I'm beginning to give up on the idea of ever getting this right but I can't work out what's going wrong.  I'm trying to have a spacecraft flying with a camera tracking it.  Now as far as I can see if I have a pretty much straight path for the ship to fly down and I keep the same rotation on the camera and set it up so that it's in the same position in frame at the beginning and end of the flight it should stay in the same part of the frame throughout.  Why do the speeds of the object and the camera seem to end up as different?

What I'd love is something that will anchor the camera so it's always pointing at an object but I'm not sure there is one.

I’m not big into Bryce animation but have you tried linking the camera to track the object? Select the camera then press Ctrl + Alt +E to bring up the camera’s attributes and click on the Linking tab. There click on the track object name (where it says “none”) and select the ship from the popup window and check out from attributes. If this doesn’t do it then someone who does know should come along shortly.

Doh.

Thanks, I'll give that a try, it's got to help.

"Track Object Name" will just keep the camera's 'eye' locked onto the object, but try - in the same menu - clicking on 'Parent Object Name' as well. - that will keep the camera exactly the same distance from the object all the way.

Thanks.

Can I turn the Parent Object Name on and off during an animation?  If I want to track to a certain point and then move the object and the camera apart?

Er... do you know, I've never tried that.

But I did a small animation with the camera staying on the ground and the sled roaring off into the sky, camera tracking the sled.  I'll try changing to locked onto sled as in parent to as well, and see what happens, I'll report back to you.

Yes, it seems that you can start with locked in both distance (that's "Parent Object Name") and centred in the view (that's "Track Object Name") - and the animation follows the sled exactly up to when I changed the "Parent Object Name" to "None" and then the camera keeps the object centred in the view but the camera itself stops moving through the scene.

Handy, eh?

It also allows you to follow the sled with the camera staying where it is but the sled centred in the view, "Track Object Name" and then change to add "Parent Object Name" (keeping "Track Object Name" switched on too) to lock the camera to the sled as it it's distance as well as centred in the view, but I didn't keep that one because my camera starting near the ground and my sled moving somewhat erratically, the camera at one point dipped below the ground place for a while...

 Usually, scenes where the camera tracks different objects are just set up as entirely different shots animated in different scene files. just like in real life different shots are indeed shot seperately.

Alternatively, if you want to have the camera smoothly transfer its tracking point from one object to another within one shot, you could use a null object (just make a cube or whatever and make it hidden) and parent/link the camera to the null object. Then you can have the null object follow your spaceship, and later move the null object to the new tracking location.