2009

Cameras
Create panel > Cameras
Create menu > 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 on page 7604 you can adjust the camera as if you were
looking through its lens. Camera viewports can be useful for editing geometry
as well as setting up a scene for rendering. Multiple cameras can give different
views of the same scene.
The
Camera Correction modifier on page 5247 lets you correct a camera view
to 2-point perspective, in which vertical lines remain vertical.
If you want to animate the point of view, 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 on page 178 rollout has a toggle that lets
you turn the display of camera objects on and off.
A convenient way to control the display of camera objects is to create them
on a separate
layer on page 7438. You can hide them quickly by turning off the
layer.
TIP The Camera Match utility on page 5249 allows you to start with a background
photograph and create a camera object that has the same point of view. This is
useful for site-specific scenes.
There are two kinds of camera objects:
■ Target cameras on page 5205 view the area around a target object.
When you create a target camera, you see a two-part icon representing the
camera and its target (a white box). The camera and the camera target can
be animated independently, so target cameras are easier to use when the
camera does not move along a path.
5194 | Chapter 18 Lights and Cameras