converting the data for you.
