One of the things I discovered is that when you want to have a camera shake, normal camera translation doesn’t really work. Hardly any motion is perceived, unless the camera moves enormous distances. What I found to be the most effective approach is to rotate the camera, rather than change its position. This really makes the audience feel uneasy and unbalanced, which is exactly what we want the camera shake to portray.
Here’s an example of it from our new show, Solar System Odyssey.
2 Responses to “Camera Shake on the Dome”
Howard Hochhalter
Excellent point. You just saved us some time that would inevitably been chewed up trying to figure out how to make the “shake” believable.
Jim Kachelries
Great! Glad to hear it. You can also fake a camera shake by doing it in post-production. Pete would use The Wiggler or his own script to animate the scale of the rendered image sequence to simulate a rumble when a spaceship passes by. It’s good for much quicker/jerkier camera shakes, as it’s not exactly a true 3D software shake. I think he might make a post on it later perhaps.