PIETER DEPANDELAERE 3D ARTIST

How to create a Vray camera from viewport

It’s almost a year since my blog is online and I haven’t exactly been the most active updater, so here’s finally a new post:

“How to create a Vray camera from viewport”

The shortcut for creating a camera from your active (perspective!) viewport is CONTROL + C. You can also go to Views => Create Camera From View. Make sure you’re in an active perspective viewport, because orthograpic doesn’t support this feature.
If you’re working with V-Ray and you want to use the VRayPhysicalCam however, you have to use a little workaround. Just create a VRay camera, make sure you have it selected and then press CONTROL + C.
When you have selected a camera (standard or VRay) and press C, you jump to this camera view.

It’s just one of those minor frustrations that you can now cross out on your checklist. Let me know if you found this helpful!

Enjoy!

Zoom about Mouse Point

After a busy period and a well-earned (and well-spent) vacation, it’s time to post a first super-handy feature everyone can use while working in 3ds Max.

While doing my internship at Creative Conspiracy, I had to learn the ins and outs of modo. My attitude towards this “much more artist-friendly and much more efficiently-interfaced” 3D modeling tool was pretty sceptical to say the least. At first, I had lots of trouble trying to transfer my trusty 3ds Max workflow. I couldn’t find any of the tools and modifiers I used to wield and that was a frustrating experience. But once I stopped trying and embraced the modo way of doing things, I started to pick up pace and eventually, I became even faster than before. I experienced the artist-friendliness at first hand and fell completely in love with it!

Even worse, when I had to switch back to 3ds Max for my current job, I had troubles readjusting. One of the obvious yet extremely handy navigational options in modo includes the “Zoom about Mouse Point”. When you use your mouse wheel, or any other shortcut, to zoom in on a 3D object, you automatically zoom to the current location of your mouse pointer. This feature eliminates lots of extra panning. I had no idea 3ds Max didn’t do this by default, until I switched back. The disappointment had almost killed me when I found this article by Mark E. Gerhard on the internet. Apparently, 3ds Max has a similar feature, but it is turned off by default…

If you go to Customize – Preferences and click on the Viewports tab, you can find “Zoom about Mouse Point (Orthographic)” and “Zoom about Mouse Point (Perspective)” on the bottom right. Enabling these two options lets you zoom to the current position of your mouse pointer, EXCEPT when you use the scroll wheel in a perspective viewport.

CONTROL + ALT + clicking the scroll wheel always zooms to the mouse pointer, but using the scroll wheel doesn’t work, for incredible and inexplicable reasons… In all the other viewports (front, back, top, orthographic…) the scroll wheel zooms to the mouse pointer, but not in a perspective viewport.

This is the first of a series of super-handy features I accidentally discovered by trying out other 3D modeling software. It took me some time to find out it was possible, but enabling and using it saved me even more time. That’s the reason I wanted to share this with the world.

I hope you enjoy it!