How camera shots are added

Rather than having just one shot throughout the entire animation, filmography can also be a part of your project within Maya. This post will explain the process of creating and animating your camera, allowing camera angles and tracking to improve the look of your animation.

To begin, a camera needs to be inserted. This can be found under the 'Create' menu, within the 'Rendering' menu setup. By going under 'Create/Cameras/Camera', a normal camera can be created, ready to be animated with the animation sequence. 

A camera can be seen physically within Maya, where the camera models lens is; is where the camera will be pointing to within your animation. To be in the Cameras point of view, the user can go into Panels/Perspective/Camera1 (or what the user has chosen to name that particular camera). Once clicking this option, the user should now be in the camera's point of view.

This allows the user to also position the camera however they want, whilst having the advantage of precisely how that shot will look within the animation. It is also important to have the 'Resolution gate' icon switched, this creates a frame around the animation, showing exactly how it will appear during your animations render.

How camera's perspective with 'Resolution gate' on, Resolution gate is the small blue sphere icon with a white background. 

 Not only when in this view you can choose fluidly where you want your camera to go, but you cameras animation is also accessible. Because the camera is selected whilst in this view, you are able to click and drag wherever you wish in between frames to create your cameras movement with the animation. Hitting the 'S' key manually is advised for animating with the camera, to avoid confusion of creating camera shots.

Frame 11

To begin the animation for the camera; the 'S' key should be hit at frame 1 - you may adjust the camera wherever you want it to be for the starting position of the camera. If I wanted to pan in whilst the model lifted its arm, I would go over to the frame where the final move has been created, zoom in on the view I want - and manually hit 'S'. The animation with both the character and the camera are now created.

frame 18

frame 25, Camera continues to zoom in