All language subtitles for 03-24-The camera

- [Pierre] In this video,

we will see how Blender's
camera work and how to use it.

I've created a little
scene including a camera

that we can find also in the outliner.

To switch back into camera view,

you just have to press zero on the numpad.

We can find our camera
object, named the camera,

and the camera properties
in the properties editor.

You can place the camera by moving it

and rotating it as you will
do with any other object.

Or you can frame the
view in the 3D viewport

and press Control + Alt + zero

so that the camera view will
match your current custom view.

The camera format is on the
output size of your document.

Basically the ratio of the output image.

between its width and it's height,

the resolution doesn't
matter, only the ratio matter.

There are different camera type.

By default, the camera type
will be set to perspective

and the output is the same
as in the perspective view.

If we switch to autographic,

the autographic scale will
allow you to zoom in and out.

You can't zoom by moving the camera.

Using cycle, you can
also switch to panoramic.

It won't be supported in Evi,
because you need ray tracing.

It allows you to do a free
60 degree angle point of view

ideal for VR experiences
or to create your own HDRi.

With the prospective camera,

playing with the focal length

will allow you to zoom in and out.

The longer the focal length,

the more zoomed will be your picture.

And the more compressed
will be the perspective,

meaning that you will
get closer and closer

to an autographic view.

The smaller the focal length,

the wider will be your angle
of view, or less zoomed,

and you will create a lot of
distortion in the perspective.

You can shift the camera
frame on the X and Y axis.

It doesn't exactly behave as a rotation.

It's currently of setting
the position of the camera

on the left of the right, but
we keep the same perspective

as when we are framing
the center of the view.

I personally never used this option.

To better understand clipping,

I will go into the viewport
display and enable limits.

A line appear in our 3D
viewport, showing these limits.

This limit line show us
the clipping distance.

If I increase the clipping start,

it will move away the first polygon

that is rendered by the camera

and we can see the limit
line updating in our 3D view.

On the other end, changing the end value

will change how far a
can be from the camera

and being rendered.

As you may know, computers,
don't like infinity

and we can't render an image
with an infinite depth.

The calculation would never end.

Real camera have a physical sensor

that allow them to capture the image.

But with our virtual camera,

the only thing we have to know

is that the zoom or angle view

is a ratio between the focal
length and the sensor size.

So basically you may
never change this value

and only play with the focal length.

You may not need to use
the safe area that much.

When enabled, you will see frame appearing

in your camera view.

They were origin only here to
fit different screen sizes.

All TV may not have the same image ratio

and sometime the image was clipped.

So you could use this to set the limit

between what could be cut and
what is currently in frame.

But now most of our screen

do compensate the screen differences.

But they are still great
if you want to set a title,

for example, in your frame or
if you want to add subtitle,

knowing that a part of the picture

will be occluded by the subtitle

and making sure that you
keep all the focal points

inside the inner frames.

You can add the background
image as you will do

in the 3D viewport.

And under viewpoint display,

you can display a lot of
information regarding your camera.

We can already see our creeping range,

but we will also be able to
enable the limit of the mist.

It's currently overlaid upon the limit,

so it's a bit hard to see,

but we'll see it better just after.

The mist pass is to be
used in the compositing.

So to be able to access it,

you have to go to the
render layers and enable it.

Then we need to render our picture.

It will generate a
black and white picture,

the black being the closer to the camera

and the white the further away.

Any rendered value closer to camera

and the start limit will be black,

any rendered value beyond
the end value of the limit

will be white.

This is a path very useful
to give depth to your render,

creating atmospherical
perspective, like fog for example.

To change its limit,

you have to have it enabled in the layer

and then go to the world properties

and go in the mist path tab.

Here, you will Find the
option to change the limits

and also the falloff behavior.

The sensor will display the
focal point of the camera,

so we'll see that a little later.

The name option will display
the name of the camera

just under the camera view.

The passepartout option

will allow you to increase the
opacity of the passepartout

to currently occlude what's
outside of the camera.

When working on the shot, I
advise you to double check it

with the passepartout alpha set to one.

Because the fact that you see

beyond the boundaries of
the camera is misleading.

It seems that the composition
is wider or more open

and you can anticipate what's outside

of what you're framing.

And so you are mentally anticipating

the motion of your character
or where he's going

and what is going to
be in the camera shot,

which in the end, won't be
displayed in the current shots

you are filming.

In the previous video,

I've explained you how
composition was important,

how you have to try to give sense

to everything you're doing.

In this regard, composition
guides are super useful.

You would find several of them

are related to different
composition theory,

like the golden ratio.

So if you have studied composition
through hub, for example,

you won't be lost.

If you're not that used
to it, just use the third,

it's the most important thing.

Make sure that the
important part of your shot

are inside the third or aligned with them.

For example, I'm aligning
the head of my character

with the top right third,

and he's looking toward deep open third.

If I move him on the other side,

we still have a focus on him

but that fact that he's looking

at the closed side of the camera

leads your audience to
watch outside of the frame.

And unless this is an artistic choice

it doesn't look great that much.

So what we can do is
just rotate the character

and keep him aligned on those third,

but it will look at the
other side of the screen

on the open side,

and then offset this
fear on the foreground

because it's occluding the first third.

And so it becomes a point of interest

while it might not be
something very interesting,

unless your character is
watching it for example.

But simply moving it on the side

make the competition a little better.

Composition in itself is a big topic

and will deserve a whole course.

But you can start with those simple rules

to make opening compositions.

Let's now have a look to depth of field.

When activated, you might
not see the different away.

What you have to know first

is that Blender is currently
focusing on this target

and we can move it
directly in the 3D viewport

by left clicking and dragging

or changing the focus distance here.

Using the eyedropper, you
can also select an object,

asking lender to keep it in focus.

To make it clearer, let's
reduce the f-stop to 0.1.

This will make our picture way more blurry

and we can see that even
if I move the camera

or I move the sphere, Blender
will keep the sphere in focus

meaning that it won't be blurred

while everything else
around it gets blurry.

If I want to select
another object to focus on

I can select it through the menu.

If I select the ground,

you can see that the
focus point is aligned

with the origin of the ground object.

Not the whole object is in focus.

This is a pretty important information.

Blender will use the origin of any object

that is used as a focus object.

Finally, you can copy
the name of the object

you want to focus on

and hovering over the focus
object slot, press Control + V.

Let's talk a bit about the f-stop.

Here I'm focusing on the first sphere

so we can see the cube on the
left is perfectly in focus.

If I now move away the focus point

we can see that the next cube is in focus.

I will get back to the previous

and we can see it's back in focus.

Increasing the f-stop will
visually reduce the noise,

but it's not about this.

The f-stop value is the
range of what is in focus.

The higher f-stop value,
the higher the range

from the focus point will be in focus.

Plus the further away is the
focal point from the camera,

the larger will be the focus area.

To give you an example, if
I use the same f-stop value

and I focus on the very first cube,

I might add two cube in focus.

While if I focus on a
cube that is further away

I might have four or five
or six cube in focus.

So the focus range gets bigger,

the further away the focus point is.

The other concern is
that the depth of field

is based on a distance.

So depending on the scale of your scene,

the blur effect behavior
might look different

and you may have to play with
a bigger range of f-stop value

to see a difference in the blur.

It's pretty common to rig
cameras with simple objects.

Adding an empty, parenting
the camera to the empty

and make the empty rotate

to create a turntable, for example.

Another common technique
is to use an empty

and make the camera through
constraint, tracking this empty.

This way you can move the camera in space

and it will keep focus on
whatever you are looking at.

It makes the camera easier to handle

and also animating the
camera a bit easier.

But there is an issue.

As we are using multiple objects,

if I insert a key frame
on those both empty

to create some kind of
fancy camera motion,

I will have two different
action, one per empty.

And if I start animating
the properties of the camera

like the focal length,

it will create even
another animation or action

just for those properties.

Then modifying the camera
animation will be a pain

because I will have to
update different actions.

Fortunately, Blender comes
with a built-in add on

that will greatly help you.

If you go to edit preferences
and go to the add on tab,

search for camera and
activate the add camera rigs.

From there, when you press
Shift + A to add the camera,

you will have the choice
through different camera rigs.

The classic camera, the Dolly camera rig

and the Crane camera rig.

There is also a 2D camera rig

that we won't be using in this course.

While the Crane camera
rig simulates a crane,

the Dolly camera rig is very close

but there is a little more freedom to it,

so we will use this one.

The camera rig is very
close to our character rig.

There is a root bone that allow
us to move the whole camera.

The aim controller allow us

to orientate the camera
to this controller.

The camera controller allow
us to move the camera in space

and it will still follow the aim,

while the offset will allow
us to move the camera in space

but it won't rotate toward the aim.

And in addition to this,
we have all the option

of the camera properties

that are exposed directly in the rig.

So we can animate those
properties directly using the rig

and it will create only one action

that will gather all the
emotions of the bone controllers

but also all the properties of the camera.

So I do advise you to
use this rig all the time

so that you will get used to
it, even for simple project.

This way you will get
familiar with its mechanism

and also some of the feature it has,

like this focus point creation.

It will bind an empty 2D aim target

and the aim target will allow you

to rotate the camera but
also set the focus distance.

To summarize, we have seen
that the camera format

is based on the output resolution.

There on different camera type

with perspective and
orthographic and even panoramic

that allow you to do a
360 degree angle shot.

You can control the zoom and angle of view

with the focal length.

You can use the composition guides

and the passepartout to
better frame your shots.

You can control the depth of field

using the camera focus
distance and the f-stop value.

It's highly advised to use a camera rig

to animate your camera.