Camera Settings in Maya
Some advanced camera settings are explained in this section. This tutorial will cover how to set op your camera to make a orthographic Mental Ray render in Maya. But also how to prevent tilted buildings in perspective views.
Contents
Orthographic render
Change focal length... to be continued.
Tilted perspective view
If you take pictures or make renders of buildings at eye level you may have noticed that the walls aren't straight but tilted and falling away: Wide at the bottom and small and far at the top. As an architecture enthusiastic you might prefer buildings having straight walls and not falling away. In professional photography this problem is solved with very expensive tilt-shift lenses [1]. In Maya you can solve this by changing the Film Offset in the Camera Attribute Editor.
Positioning the camera
Normally pictures are taken at eye-level. But buildings won't fit if you keep your camera leveled as the example below. The upper part is missing.
Because you work in Maya, you can easily move your camera to a higher position to make the building fit in all directions. In real life you might need a ladder or a crane. This position might get a view you don't want, because now you are able to see other buildings or objects behind the building you want to render. So you revert your camera position to eye level.
You could tilt or rotate your camera upwards to fit the building in your view. This type of view you probably
choose for dramatic presentation purposes and not for typical architectural presentation purposes.
To prevent tilting of the buildings you must make sure the camera is not rotated.
Tilt/shift the camera
- Position the camera at the right hight, mostly at eye level.
- Set Rotate Y to 0, to level the camera.
- Open the Camera Attribute Editor.
- Go to Film Offset in the Film Back section.
- Change the second number field to shift the camera. Start with a low number. The first number field is to shift the camera sideways.
