Using Cinemachine Dolly path in v2.0

So you’re animating the Path Position field and the camera isn’t moving? What happens when you change that value manually?

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Ok I have it now. I wasn’t following each step of the animating dolly instructions. Thanks!

Hello. I would like to know how to join the dolly. As if on a circular track?

@Ray2016 In the inspector for the CinemachinePath, there is a “Looped” checkbox.

brilliant! was wondering what that did!!!

Hi, it seems that the dolly track does not have a linear speed, it stops at each way point. Is that a normal behaviour ? How can this be fixed ?

@Whatever560 - make sure you’re on the latest version: CM v2.1 Release Candidate

There’s a few ways to drive the dolly cam (or cart): through keyframing the path position or the velocity and with the Auto Dolly. It shouldn’t stop at each waypoint unless you’re in Auto-Dolly mode and the shape of your path has some points nearer the follow object which in turn will cause the camera to hang around there longer as it’s just trying to follow the closest.

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@Whatever560 The track can make the objects slow down at the waypoints if the tangents are too small. Velocity is defined by the tangents, and is interpolated between the waypoints. If the tangent is zero at a waypoint, the following object will stop.

In Cinemachine 2.1 (available here: CM v2.1 Release Candidate ) there is a new option when following a path that makes this problem go away: choose “Distance” as your path unit. Then the tangents will influence direction only, not velocity.

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Update - Velocity was an old term, it’s been redesigned to be Distance/Speed.

Greg’s bang on about the tangents.

You can use Cinemachine->Create Dolly Track and Cart
Set it to Distance and key the speed.
3274289--253136--upload_2017-11-2_10-20-55.png

The Cart is a way of animating an object which you can then apply a vcam to - or anything else! People are using dolly carts for all sorts of crazy animation things.

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Was using latest stable 2.0. Will try the next one once it’s released. Thanks

@Whatever560 These are release candidates. They’re safe to use. We’re adjusting little things here and there but that shouldn’t dissuade you from grabbing it. The ‘released’ version only means we put it on the Asset Store.

There are significant improvements from v2.0 to v2.1. Definitely grab RC7

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@Gregoryl could you elaborate on this? How exactly do I set the TrackedDolly.CameraUp parameter to “Path”? I’m an artist using Cinemachine as an animating tool and I don’t have scripting skills - is that what’s needed here? Thanks!

3306138--256594--upload_2017-11-30_8-35-50.png

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Thanks!

Hey im using the new Cinemachine Dolly Cart to animate movement. I have figured out how to provide at object with a new path via script, but it creates a stop in motion when changing. Is it possible to blend between path in some way?

@nordtribe Set the Position Units to “Distance”.

3350659--262087--upload_2018-1-11_14-8-45.png

Edit: oh wait, I think I might have misunderstood your question. Are you swapping out the old path mid-movement and replacing it with another one?

I am using 2017.3 and do not see the tangent handles on the dolly track that you described above. Are they still available and if so how do you access them? Thanks.

Cinemachine is an asset released on the asset store, and is not hard-coupled to Unity releases. In Cinemachine/About, you will see the CM version number.

Newer releases of CM have two path implementations: CinemachinePath and CinemachineSmoothPath. SmoothPath is used by default and has automatic tangents, which guarantee second-order continuity of the path. If you want manual tangent control, you’ll have to swap out the CinemachineSmoothPath component and use the CinemachinePath component instead. Then you’ll see the tangents.

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Got it, thanks very much for the quick response, I appreciate it.

Perhaps Cinemachine Path (with tangent controls) should be the default for Dolly Cart as it gives control that at least for me would normally be needed.

hum, hi, we are working on a 2.5D platformer, and we are wondering how to lock or constrain the Z position on the camera? without a dolly, just a bool,

any idea?