The Maxwell Render cameras are designed to work like a real cameras so it is important to understand some photographic concepts. If you are unfamiliar with photography, please read the Camera chapter to get an idea of how these concepts will affect your render.
By default Maxwell Studio has a standard perspective visualization mode. It is not always necessary to create a camera for your scene, but it is recommended. It will give you full control over the final look of the image.
Creating a camera
- Use the viewport menu (right-click in the viewport) and choose “New Camera”
- press CTRL + Shift + C (Cmd + Shift + C on Mac OSX)
- right-click in the Cameras List panel and choose “New Camera”.
These options will create a camera with the point of view of your current perspective view.
To switch to a camera viewport, click the Viewport Switch icon in the upper left corner and choose the desired camera or double click on the camera in the Cameras List panel. Selecting a camera in the Camera List panel will display the properties of that camera in the Camera Parameters panel.
Camera frustum (Yellow frame)
The camera frustum is adapted according to the resolution of the image set in the Camera Parameters panel. When the render is launched from the camera view, only the region inside the frustum is rendered. The same applies when you launch a viewport render.
The frustum is visible as a yellow frame when a camera is selected
Moving a Camera
Please see the Viewports and Navigation page for details.
Hidden and Locked Cameras
When editing a camera, keep in mind that you can Hide/Unhide a camera (for a cleaner visualization), or Lock/Unlock it (to prevent an accidental editing) on the Camera Parameters panel of each camera.
These and the rest of the cameras features are explained on the Cameras List panel and the Camera Parameters panel sections.
Hide/Unhide and Lock/Unlock a camera on its Camera Parameters panel
Projection
You can choose whether the selected camera should be a perspective camera (3D projection) or any of the 2D orthographic projections (Top, Left, Right etc.).
Camera focus ring