Creates a a one-node camera, which is a basic camera.
For more information on the types of cameras, see Maya camera types.
The camera viewing tools (tumble, track, and dolly) use this value to determine the “look at” point when the camera is a Basic camera.
Also available in the camera’s Attribute Editor. The focal length of the camera, measured in millimeters.
Increasing the Focal Length zooms the camera in and increases the size of objects in the camera’s view. Decreasing the Focal Length zooms the camera out and decreases the size of objects in the camera’s view. The valid range is 2.5 to 3500. The default value is 35.
For more information about focal length in general, see Focus and blur.
The amount the camera’s lens compresses the image horizontally. Most cameras do not compress the image they record, and their Lens Squeeze Ratio is 1. Some cameras (for example, anamorphic cameras), however, compress the image horizontally to record a large aspect ratio (wide) image onto a square area on film. The default value is 1.
Don’t edit these attributes unless you are bringing in live action footage.
Controls the size of the resolution gate relative to the film gate. If the resolution gate and the film gate have the same aspect ratio, then the Film Fit setting has no effect. The default setting is Fill.
You can also set Film Fit in the camera view’s View > Camera Settings submenu.
Scales the size of the scene in the camera’s view only, not in the rendered image. Adjust the Overscan value to see more or less of the scene than will actually render. If you have view guides displayed, changing the Overscan value changes the amount of space surrounding the view guides, making them easier to see. The default value is 1.
For information on clipping planes, see Clipping planes.
For Hardware rendering, Vector rendering, and mental ray for Maya rendering, this represents the distance of the near and far clipping planes of perspective or orthographic cameras. The default setting for Near Clip Plane is 0.1 and for Far Clip Plane is 10000.
For Maya software rendering, by default Auto Render Clip Plane is on (see Auto Render Clip Plane), and the Near Clip Plane and Far Clip Plane values do not determine the position of the clipping planes. See Auto Render Clip Plane.
If the distance between the near and far clipping planes is much larger than is required to contain all the objects in the scene, the image quality of some objects may be poor. Set the Near Clip Plane and Far Clip Plane attributes to the lowest and highest respective values that produces the desired result.
The objects you want to render are usually within a certain range from the camera. Setting the near and far clipping planes just slightly beyond the limits of the objects in the scene can help improve image quality.
Since most of the depth precision is concentrated around the near clip plane, try to avoid a lot of detail on distant objects.
This concept is crucial for hardware rendering because it has only 24 bits of depth precision, as opposed to software rendering which has 32 bits.
The Shutter Angle influences the blurriness of objects of motion blurred objects. The larger the Shutter angle setting, the more blurry objects. Shutter Angle is measured in degrees. The valid range is 1 to 360. The default value is 144.
The Camera Shutter Angle option is a multiplier for the time range of the blur. Similar to traditional film and video cameras, the camera shutter angle determines the length of the exposure. However, for the purposes of motion blur, it only alters the absolute time range of the exposure based on the following equation:
Blur range = (Camera Shutter Angle / 360 degrees) x Blur by Frame
(In real-world film cameras, this is calculated at 180 degrees; during the other 180 degrees of rotation, the film is advanced to the next frame for exposure. Computer graphics cameras have no film.)
For information on a real-world camera’s shutter angle and exposure in general, see Focus and blur.
For the shutter angle setting to take effect (that is, for motion blur to appear), Motion Blur must be set for the following:
By default, when you create a camera from the Create menu, the view is perspective. If you want an orthographic camera view, click the Orthographic check box and change the Orthographic Width if necessary.
The Orthographic Views attributes control whether a camera is perspective or orthographic (top, front, or side), and also lets you control the field of view for orthographic cameras. See also Viewing cameras vs. rendering cameras.
If on, the camera is an orthographic camera. If off, the camera is a perspective camera. Orthographic is off by default.
To rotate an orthographic view, in the Tumble tool’s option window, make sure the Locked setting turned off. See View > Camera Tools > Tumble Tool .
