The Most Incredible DAZ Studio Camera Trick…

If you’ve been using DAZ Studio for a while, then you’re somewhat familar with the camera. And all it’s virtually limitless “poses”. That is, it’s position, rotation, focal length, and if you will… DOF. Depth Of Field (that blurry foreground / background effect). But there’s something else. That subtle feeling of… What do I really want to frame here? What I am trying to capture? How do I really crop things that don’t fit in the view?

Well, all good and valid questions.

Thing is, there’s a LOT of rules on how to place the camera. Most originate from the movie and photo industry. Some have been invented by 3D artsits, since 3D graphics has no physical limitations. But instead of spending one hour explaining all the rules here, I thought I could give you a single one in all solution, that just works every single time.

See, there are hidden things you want to add to your camera framing, that is, what you place in front of the camera and how you place it. Things that will make you an instant pro. Some of the hidden aspects include depth, clean cropping of items, line alignments (render image edges / lines in the image) and a focal point–the area of your image where our eyes are naturally drawn to.

When you get the camera right, it opens up for lighting to work much more efficient. I actually call the camera a “light catcher”, since when used correctly, it WILL contribute to the lighting and make it more cool or beautiful. Now, for the trick… It’s called “Perspective Diagonal”. Now, behind the fancy words, you’ll find embedded some of the most sophisticated rules ever created for the camera. It just gives everything at once, with full power, and it doesn’t let go.

So here’s how it works…

First, make sure that the main characters are clustered / grouped, so they are not scattered around the set. Second, set your DAZ Studio camera to 16:9 format and place the camera right in front of your characters with at least 10-15 m distance. Next, zoom in (focal length of the camera), so that you have a little air / room above and below your characters. And now the magical trick… Move the camera 10-30 meters left or right, depending on which side you want to pick.

Usually, you want to move the camera in the opposite direction as any cool stuff you have on one of the sides of the set.

For instance, if you have some cool pipes on the left side in the background, then move the camera to the right. Next, re-aim it so you have your characters on one side in your image, and at the same time exposing the area of interest in the background. To do that, divide your image in 3 equal vertical sections, and you then have 2 vertical lines at each intersection of the zones. In the above image, I’ve moved the camera to the right to reveal the pipes on the left side of the wall, and re-aligned the camera to the left (rotation)–to capture the characters on the 2:nd vertical intersection of the image.

If you have a lot of lines in your image, like floor elements, wall pipes and such, it can be a good idea to rotate the camera slightly on the Z-axis, since that will break the lines from aligning with the image frame itself. What this framing does, is that it creates depth because of the angle (as opposed to having the camera right in front of the characters) and it also magnifies the focal point (in this case the characters), since if you look carefully, most lines in the image point towards the characters. (Again, because of the angle)

That way, we’re enhancing the focal point quite dramatically, so that lighting can do its magic.

Now, we can go a lot deeper than this, since camera framing is an art form on its own. If you liked this technique, then there’s a lot more from where this came from. I’ve created an entire guide on how to use the DAZ Studio camera, and how to get professional looking art right away. You can get it with our time limited 80% off coupon code: 80off –by clicking HERE.

Enjoy your 3D art, and make it yours!

– Val Cameron

CEO and founder of Dreamlight

The Place To Be When You Want To Love Your DAZ Studio Art And Income

Val Cameron has been coaching and mentoring over 50,000 DAZ Studio artists during the last decade, is a bestselling DAZ 3D vendor since 2005 with over 200 light sets, props and video tutorials and aniMate DAZ 3D contest winner with his DAZ Studio music video “Love”.

P.S. Now, we can go a lot deeper than this, since camera framing is an art form on its own. If you liked this technique, then there’s a lot more from where this came from. I’ve created an entire guide on how to use the DAZ Studio camera, and how to get professional looking art right away. You can get it with our time limited (June 1-5 2015) 80% off coupon code: 80off –by clicking HERE.

Val Cameron

Happily sharing how to create great 3D & 2D art in DAZ Studio, Lightwave and Photoshop, Val Cameron, CEO and founder of Dreamlight, has been coaching and mentoring hundreds of thousands of artists since 2005. Bestselling DAZ 3D vendor with over 230+ video tutorials, plug ins and light sets.