Our initial output from the Spline Animator produced a camera path which was many times smoother than we were able to achieve previously. Indeed, by merely setting a few keyframes we were able to produce the desired sequence in minutes. Thus the Spline Animator demonstrates that smooth camera motion may be achieved with relatively little effort. However, generating smooth animation relies on a combination of careful keyframe placement and an appropriate framerate. It is possible to generate jerky motion, even with splining, by irresponsible selection of keyframes or framerates which are too low.
The reader should not be led to believe, at this point, that the splining method presented above is the best. It is merely the most commonly used. Also, some assumptions were made which may not be suitable for certain applications. For example, second derivatives were set to zero, arbitrarily, at the beginning and end of the curve. This assumes an initial acceleration of zero. Thus each animation generated by the Spline Animator must begin and end at a constant velocity. Similarly, other possibilities are possible for determining continuity between curve segments and the like.
Finally, it is an unfortunate limitation that the Spline Animator generates only camera path information. It is the goal of future work to develop a method to combine Spline Animator scripts with AVS Animator scripts, allowing the user to combine the Spline Animator's ability to generate smooth flight paths with the AVS Animator's power to animate more general phenomena.