Camera animation is an essential part of storytelling. Camera animation can be usually overlook, however a good camera move can solve a lot of problems and can help the animation process. Maya does not do it by default. In Maya there are different options for cameras: you can create a simple camera, a camera with aim where the aim is where the camera would point towards and the camera aim and up where you can lock the orientation of a camera. The default camera that you can create using Maya has 35 mm focal length. You can custom a camera in Maya which has the Pan, Roll and Pitch options just like a real camera on a tripod would have which represent different rotation and different camera shots. A pan shot involves the camera moving horizontally, so left to right and right to left; the Roll shot is the one where the camera rotates on its axis, titling; and the Pitch is the vertical rotation on its axis. It is better to create those channels for a camera since that the translate and the rotation of the three axis for a default camera in Maya have no hierarchy when we animate it, which could lead to a gimbal lock. A gimbal lock is when we have two rotation together and they lock so it would lead to maya data confusion not recognising which channel is which since they are exactly on top of each other. Having the camera created working with a resolution gate aside may be useful to see what we are actually framing with a camera. After we can create a overscan channel in the camera rig to adjust the resolution gate view. To help the framing process of a shot it might be useful to create and parent a “thirds grid” to place in front of the lens of the camera which would not show in the final rendering but it would help the animation process if we turn off the rendering attributes for it. Moreover if we create a boolean switch for it we can toggle its visibility in the viewport. Another element which can be customised is the focal length of the camera by creating a custom channel for it. The default focal length is 35 mm so you can add a minimum of 12 mm and a maximum of 100 mm for example. All these last attributes and channels are part of the camera itself so they should be added in the connection editor of the camera and be part of the nodes of the camera and be used as independent channels.

Camera moments in real world

Once the camera rig is done it is possible to create a Pan shot with it for instance. Using a ready scene we can animate the camera position form left to right to follow the characters as they move from left to right in the scene. These camera shots make up the foundation of good film in television. An elects which could make a difference while animating these types of shots is to think of the camera as an object being moved by a person: when creating the keys for the camera pan its always better to create a hold position when following a subject and moving slightly after it to replicate the actual movement of the camera man in real life and create an illusion of it which can contribute to add a nice touch to the overall animation.

This is the final playlist shot: