3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [234]
Another way to select a camera for a viewport is to press the C key. This keyboard shortcut makes the active viewport into a camera view. If several cameras exist in a scene, then the Select Camera dialog box appears, from which you can select a camera to use. You also can select a camera and choose the Set View to Selected Camera from the right-click pop-up menu. Figure 19.1 shows two Target cameras pointing at a car. The two viewports on the right are the views from these cameras.
FIGURE 19.1
A car as seen by two different cameras
You can turn off the camera object icons using the Display panel. In the Display panel, under the Hide by Category rollout, select the Cameras option. When selected, the camera icons are not visible in the viewports.
Note
Cameras are usually positioned at some distance away from the rest of the scene. Their distant position can make scene objects appear very small when the Zoom Extents button is used. If the visibility of the camera icons is turned off, Zoom Extents does not include them in the zoom. You can also enable the Ignore Extents option in the camera's Object Properties dialog box. •
Tutorial: Setting up an opponent's view
There is no limit to the number of cameras that you can place in a scene. Placing two cameras in a scene showing a game of checkers lets you see the game from the perspective of either player.
To create a new aligned view from the opponent's perspective, follow these steps:
1. Open the Checkers game.max file from the Chap 19 directory on the DVD.
2. Select Create⇒Cameras⇒Target Camera, and drag in the Top viewport to create the camera. Then give the new camera the name Opponents Camera.
3. Position the new target camera behind the opponent's pieces roughly symmetrical to the other camera by dragging the camera upward in the Front view.
4. With the new camera selected, drag the target point and position it on top of the other camera's target point somewhere below the center of the board.
To see the new camera view, right-click the Perspective viewport title and choose View⇒Black Camera (or select the camera and the Perspective viewport, and press the C key). Figure 19.2 shows the view from this camera.
FIGURE 19.2
Positioning an additional camera behind the Black player's pieces offers the opponent's view.
Tip
Because viewports can be resized, the view you see in the viewport isn't necessarily the view that will be rendered. Using the Safe Frames feature found in the Safe Frames panel of the Viewport Configuration dialog box, you can see a border around exactly what will be rendered. •
Controlling a camera
I was once on a ride at Disneyland when a person behind me decided to blatantly disregard the signs not to take photographs. As he leaned over to snap another picture, I heard a fumbling noise, a faint, “Oh no,” and then the distinct sound of his camera falling into the depths of the ride. (That was actually more enjoyable than the ride. It served him right.) As this example shows, controlling a camera can be difficult. This chapter offers many tips and tricks for dealing with the cameras in Max, and you won't have to worry about dropping them.
You control the camera view in a viewport by means of the Camera Navigation controls located in the lower-right corner of the screen. These controls replace the viewport controls when a camera view is selected and are different from the normal Viewport Navigation controls. The Camera Navigation controls are identified and defined in Table 19.1.
Note
Many of these controls are identical to the controls for lights. •
You can constrain the movements to a single axis by holding down the Shift key. The Ctrl key causes the movements to increase rapidly. For example, holding down the Ctrl key while dragging the Perspective tool magnifies the amount of perspective applied to the viewport.
You can undo changes in the normal viewports using the Views⇒Undo (Shift+Z) command, but you undo camera viewport changes with the regular Edit⇒Undo command because it involves the movement