Cameras

Up until now, most of the items that you could add to a scenario diagram have been what we call fixtures. They represent lighting fixtures. They can target like this. They move around and you can show a DMX address, which makes sense for lighting fixtures. But what we were doing was also using fixtures to represent cameras and actors and all kinds of other items that it doesn't really make sense to have those features. And so what we've done is we have split out cameras and actors into separate types of items. So I'm going to add an actor. You can add them from either of those places or just by using the A key. And you can see that the actor just doesn't have a DMX address. They still move around. They still target, which makes sense for an actor. They can still be targeted even by fixtures. Um but they're a simpler version of a fixture. Now a camera is a different story. I'm going to add a camera here. And the first thing you're going to notice is that this camera actually displays its field of view. Uh, which is important. It's important to communicate to your crew what it's going to be in and out of frame. It's one of the most important things you can do actually. And the camera still has targeting in the same way that the uh actor and the fixture do. But in this case, uh, it's displaying this field of view. Now, right now, it's on a zoom lens, which is which means that you can change what that field of view is, and it's going to show you the inner and outer limits of it. But if you switch to a prime, and we provide primes, then it's just going to give you that static field of view, and that is going to look around and uh and follow wherever that camera moves. So, you can always see what is going to be in and out of frame. That field of view obviously is dependent on a couple things. One of them is the focal length and the other is the format. And so we start with uh with a standard 35 mil, but you can change it as wide as an IMAX frame or as narrow as a standard 8mm frame as well as a bunch of video formats and stills formats. And we're just going to do the math on those and see what the horizontal field of view is for that focal length. You can also change the lens type of the camera, which uh is not lens specific. It is only a setting on the camera, but we figure that if you have a package of lenses, they're going to at least be similar um as far as whether they're spherical or or anamorphic. And so, it's going to do the math on those as well. You can change any of these. If you double click or press and hold on one of these, you can change the actual focal length of a lens, or you can add some of your own to expand the lens package. Let's say we do want to add a 24 back in there, and it's going to sort it for you. Um, if you want to add a zoom, you can just enter it with um enter it with a dash in between, and it's going to create that zoom. And again do the math on what those two different focal lengths are going to look like. The zoom the lens packages themselves uh by default are shared by the whole project. So any diagram you create in this project will have this lens package. But if you want you can have a separate lens package specific to this diagram. And if you want to start from here you can rightclick or two finger click here. copy all the lenses and rightclick here and paste the lenses right there into the diagram. So now if you were to change the project lenses, let's say we don't need this, but for this specific setup, you know, you're going to need that zoom, then you have it here still. So those are the basics of cameras. Uh can't wait to see how you are better able to communicate your ideas to your crew using this new tool. Um, one other great thing about cameras is that you can add what that frame is supposed to look like. So, if you show the frame image there, then you're going to be able to choose the image from your files or from your pictures. So, this works just like a DMX control. You can move it around and when you move the camera, it follows the camera. You can hide this if you want. It's not going to get rid of that frame image. It's just not going to show it for now. Once you set it, it's always going to be there unless you delete it or change it. And if you have a lot of these, let's say I duplicate this camera. Now, we have another frame image here. This is a different camera. Um, so we have another frame image. Um, and maybe it's getting a little messy on the diagram. So, these are now available on types. You can hide actors, you can hide cameras overall, or just like you can hide only DMX labels, you can hide just the frame images. and come take a look at them when you need to. If you want to see a little more detail in the frame image, you can size it up if you want, but also if you doubleclick it, it's going to open it here, and it's going to show you the full size of it. And you can add notes if you'd like. It's the same as the notes that are over here. And this is also how you replace the image. So to get to this, you press and hold on it, or you double click on it, and that's going to show you what you need to see. So enjoy cameras. Can't wait to see what you make.