Camera Flow Pro

by Coby Randal Media in Addons


Installation:

  1. Blender>Edit>Preferences>Add-ons>Install
  2. Navigate to CameraFlowPro...zip, select it and "Install Add-on".
  3. In Add-ons window, use the magnifying glass / search bar and type "Camera Flow Pro" until you see it.
  4. Enable the Add-on with with checkbox.
  5. Check your 3d Viewport window N-Panel region for the tab "CFP". Press "N" if you don't see it.


QUICKSTART - Initializing the Camera Flow Pro Rig and See the Flow in Action!

  1. In the CFP tab under the "Initialize" panel, click "Add Camera Flow Pro".
  2. Select the outer ring of the rig named "0. Root Loc Rot Scale" and use it to move / rotate the rig into the general area of your scene you want.
  3. Select the Cone "4. FLOW Track-To", start animation playback (spacebar), and move it around your scene. See the camera flow delay track-to in action!
  4. Select the Empty Sphere "3. FLOW Cam Loc", start animation playback and move it around your scene. See the camera flow delay location in action!
  5. Feel free to enable "Auto Keying" in Timeline window so your movements will be recorded to keyframes during animation playback.
  6. That was just the basics to get a feel for manipulating the rig essentials. You can switch cam loc and track-to flow presets via the Mod Panels>Cam Flow and Track Flow buttons. 
  7. Now let's discuss some more advanced tips and techniques.


Pro Tips:

  • Blender 3.6 (unlike 4.0+) limits tooltip length of Geometry Nodes inputs; refer to this page for the full tooltip listings.
  • Hover over the buttons in the CFP panels to see detailed tooltip descriptions for each.
  • Resize the panel area to show full text names of each button, OR make them smaller to only show the button icons. This stays unique per active "Workspace" tab in Blender. So if you change CFP's panel sizes in "Layout" workspace, it will NOT change in the "Modelling" workspace. This also applies for collapsing and reordering of panels, allowing you to completely customize your workflow.
  • That being said, I recommend having a Properties window present when you desire to perform changes to the delayed follow / Track-To (Flow presets), or camera shake. This ensures you can see the Geometry Nodes Inputs in the Modifier Properties for each of those three features.
  • If at any time you don't see the proper rig response / motion while animation playback is running, CFP>Resets>Refresh Sim. Geometry Nodes Simulations sometimes go to sleep, so this "Refresh Sim" button will wake them back up no problem.
  • Reset a slider value to default by hovering over it with the mouse and pressing "Backspace".


Changing Flow or Shake Presets:

  1. As stated above, have a Properties window present in your workspace for this particular operation.
  2. CFP>"Mod Panels" provides shortcuts to view the 3 different features + the Camera Data settings.
  3. Both Cam Flow and Track Flow have nearly identical settings except that Track Flow allows quick changing of "Tracking Type".
  4. "Flow Type" allows settings 1, 2, or 3 "Simple, Snappy, and Luxe Flow", and the only other sliders that affect them are "Main Speed, Object Controller, Flow Type, and Offset." The other sliders below are for the Enable Advanced Controls.
  5. "Enable Advanced Controls" is the fourth flow type: Luxe Flow Advanced Controls. If enabled, it overrides the other flow types. It's exactly like Luxe Flow by default, but with advanced control options allowing the use of the other slider settings like "From Min, From Max, To Min, To Max, and Luxe Curve (which has 8 presets)". 
  6. You can always see the names of the presets you've chosen in Modifiers panel by expanding "Internal Dependencies" below the sliders. In Blender 4.1+ it's Manage>Named Attributes.
  7. Get used to the feeling of the basic flow types 1-3 while animation playback is going, and then come back to the advanced Luxe Flow Controls to try the 8 Luxe Curve presets (Classic, Slow Mo Moment, Magnetic, Splice Drift, Skippy, Speed Splice, Rope Slack Follow, Internet lag).


Advanced Techniques:

  • Auto Follow and Tracking: Select a character or rigid body object, etc CFP>Aiming>Aim+Focus, CFP>Relations>Track, CFP>Relations>Copy Location. Also try "Parent"
  • Dutch Tilt: Select the CFP camera, "R", "Z" x 2. Your rotation is a simple offset that will stay even with tracking and other motion effects active. You can also animate this.
  • Loop-de-Loop Drone Mode: CFP>Mod Panels>Track Flow. Modifier Properties>Tracking Type: 3. CFP>Cam Flow, Modifier Properties>Main Speed (make this much slower than Track Flow's Main Speed).
  • Record snapping Anchors to vertices for jump cuts.


Before You Render an Animation:

  • If you are utilizing any rigid body physics object, bake their cache, and then bake to keyframes. Once cache is baked, "Bake Selected" can help bake them to keyframes.
  • "Bake CFP Cam" and set the baked camera as the active camera. Select the baked camera, 3D Viewport: View>Cameras>Set Active Object As Camera (Ctrl Numpad 0).
  • Baking to keyframes is essential so that hiccups in simulations aren't present that could derail the entire render with horrendous glitches in motion blur and object positions etc. 


Emergency Fix Procedures

Don't forget, Geometry Nodes Simulations can go to sleep. Try CFP>Resets>"Refresh Sim".

Also, you can save in an older version of Blender and open in a newer version, but you must NOT open a newer version .blend in an older version of Blender. Simulations will break and not work at all. If you save in 4.1 for example, do not open that .blend in 4.0.

Reset Rig and Root Reset Rig can also help but the following list are exceptions. Unless you know what you're doing, avoid:

  • Adding custom constraints to the rig instead of using the Relations panel buttons.
  • Deleting all or part of the rig.
  • Renaming part of the rig.
  • Moving one or more parts of the rig outside of the Camera Flow Pro collection.
  • Deleting or renaming the Camera Flow Pro collection.
  • Deleting or renaming the Geometry Nodes node trees.
  • Deleting or renaming one or more of the rig constraints.

Don't worry. You can always try Ctrl+Z to undo. If that doesn't work, you can revert to a previously saved .blend or try to manually correct the changes. If you must use your current .blend and nothing else seems to work, do the following:

  1. Delete the entire Camera Flow Pro collection in the Outliner window (right click the collection and choose "Delete Hierarchy"). Be sure to delete all parts of the rig that may have gone outside of that collection.
  2. File>Clean Up>(go through all of these until no more data shows as being deleted).
  3. N-Panel: CFP>Initialize>Add Camera Flow Pro. You should see the Camera Flow Pro collection and proper names of the rig added. You should NOT see any of those with a .001 or .002 etc at the end of their names.
  4. All button functions and resets should now work correctly.


Tooltip Listings:

Covers Camera Shake Panel, Camera Flow panel, and Tracking Flow panel (Geometry Node input settings for each). These tooltip descriptions are best seen in Blender 4.0+ where Geometry Node input tooltips are not limited in length like Blender 3.6 does. These have been published here for your reference.


Camera Shake Panel Tooltips:

Cam Loc Influence: The influence of camera shake on the camera's location.


Track-To Influence: The influence of camera shake on the camera's tracking.


Loc Master Multiply: Diminish or amplify the camera shake 3D volume. Higher values create full motion paths.


Sine Smooth: Generally, enable this when you need smoothing for any slower seamless / looping. Disable for more turbulent noise loops to appear more seamless.


Affect Flow Objs, NOT Anchors: NOT for seamless looping animations. Shake affects flow objects (and gets filtered by their flow / smoothing settings) instead of affecting the flow anchors.


Wave Loops: Must be an even number (2, 4, 6, 8 etc) for seamless looping to work. I recommend leaving this on 2.


Starting Frame: For seamless looping, both this and “Ending Frame” are already set by drivers to follow your active scene's frame_start and frame_end values. Right click and remove the driver if you want to break seamless looping and experiment.


Ending Frame: For seamless looping, both this and “Starting Frame” are already set by drivers to follow your active scene's frame_start and frame_end values. Right click and remove the driver if you want to break seamless looping and experiment.


Wave Offset: Offsets the shake, shifting it around in time. You can also animate this or set a driver to it to produce customized shake. Be sure to remove the drivers from “Starting Frame” and “Ending Frame” and set them both to “1” to turn their influences off if you wish.


Noise Speed: Higher positive or negative values add turbulence. Values closer to 0 are slower and smoother. Negative values are NOT equal opposites, so definitely try those for unique effects.


Noise Scale: Useful to tame or exaggerate “Noise Speed”. Higher positive or negative values add turbulence. Values closer to 0 are slower and smoother. Negative values are NOT equal opposites, so definitely try those for unique effects.


Noise W: Tweak this if you like your other settings but want a quick variation. The “Randomize Shake” button in the CFP N-Panel changes this value to anything between -10000 and +10000.


Detail: Adds finer turbulence within the main turbulence. 0 - 15. Only works if “Roughness” is greater than 0.


Roughness: Determines how much “Detail” finer turbulence is seen. 0 - 1.


Lacunarity: “The scale of a Perlin Noise octave relative to that of the previous octave.” This scales the finer turbulence size relative to the main turbulence.


Distortion: Lower values are smoother and slower, while higher values are faster and more turbulent. Pushing this to very high values and then taming that with “Noise Speed” and “Noise Scale” provide some interesting experimental skips / jump cuts. Negative values are NOT equal opposites, so definitely try those for unique effects.


Divider / Text String Entry Box: Your custom notes for this camera shake preset.


Loc XYZ Multiply: Track, Dolly, and Boom multipliers. 0 for off. Negative values work as well.


Loc XYZ Offset: Track, Dolly, and Boom addition or subtraction. 0.5 is Neutral.


Cam Flow Panel Tooltips:

Main Speed: Values closer to 0 are slower, while values of 7+ are ludicrous.


Flow Type: 1. Simple Flow 2. Snappy Flow 3. Luxe Flow. You can always see the names of the presets you've chosen in Modifiers panel by expanding "Internal Dependencies" below the sliders. In Blender 4.1+ it's Manage>Named Attributes.


Enable Advanced Controls: Luxe Flow Advanced Controls. See sliders below.


From Min: Think of as min distance of Flow object from the camera.

From Max: Think of as max distance of Flow object from the camera.


To Min: Starting point of the Luxe Curve expression. 0 is default, but you can start later, thus shaving off parts of the beginning of the Luxe Curve expression. 1 is maximum.

To Max: Ending point of the Luxe Curve expression. 1 is default, but you can end earlier, thus shaving off the end of the Luxe Curve expression. 0 is minimum.


Luxe Curve: 1. Classic, 2. Slow Mo Moment, 3. Magnetic, 4. Splice Drift, 5. Skippy, 6. Speed Splice, 7. Rope Slack Follow, 8. Internet lag. You can always see the names of the presets you've chosen in Modifiers panel by expanding "Internal Dependencies" below the sliders. In Blender 4.1+ it's Manage>Named Attributes.


Divider / Text String Entry Box: Your custom notes for this camera flow location preset.


Offset X Y Z: Offsets the camera location.


Object Controller: Highly experimental feature. Reset and Root Reset Rig do not undo this, so use at your own risk! Default setting: 3. FLOW Cam Loc.


Track Flow Panel Tooltips:

Tracking Type: 1.Track To (most flexible, standard tracking) 2.Damped Track (more rigid, offers unique barrel-rolling) 3.Locked Track (very rigid, but works well for flying loop-de-loops).


Main Speed: Values closer to 0 are slower, while values of 7+ are ludicrous.


Flow Type: 1. Simple Flow 2. Snappy Flow 3. Luxe Flow. You can always see the names of the presets you've chosen in Modifiers panel by expanding "Internal Dependencies" below the sliders. In Blender 4.1+ it's Manage>Named Attributes.


Enable Advanced Controls: Luxe Flow Advanced Controls. See sliders below.


From Min: Think of as min distance of Flow object from the Track-To object.

From Max: Think of as max distance of Flow object from the Track-To object.


To Min: Starting point of the Luxe Curve expression. 0 is default, but you can start later, thus shaving off parts of the beginning of the Luxe Curve expression. 1 is maximum.

To Max: Ending point of the Luxe Curve expression. 1 is default, but you can end earlier, thus shaving off the end of the Luxe Curve expression. 0 is minimum.


Luxe Curve: 1. Classic, 2. Slow Mo Moment, 3. Magnetic, 4. Splice Drift, 5. Skippy, 6. Speed Splice, 7. Rope Slack Follow, 8. Internet lag. You can always see the names of the presets you've chosen in Modifiers panel by expanding "Internal Dependencies" below the sliders. In Blender 4.1+ it's Manage>Named Attributes.


Divider / Text String Entry Box: Your custom notes for this camera flow track-to preset.


Offset X Y Z: Offsets the Track-To location.


Object Controller: Highly experimental feature. Reset and Root Reset Rig do not undo this, so use at your own risk! Default setting: 4. FLOW Cam Track-To.

    Published 7 days ago
    Blender Version 4.1, 4.0, 3.6
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