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Pixar in a Box
Course: Pixar in a Box > Unit 6
Lesson 1: How virtual cameras workIntroduction to virtual cameras
Virtual cameras in Pixar films are designed to mimic real-life camera techniques by simulating properties like lenses, focal length, depth of field, and camera movement. This allows animators to create shots that resemble those captured by physical cameras, and allows them to experiment with different lens choices, camera angles, and compositions to achieve the desired look and feel for each scene, just as they would with real-life cameras.
Want to join the conversation?
Signifying the topic, like emotions such as happy, sad anger, and surprise, does the focus and zoom in and zoom out really need to be affected?(16 votes)
The focus and zoom don't need to be affected, but changing them can help convey the feeling of a scene to an audience or to make sure they focus on the part of the scene you want them to focus on.(36 votes)
Using virtual cameras, can you achieve compositions that would be impossible with real cameras, yet still look believable to the viewer?(9 votes)
What do you mean by "compositions impossible with real cameras"?(4 votes)
What app do you use to animate?(8 votes)- Puzzled by the fact that the animators don't factor all of this clearly important stuff with depth of field etc into the graphics from the start. Is it just that the camera tech tweaking is an easier way of doing it I wonder?(4 votes)
- Virtual cameras are how PoV, DoF, focal length, etc. are introduced to a 3D scene. There is no other way to factor them into the graphics. If you're referring to baking DoF into the render vs. doing it in post with a depth map, it's far more preferable to do the latter as it allows for more flexibility in creating the final shot (more/less blur, adjusting DoF range, etc.) It also speeds up render times, as 3D-rendered DoF is very cycle-intensive.(5 votes)
marley is in inside out(4 votes)- How do you make the camera in the movie?(3 votes)
i see we are on the same lesson Olli (My archenemies)(3 votes)- What are all te varities of virtual cameras?(3 votes)
OH we used these virtual cameras in a minecraft animation project they are really cool(3 votes)
Can we have a simulation HERE?(3 votes)
Video transcript
- Hi, I'm Patrick Lin, the
director of photography for camera on Inside Out. - And I'm Adam Habib,
camera lead on Inside Out. This lesson is about cameras,
the art of using them, and the science behind them. We're talking about physical cameras first because the virtual cameras we use to make our movies are modeled
after the real thing. - First, let's talk about lenses. The kind of lenses we put
in front of the camera and how we adjust the amount of light that is traveling through that lens affects the image we record. Cheese. (camera shutter clicks) - [Adam] For instance, for this selfie we used a wide angle lens. If we change out the lens for a narrower long lens, like this 75 millimeter, the picture will look very different. - Smile. (camera shutter clicks) Whoa, we're barely in the shot. Looks like we have moved
the camera but we haven't. In fact, to get the
environment and ourself in this shot, with this lens, we have to move the camera a lot. Hey, Sylvia. - Hi. - Do you mind taking a photo for us? - Sure, were guys trying to take a selfie with this long lens? - Maybe.
- Maybe. (drum roll) (camera shutter clicks) - Good thing they had a ladder here. - [Adam] Now that the
shot is composed the same, you can see what else
changes about the image because of our lens choice. For instance, notice what
is in focus or out of focus. - [Patrick] In the wide angle image, almost everything is in focus and in the picture taken
with the long lens, only a small part of
the image is in focus. Another thing that changes is the feeling of perspective in the image. This means how close or far
away the objects appear. - [Adam] In the wide angle shot, when the camera is closer, the nearer subjects appear a lot bigger and more remote objects feel farther away. - [Patrick] In the long lens shot, when the camera is farther away, there appears to be less distance between the nearer and
the farther objects. Every choice you make with the camera changes the feeling of the shot and our job is to makes choices that supports the emotion of a story. - Let's go show them how
it worked on Inside Out. (camera shutter clicks) This is the virtual camera
we use to make our movies. It has interchangeable
lenses just like the camera we used to take our selfie. - So depending on the lens we use and the placement of the camera, we should see a similar
effect on the image. - [Adam] Here's a shot from Inside Out that is compositionally
a lot like our selfie. Let's start with that same wide lens we used for the first
selfie, the 18 millimeter. It looks okay, but we
don't want to choose a lens just based on what we
can fit in the frame. We want to ask ourselves,
what is this scene about? - The core of the scene is about empathy, so all of our decisions in framing, composition, staging and lens choices should be guided by that idea. - [Adam] I think I'll try
the 50 millimeter lens. Using this lens, and
adjusting the depth of field, which determines what's
in or out of focus, I think we'll get the right look. An image that focuses on the characters so the background just falls away. - There are many different feelings we support through our camera choices, fear, happiness, insecurity, wonder. In each case, we thought about how we could use the camera
to amplify the emotions we wanted to achieve in that scene. There is a lot of cool stuff to learn so stay with us.