Welcome to a better camera control in this video.
You use a different way of moving the camera.
See this gives you better control over what the camera is pointing at combined with fly mode for good
control and learn how to track a target.
So let's go play with the camera and hop on over into a blender.
So back over in blender here just a quick fly around my model real really quick just to let you know
I've sorted out these ceiling pieces or at least solidify them for the moment.
I work on them more later.
I sorted out a whopping great big hole that was in this tower.
And I did I don't think I actually move this place down here because it doesn't look like it's actually
out of alignment.
So I think that I've already moved and corrected that.
The only place that I haven't sorted out yet is this hole over here because I'm going to make a specific
roof to cover this area.
I might try and make it out of those primitives that we've already made up and see how that works.
But now more on about Cameron draw in fact what we're about to do not only applies to cameras but you
can also use it to move other objects with other objects so it's universal in many ways.
So first of all let's have a look at combining it with fly mode.
So this is very straightforward.
And of course very powerful.
So we've already seen that we can get a particular view very quickly if this is the view that we have
what we actually want.
We can actually move the camera to that view points straight away without having to that going go and
grab the camera and move it to the appropriate location.
So we're all aware of going to the camera itself go into the properties and locking the camera to the
view and then being able to move it around but we do have to be looking through the camera to do that.
So we press 0 now we're now looking through it and we can reposition the camera like that.
That's absolutely fine.
We can move it in and out.
But as you can see it's quite granular it skips quickly.
So yes you can fiddle about with that for a while moving it here rotating it coming in etc. But eventually
that's going to become quite tiresome.
However if we combine this with the Flymo route we can move to a position that we want just simply by
hitting shift and f.
Now we can fly around and go to the new viewpoint that we want.
We can look in through this window.
Hello everybody.
Where is the manequin areas.
Okay so that's one way we can do it but we've already got a view set up over here so let's just hop
out of there.
Looks like I have moved my view unfortunately.
So let's just sort this out hop back into flying mode real quick zoom back to where we were before to
say we wanted this particular view and we didn't want to faff about with trying to get the camera into
the right position.
We can actually go to the View menu and go to a line view and there's got a series of options here so
we can align view to active so we can look down up left right et cetera.
But one of the very powerful ones in this are let go of control there a line active camera to the view.
So we've got an active camera which is the main one and the one whose viewpoint we will see if we hit
render But we can assign that or line the active camera to the view and we see let's control Oulton
no pants zero if we want to do that and when we click that there we go.
The camera automatically moves to this position.
Now is a course useful to have multiple cameras in the scene.
So you don't have to keep moving one but we'll leave that for a bit.
Now another way that we can actually track something in the scene is either placing an empty or in this
case I'm going to use my mannequin as an example.
I can track that object through the scene and this is very very powerful and very useful.
Now what we going to be doing is constraining the Cambers movement based upon certain parameters.
So in this case we go to the constrained tab on the properties window and we're going to add an object
constraint.
And there are lots of constraints that we can do and we want under tracking.
We want it to track to a particular object.
And I'm going to select my mannequin here.
0 0 I WANT THAT one.
That's the one that's in the scene.
Now this may look a bit odd at the moment and it.
Well it will look a bit odd because we've not set up the tracking constraints properly.
But typically if you want it to rotate around you're going to want these particular settings you're
going to want it the miner said and why and then where ever we move.
So that's two minors said and the UP IS WHY can be a bit confusing and we'll go through that in more
detail in a moment.
But basically now when we move our mannequin about the camera or automatically tracks.
So if I lock him to the y axis the cameras stay still and tracks in moving down the church.
In fact if I turn off snapping it would be a lot smoother.
There we go.
So there he goes down there and the camera is tracking him.
That's very powerful.
The other thing we can do here is move the camera itself.
So if I go and pick up the camera and move the camera.
So let's go to the camera.
Here it is.
And go ahead and move that.
It's also constrained and looking at the object again whether that's the focal point that you want to
use or anything else so I can pop the camera over here.
And then if I go and grab this mannequin and move it outside there we go.
Still following.
No matter where we decide to put a mannequin.
Very very powerful.
Now let's have a look at the constraints themselves because we can get the viewpoint to follow in many
different ways.
And the easiest way of visualizing this is to actually track the object when it's in line with it.
And then we can see what's going on.
So I'm going to move the camera itself to my now are not on there.
I'm going to move the camera to zero and zero which is by the entrance way for church.
There we go we're looking at that and I'm just going to move the camera forward a little so it's a little
bit closer.
And then finally I'm also going to move the mannequin So the mannequin airs at X equals zero as well.
So they're in line.
Now let's move out of this view point itself.
Lock camera two of you turn it off so we can ways around and see what's happening from above.
There we go.
So at the moment if we go to the camera itself and look at the constraints if we look into the X axis
we see that it's now looking along the x axis and of course minus X axis looks the other way.
So if we go and z looks backwards so that's good if you've got a an object moving forward and you want
to track it from the other side rather So looking sort of a selfie if you will rather than a tracking
camera following behind.
So X looks along the x axis and that's very powerful if you imagine too if one viewpoint was being followed
and perhaps tracking and trying to search for something here in my head an aircraft in flight if you
were flying in formation and you wanted the other plane to control where the camera was going but keep
them relatively close to one another you can do that and of course you can turn down the influence a
little here to actually control that with a little more finesse So it's not so spot on.
Now obviously when you move an object too far if the influence isn't one eventually it all disappear
out of frame.
So we can set here the up direction of the camera now it's quite confusing that up is why if we pick
said we see it looks down which is the default position a camera would be if you imported it in to the
scene.
So because it's been rotated 90 degrees to look forward in this case we see.
Whereas Z used to be up and down it's now in a completely different orientation in fact.
Now why is up and down.
Now we can experience with it locked to the two on x.
If I go ahead and move this mannequin now.
It will track it is if it was very much next to it so very useful in certain circumstances.
Perhaps if you were controlling a different object rather than a camera it's quite important that the
camera is actually focussed at the object we want.
So in that case let's go to the camera again minor said and then no matter where these two are positioned
whether the mannequins over here in the sky and the camera's over here it automatically tracks object
which is incredibly powerful.
And of course I've got a challenge for you guys.
Now I would like you to set up some cameras set up multiple cameras so we don't have to keep moving
just one introduce a place holder or an empty for a tracking camera much like I have got my mannequin
and then render your building from a couple of different camera views and share.
Remember we're mainly focussing on the interior.
But if you've got a call exterior please share that as well.
Now do remember that you need to set a particular camera as active in order to render from it.
Suppose a video now and give that a go.
Okay guys.
Welcome back.
I'm going to go and set up my cameras now so we don't have to keep moving them about all the time.
Right some back over in blender.
And the first thing I'm going to do.
Well I don't need to do the tracking camera already set that one up and he's tracking the mannequin.
I don't mind where that's positioned for the moment.
Well I might actually move them into a bit more of an interesting position so let's look from the viewpoint.
That's no good.
This is perhaps it's an angel floating through the church.
Who knows.
Well let's try one.
Looks a bit better.
Looks like we're not set here his origin at his feet which is caused me a few problems.
This is one of the reasons why you want to make sure that you have the origin in a logical place for
using your model.
So there's my mannequin Let's see what the view looks like at the moment.
That isn't very interesting.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to move him around but lock him so down and go off the floor.
And where shall I pop him.
That might be an interesting render.
I will set that I'll just get my camera and move it around just a little so I can see more of those
rooms.
I'd love to see how they're rendering out.
Okay so that's one camera all sorted.
I'm going to go ahead and just duplicate this particular camera and hop out of its view.
And duplicate it of course it's already going to have some constraints on it.
So I'm going to call this exterior.
So I do want to just have a quick peek at my exterior as I'm working.
I don't want it tracking to anything so I can remove that.
I'm also going to create an empty at this point that's going to control all of four cameras or just
store them in the hierarchy so plain axis.
Do I care where it's placed.
Not particularly at this point.
I've opened up that's the empty here and of the call that cameras.
It looks like I've managed to open up my entire hierarchy which may be a bit problematic but I'll just
shut it back down.
So I've got a camera here and let's call this one tracking camera.
It's important I know what they are so that's lift that up and put that on the camera exterior.
Let's put that on the camera and I want a another one and I'm going to just duplicate the exterior.
Then where it is at the moment ungathered called it interior.
And I'm going to leave it there with three separate cameras so let's make this the active camera.
And of course what we can do here is go to the camera propertys.
Here cameras active camera is numbered zero and then set the objects as the camera is control number
had zero.
So there we go.
This is now v active camera.
I'm going to set the interior one right back towards the entrance way and let's look at the view.
I'm going to switch on what camera to view.
That's looking pretty good in fact before I do that I'm just going to zoom in a little so I'm seeing
what the cameras are seeing rather than a slightly zoomed out version.
Let's lift the camera up ever so slightly.
Let's make it look epic.
By placing the camera a little bit lower and it's being framed by the door or the walls there so that's
absolutely fine.
So that's that camera set up the exterior one well it's not exterior at the moment.
So again I'm going to use short Cahir controller nump had zero to switch around to it and I'm going
to fly that one out.
Now what I could do here for the exterior is certainly have a ground plane as well.
So I'm going to add that in a few moments in fact I'm going to add it in now before I do anything else
with this camera because if I start doing other things with the camera I might actually push it below
this plane and that wouldn't be very good.
So I'm just going to scale that up massively and then move it's like the in the wide net.
That just gives me a bit of a ground play and I'm going to set it slightly below the surface as well.
It turns out that that is roughly 100 by 100 something the type that in and it looks like I'm going
to have to look down a little.
Yes I'm going to have to move it slightly below the surface.
Let's go up to the actual position that always helps of minus point one.
Okay so that's in the right place there so let's go back to this exterior camera.
In fact we can just look from its viewpoint and lock the camera at a view of as she fills up the.
The lens quite nicely.
But I want to look down on ever so slightly don't need to be back here a little wider angle.
I want to have a slightly wider angle someone to go to the camera properties and change the focal length
here down to let's say 24 then I should be able to fit more of the ground and more of the church.
I'm going to go slightly wider again.
Going to go for 18.
Of course you do risk stretching and distorting the image.
But if you want to fit the whole thing in that might be what we need to do.
Of course now I'm going to render these out and see what they're looking like.
Hope yours are looking pretty good.
Here are mine on the screen right now.
I hope you've shared your work in the discussions.
And of course I will see you guys in the next lecture.