Look through their eyes - Precise camera and light placement

Author: Porter

Tools Needed

• DAZ Studio

DAZ Studio allows you to position cameras and light sources almost anywhere in your scene. By precisely placing cameras, and by parenting the cameras to various items, you can gain a much greater degree of control over your rendering. This tutorial will demonstrate some tricks for easy and accurate placement of cameras. These same techniques can also be used with lights.

A simple spherical target object for use in this tutorial can be downloaded for free from my web server, at: http://www.polyhedrongroup.com/tutorials/Look/ball.obj

The sphere is one I made, and it's free for all rendering uses, commercial or personal.

DAZ Products Used in making this tutorial :

DAZ Studio

Victoria 3.0 Base

V3/M3 Head and Body Morphs

Trixie (character textures and morphs)

Aila hair

V3 and SP Clothing Pack

Set up a scene in DAZ Studio containing a figure and an object for the figure to look at.

I've provided a simple sphere prop for this tutorial, but the target can be any selectable object, such as their thumb or another figure's head.

If you use my sphere prop, use the Import command on the File menu to import the OBJ file. That will give you an untextured sphere named 'ball', which you can position and color as you choose. To get it the size I used in my tutorial, reduce it to 75% of the original size.

We will start by placing a camera at the target object's position, and aim it so that it is looking at the figure's right eye.

Select the 'new Camera' button, or select 'New Camera' from the Create menu.

Call this new camera Target-Cam.

Select the Target-Cam as the source for the active viewport. The menu for this should be in the upper left corner of your viewport area.

3a: In the Scene window, click on the figure's right eye. (You may need to expand the view to locate the eye.)

3b: Click on the target icon in the View window. The view in the viewport for the Target Cam should now center on the figure's right eye.

3c: At this point, the 'Orbit Camera' control in the View window will allow you to alter the 'Target-Cam' camera's position, while keeping it aimed at the figure's eye.

Roughly aim the figure's head and neck so it's looking at the target object. The exact alignment isn't critical. Then select the right eye again, and use the 'Orbit Camera' control to rotate the 'Target-Cam' so that the target object is between the camera and the figure's right eye.

Use the 'Zoom Camera' control to get close to the target. Adjust the position a bit more accurately. You should still see the markings for the rotate or translate tool, indicating where the eye is behind the target. Then zoom forward, slowly, moving the camera through the target. Stop just as the camera gets past the far side, and gives you a clear view of the figure's eye. Note that as you go through the sphere, you see the inside of the sphere.

The Target-Cam camera should now be at the same location as the target object, and aimed at the figure's right eye. We will use this camera to precisely adjust the camera we are about to add to the figure's right eye.

If you want to parent this camera to the target object, you can at this point, but it isn't necessary, unless you intend to have several figures looking at this same target.

In this step, we repeat what we did in steps 2, 3, and 4, above. But this time, we name the new camera 'R-Eye-Cam'; and the target we point this new camera at is our target object, instead of the right eye.

As we move the camera forward, through the back of the figure's head. pause a moment. You should see something that looks like this:

It's sort of gross, but that is what the inside of Victoria's head looks like. Due to a quirk in the way DAZ Studio renders lights, you can still see inside there. Note that you can clearly see the round eyeball and the iris and eyelids of both eyes, as well as the control symbol that is still centered on your target. Move the camera slightly, centering that control symbol on the iris of her right eye, and then slowly move forward, until you get a clear view of your target object.

You may need to adjust the position back and forth a bit, until you're just far enough forward that you don't see bits of eyelid or eyelash. Don't be too picky. It's going to move again in the next step.

In the Scene window, make sure that 'Parent In Place' is selected on the Active Tab Options. That's the little triangle in the corner of the window, that drops down a menu. With that selected, drag the R-Eye-Cam's scene list item to the right eye's scene list item, and let go. The R-Eye-Cam should parent to the eye, becoming an item listed under the eye.

Select the R-Eye-Cam in the Scene window's list, and open the Parameters window. Change the translate and rotate settings, as shown below.

Your camera is now pointing precisely where the right eye is looking. If you look through the eye camera now, you'll probably see that it's slightly off target. You can now look through that camera, and adjust the head, neck and eye positions, using the sliders for 'Up-Down' and 'Side-Side' for the eye, and 'Bend', 'Twist' and 'Side-Side' for the head and neck, to aim the eye exactly where you want it. You can look back through the target cam to verify the line of sight.

If you'really want to go all-out, you could repeat the process again, placing a third camera in the left eye. That would allow you direct the eyes so that they get 'cross-eyed' if the figure is supposed to be looking at a very close object.

However, for most renders, it's sufficient to look at the parameter settings for the right eye, and duplicate the 'Up-Down' and 'Side-Side' settings on the left eye. Here's the result, as verified by the target camera. Her eyes are locked on target.

Extra Credit: Everything that I just taught you about positioning a camera can also be used with a spotlight or a distant light. Using the 'Orbit Camera' control while looking through these lights aims the lights. Point lights can not be selected or controlled in this manner.

A spotlight can be selected as the active viewport, just like a camera. What you see is the area they will illuminate, based on the spread angle setting for the light. Smaller spread angle equals a tighter focus - more of a close-up.

When you select a distant light as the active viewport, you see from the angle that light is coming from. The 'distance' will always be far enough away to see all of the objects in the scene.

There are times when you might want to parent a cameral to a distant light. You might ask “Why? If I can look through a light, why parent a camera to it?”

I'll tell you one good reason. A parented camera can zoom in and out, and you can't do that while looking through a distant light.

Place the 'center' of your distant light where the figure is, create a camera, and target it on the distant light. Then position it so the view is the same as the one you see through the distant light. This camera can now zoom in and out on the same line of sight, which can be handy if you're placing a shadow mask between the light and the scene, as I do in my 'Shadows 1' Tutorial.