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8.3

The camera

The view you swing around in the viewport is "you, looking". A camera in DOTV's Previz is an object in the scene: it has a position, a focal length and shots of its own, and it is saved along with the scene. One scene can hold several cameras — a master, a close-up, an over-the-shoulder, one of each — and you switch between them to shoot, so the multi-angle reference images for an AI video are ready in one sitting. This section covers setting up a camera and looking through it.

Setting up a camera

Swing the view round to the angle you want first, then hit Add camera on the toolbar — the new camera is built at the view you are on right now, and it becomes the active camera the moment it exists (its panel button reads Active).

Add cameraCreates a camera from the current view: the angle you're looking at right now is what it shoots, and it becomes the active camera immediately.
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Select a camera and the right-hand side switches to its settings.

Three things worth knowing:

  • Field of view (12° to 110°) is the focal length: the smaller the number the more it behaves like a long lens (space compresses, the background looks closer), the larger the more it behaves like a wide one (a roomier frame, distortion at the edges).
  • Set Focus target to Lock to object and the camera turns to follow that person as they move — no re-aiming while you block out the action.
  • A camera also takes a row in the Cameras group of the scene tree, where you can rename it, hide it and lock it. In 3D it is a small wireframe camera you can drag around.

Once several are set up, hit Switch to this camera on that camera's panel and it becomes the active one — screenshots then file under its name (see 8.7).

Shot size, focal length and handheld

Three settings on the camera panel speak the director's language:

  • Shot size: establishing / full body / medium / close / insert. Pick one and the camera backs off to the distance that size calls for along the direction it is already looking from — the distance is worked out from the focal length and the size (a full figure needs 2.1 m in frame, a medium shot 1.05 m, a close-up 0.55 m…), so you never estimate it. Set it back to "free framing" and the distance is yours again.
  • Focal length (mm) and field of view are the same number said two ways (full-frame: 24mm ≈ 53°, 35mm ≈ 38°, 50mm ≈ 27°, 85mm ≈ 16°); drag either.
  • Handheld: 0 is on sticks, further right is a more visible handheld sway. The sway is computed frame by frame, so what you see in the preview is exactly what the export records.

Looking through a camera

The two buttons in the top bar switch who is doing the looking.

Three viewsFree view lets you walk through the scene like in a game: WASD to move, E / Q to go up and down, drag to look around; Director view orbits around a point; Camera view is what the active camera sees — you can't drag it, so to change the picture you change the camera.
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Camera view, with a 16:9 frame.

In Camera view the picture can't be dragged — it is what this camera sees, so changing the picture means changing the camera's position and focal length (or switching back to Director view and dragging the camera somewhere else).

The frame comes from Aspect ratio on the toolbar:

Aspect ratio Usually for
Auto No crop, the whole viewport counts as the picture (no frame at all then)
16:9 / 21:9 Landscape films, widescreen
9:16 Vertical short video
1:1 / 4:3 / 3:4 / 2:1 Square, the old TV shape, the ratios social platforms use

The dimmed band outside the frame doesn't make it into the picture — a screenshot is cropped to what is inside (see 8.7). So settle the film's aspect ratio before you place the cameras, and what you see is what you get.

Try it in DOTVReading only goes so far: open DOTV and make an AI video with the feature this section covers.
Open DOTVDownload the desktop app
Previous
8.2 The Previz workspace
Next
8.4 Figures and objects
On this page
Setting up a camera
Shot size, focal length and handheld
Looking through a camera