Sketchup-Ur-Space

"SketchUp’s Advanced Camera Tools”

Subhra Bera: Editor

SketchUp’s Advanced Camera Tools is an amazing extension that is used from loose storyboarding to advanced shot analysis in the planning time of any film, video or photography.

About SketchUp: SketchUp or Google SketchUp is mainly a3D modeling computer program that is used for a broad range of drawing applications used by architects, interior designer, landscape architects, civil and mechanical engineers, film and video game designers also. SketchUp can be getting as a freeware version named SketchUp Make and a paid version with many more extra benefits called SketchUp Pro. SketchUp is software from Trimble Company and there is an online library of free model congregations and 3D Warehouse to which users can add other models; besides that, the program has drawing layout functionality with variable ‘styles’, supports third-party ‘plug-in’ programs hosted on the Extension Warehouse to supply other abilities and enables placement of its models in Google Earth. As SketchUp users are most of architects, designers, builders, makers and engineers etc. who works hard to give a nice shape to our physical world, they need great tools to do the work. SketchUp is in mission to bring their best to produce some great tools for drawing as drawing is the key thing of the SketchUp users. They draw to search ideas, to identify the things and to show other people their work that they do with love and love to build; SketchUp understands it truly and trying to improve their software day by day.

In this article we are going to discuss about Advanced Camera Tools in SketchUp through Geis’s tutorials and here are some information about this tools.

The Advanced Camera Tools: The Advanced Camera Tools or Act are mainly designed for those people who work in the film and television industry and use SketchUp Pro to build up some storyboards, design sets, visualize scenes and plan locations. They use Advanced Camera Tools for placing real-world cameras in their SketchUp models and preview the real camera shots but this extension needs an active SketchUp Pro license. The Advanced Camera Tools plugin is now used for Google SketchUp Pro 8 where users can create optically and physically modeled professional cameras that can be designed and manipulated similarly as used in the real world. Cameras created by the users with the Advances Camera Tools will provide precise controls for properties such as, Focal Length, Aspect Ratio and Image Width while allows them to accurately model and preview real camera shots inside any model they are working with.

There is a clearly complete help file which is linked within the SketchUp extension warehouse page for the Advanced Camera Tools and this extension was created to provide a tool for visualizing various shots in Video and TV work, but besides that it can also be used to make much more accurate cameras and cameras with pitch and roll. People who want to mimic an original physical camera can access the various kinds by back to back tools, advanced camera tools and choosing an actual camera type which will give them access to many different camera types. But if it is not a worry to work with an actual physical camera type, one can add a camera by simple clicking on the first button on the advanced camera tools toolbar. This helps the person to set their view into view editing mode, for more hidden information one can find them in the lower left hand on his/her screen. While clicking and dragging the mouse button, information about the particular view like the height and angle will be recorded in the information in the lower left corner. More than that, users can also adjusts the pan, angle, height and many other things about the camera view with some instructions at the bottom of the screen.

After having a real camera view set as per needs one can right click on it to active the “Lock Camera” option, it will instantly lock the camera view to prevent the accidental changes and it will create an original physical camera reference point in the 3D space. Users are able to turn on the camera frustum lines and volumes to view a physical indicator of the view of the camera, when users want to unlock the feature they need to simply click on the button for “Look through a camera created by create camera”, then right click and select “unlock camera”. While the “edit camera” option helps to edit aspects of the camera by right clicking on it.

Features of the Advanced Camera Tools: So basically this tool can do things like

  • Adding any number of physical cameras to the users’ model.
  • One can uses this tool to choose from dozens of pre-formed camera types or can create own.
  • Advanced Camera tools are placed and aimed using some known moves like Pan, Angle, and Dolly etc.
  • Focal length of any camera is set to simulate a large number of physical lenses.
  • Advanced Camera tools frustums are toggled on and off to see easily everything.
  • Properties of the Advanced Camera tools’ camera can be edited in the model any time.

Justin Geis: Justin Geis is the founder of The SketchUp Essentials and started using SketchUp while he was working as a general contractor in 2008 and after using it he found that SketchUp is extremely powerful that he just started to use it in his personal works also. Then he started The SketchUp Essentials as a place where he could share his ideas of using SketchUp easily through some tutorials and tips to help other users controlling the power of 3D Modeling in everyday lives.

SketchUp’s Advanced Camera Tools

Source: www.thesketchupessentials.com