Cameras

Create panel > Cameras

Cameras present a scene from a particular point of view. Camera objects simulate still-image, motion picture, or video cameras in the real world.

With a Camera viewport you can adjust the camera as if you were looking through its lens. Camera viewports can be useful for editing geometry. Multiple cameras can give different views of the same scene.

If you want to animate the point of view itself, you can create a camera and animate its position. For example, you might want to fly over a landscape or walk through a building. You can animate other camera parameters as well. For example, you can animate the camera's field of view to give the effect of zooming in on a scene.

The Display panel's Hide by Category rollout has a toggle that lets you turn the display of camera objects on and off.

There are two kinds of camera objects:

Target cameras view the area around a target object you create when you create the camera. Target cameras are easier to use when the camera does not move along a path.
Free cameras view the area in the direction the camera is aimed. Free cameras are easier to use when the camera's position is animated along a path. They can bank as they travel the path, which Target cameras cannot.

You can create cameras by clicking the buttons on the Lights & Cameras tab of the Tab panel, or by clicking the Cameras button on the Create panel.

After you have created a camera, you can change viewports to display the camera's point of view. While a camera viewport is active, the navigation buttons change to camera navigation buttons. You use the Modify panel in conjunction with a camera viewport to change the camera's settings.

While you use the navigation controls for a camera viewport, you can constrain Truck, Pan, and Orbit movement to be vertical or horizontal only with the SHIFT key.

You can move a selected camera so its view matches that of a Perspective, Spotlight, or another Camera view. Select the camera, activate the viewport, then choose Views > Match Camera To View. Change the viewport to a Camera viewport to see the results.

Choosing a Camera for Vertical Views

If you need an animated camera to look vertically upward or downward, use a free camera. If you use a target camera you may run into a problem of unexpected movement. The program constrains a target camera's up-vector (its local positive Y axis) to be as close as possible to the world positive Z axis. This is no problem when you are working with a static camera. However, if you animate the camera and put it in a nearly vertical position, either up or down, the program flips the Camera view to prevent the up-vector from becoming undefined. This creates sudden changes of view.

Camera Object Icons

Camera objects are visible in viewports unless you choose not to display them. However, the geometry that appears in the viewport is only an icon meant to show you where the camera is located and how it is oriented.

Target cameras create a double icon, representing the camera (a blue box intersecting a blue triangle) and the camera target (a blue box). Free cameras create a single icon, representing the camera and its field of view.

You cannot shade camera objects.

The display of camera object icons is not scaled when you change the scale of the viewport. When you zoom in on a camera, for example, the icon size does not change.

Scale transforms have the following effects on a camera object:

Uniform Scale has no effect on a target camera, but does change the free camera's Target Distance setting.
Non-Uniform Scale and Squash change the size and shape of the free camera's FOV cone. You see the effect in the viewport, but the camera's parameters do not update. Non-Uniform Scale and Squash will change the size and shape of a target cameraÆs icon, but have no visible effect in the viewport.