Cameras in Studio

Owned by Systems Next Limit (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 13 Nov, 2020 by Next Limit
3 min read

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 necessary to create a camera for your scene to be able to render, 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


Camera focus ring

When viewing your scene through a camera you can get an idea if the center of your render will be in focus or not (Press I on your keyboard if the focus ring is not visible when looking through the camera). When the focus ring is red it means the camera target is placed in front of the area/objects within the focus ring circle. When it is blue it means the camera target is placed further away from the area/objects within the focus ring. You can adjust the target distance parameter from the Attributes Panel: Camera interactively to see the focus ring color change. When it has no color it means the area within the focus ring is in perfect focus.

Left: Camera target is placed at the third sphere which is also the area where the focus ring is pointing: perfect focus. Middle: Camera target placed too close, Left: Camera target placed too far back.


Moving a Camera

Please see the Viewport panel 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 in the  Scene tree page and the Attributes Panel: Camera page.





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.)