Moving scene view camera from editor script--

There are 7 pages of threads somewhat related to this, and I've gone through most of them.

Most of them say to grab 'Camera.current' and use that-- Well, actually, most people say they *think* that is what Camera.current does.

However, I have a script in my Editor folder, which otherwise works fine, however Camera.current just gets null reference exceptions.

My editor script goes somewhat like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. class RobsEditor extends EditorWindow
3. {
4.     @MenuItem ("Window/RobsEditor")
5.     static function Init ()
6.     {
7.     var window : RobsEditor = EditorWindow.GetWindow (RobsEditor);
8.     }
9.  
10.     function OnGUI ()
11.     {
12.     GUILayout.Label ("Rob's Editor", EditorStyles.boldLabel);
13.  
14.     EditorGUILayout.BeginHorizontal();
15.    
16.     if (GUILayout.Button("Search"))
17.     {
18.                 //This Only prints out the camera in the heirarchy view
19.         var count : int = Camera.allCameras.Length;
20.         for (var y : int = 0; y < Camera.allCameras.Length; y++)
21.         {
22.             Debug.Log(Camera.allCameras[y].name);
23.         }
24.  
25.                //nothing ever happens
26.         if (Camera.current != null)
27.         {
28.             Camera.current.transform.position.x = 0;
29.             Camera.current.transform.position.y = 0;
30.             Camera.current.transform.position.z = -10;
31.         }
32.     }
33.     }
34. }
35.  

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Hey--

That did not work (though, it looks like it would-- ashame that it is undocumented, because I'd love to see what else is in that class).

It did get into the if statement, but I have no idea what camera changed. Any other suggestions?

 

Hey, I'll give that a shot in a minute-- may I ask where you are getting the undocumented classes?

 

Hey Shawn, that above code worked out-- thanks for that.

I've read up upon Reflection, and my understanding of it is simply put,

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. if (myClass.HasFunction("Restart"))
3. {
4.     myClass.Restart();
5. }
6.  

I'll keep the above product in mind should I want to check it out

 

P.S. Any idea how I would get the above software to run on Mac?

 

This, of course, would only compile if the class function existed So the function invocation would have to be done at runtime too, some "like": Reflector.invokeFunction(myClass, "Restart");

 

Hello,

I've found this thread when I was looking for a way to switch view via script,
I'm writing a script to switch view so I can switch to Top view, Left, Back, Front and so on via shortcut but as it is all undocumented I'm pretty stuck,
I've managed to move the camera via the code above but I'm clueless on how to rotate it, I've already tried via rotation and via other SceneView.lastActiveSceneView class members. any hint how to do this ?
by the way it really surprises me there's no hotkeys for doing that!
at last not on this list
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2011/08/24/unity-hotkeys-keyboard-shortcuts-in-unity/

 

I want to do something similar to pasoftdev. Except what I want to do is prevent the camera from rotating. Specifically when the camera is in one of the Iso views (Top, Front, Right, Etc.) When I'm in these modes, I'd really likethe camera to stay locked facing that direction, but I can't seem to find a way to do it. Is this something that could be scripted? Or maybe a feature request? I have tried the "SceneView.lastActiveSceneView.lockRotation" member but to no avail, as well as the rotation member.

 

I just wrote a script that allows multiple SceneViews to follow a gameobject in edit and play mode. I uploaded it to the Unity3d Wiki: http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/SceneViewCameraFollower

 

I just found out about this tonight while trying to do something similar. I was trying to focus on an object from a top-down view, which I was able to accomplish using this:

Code (csharp):

1. sceneView.LookAt(myPosition, Quaternion.Euler(90, 0, 0));

You can adjust the euler angle values to rotate the camera however you want.

 

Thank @Zaikman @shawn ! This is useful for me !

And my demo : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UESaudzhHQI

 

Here is an asset that helps you save some editor camera angles, it comes with the source code and everything on how it's done. Hope it helps.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/39370

 

I found this thread from a script reference from another thread (link).

The manual script method to align the scene view to an objects saves me time but there is still a small problem like @Hatsuko also noticed: "The position is slightly different." - I'm pretty sure, that this offset comes after using the scroll wheel... because after resetting the view you can use the scroll wheel until it snaps in the exact position, like "Align View to selected" would do. But because scroll wheel is often used in the scene view the time saving is gone, because 1. the rotation must be copied from the selected object to 2. correct the offset with the scroll wheel.

Now my question to maybe @shawn: how can we reset/write this scene view position offset, which the scroll wheel influences?

 

Hi shawn, this changed the position of the pivot, not the position of `SceneView.lastActiveSceneView.camera.transform`. How to set the position of the camera directly?

 

Thanks Shawn!

This seems to work well:

Code (CSharp):

1. public static void TeleportSceneCamera(Vector3 cam_position, Vector3 cam_forward)
2. {
3.     // Can't set transform of camera :(
4.     // It internally updates every frame:
5.     //      cam.position = pivot + rotation * new Vector3(0, 0, -cameraDistance)
6.     // Info: https://forum.unity.com/threads/moving-scene-view-camera-from-editor-script.64920/#post-3388397
7.  
8.     var scene_view = UnityEditor.SceneView.lastActiveSceneView;
9.  
10.     // SceneView.lastActiveSceneView.cameraDistance is private, compute it.
11.     var offset = scene_view.pivot - scene_view.camera.transform.position;
12.     var cameraDistance = offset.magnitude;
13.  
14.     scene_view.pivot = cam_position + cam_forward * cameraDistance * -1.0f;
15.     scene_view.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(cam_forward);
16. }

It's a bit wonky when coming from UI editing (probably doesn't work well when cameraDistance is an extreme value?)

Edit: there's also an interesting SceneViewCameraFollower script on Unify that uses a different method!

 

Found a better method that zooms to an appropriate distance. Also, switching to scene view and using orthographic make it fully automatic!

Code (CSharp):

1. public static void TeleportSceneCamera(Vector3 cam_position, Vector3 cam_forward)
2. {
3.     UnityEditor.EditorApplication.ExecuteMenuItem("Window/Scene");
4.  
5.     // Can't set transform of camera :(
6.     // It internally updates every frame:
7.     //      cam.position = pivot + rotation * new Vector3(0, 0, -cameraDistance)
8.     // Info: https://forum.unity.com/threads/moving-scene-scene_view-camera-from-editor-script.64920/#post-3388397
9.     // But we can align it to an object! Source: http://answers.unity.com/answers/256969/scene_view.html
10.     var scene_view = UnityEditor.SceneView.lastActiveSceneView;
11.     if (scene_view != null)
12.     {
13.         scene_view.orthographic = false;
14.  
15.         var target = scene_view.camera;
16.         target.transform.position = cam_position;
17.         target.transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(cam_forward);
18.         scene_view.AlignViewToObject(target.transform);
19.     }
20. }

 

You create a problem when editing the target transform directly. I solved it by assigning a tmp Transform = target and applying the modification to it. Then I aligned the unmodified Camera's transform with the tmp Transform. It occurred because I added an offset.

 

Field of view can be done as well?

 

Thank you for letting me know @shawn - I was banging my head on the problem. It seems you (UT) could add that hook someday.

Background: I like to use a near-ortho perspective camera in 2D game dev and it would be useful when using an editor script to match the game view. A nice-to-have but not required.

Thank you for saving me time,

-Mike

 

Has anyone found a way to properly specify the camera follow distance from the pivot in the scene view? We're trying to add an editor and some camera control similar to some of the above comments, but there is not a properly exposed way to *set* the camera follow distance. I would expect that the SceneView.LookAt*() methods take a 'distance' value from the pivot instead of the 'size' value they take.

Trying to calculate this from looking at SceneView.cameraDistance / GetPerspectiveCameraDistance() is about impossible because the values it uses to calculate distance from size are not exposed.

@shawn Again, is there something that can be added to make this easier?

 

For anyone wanting to specify the camera *distance* instead of the odd *size* parameter to the LookAt() methods, here is an extension method. Note the distance parameter comes second to avoid conflicts with the *size* overload which comes third.

The GetSizeFromDistance() method may need to be adjusted if Unity decides to tweak it again at some point, but the source can be found on their GitHub reference thankfully. Ideally Unity would add these overload as they are very useful for those making custom camera controls in the editor.

Code (CSharp):

1.     public static class SceneViewExtensions
2.     {
3.         // Looks at the pivot point from the specified *distance* and rotation.
4.         public static void LookAt( this SceneView sceneView, in Vector3 pivot,
5.             float distance, in Quaternion rotation ) =>
6.                 sceneView.LookAt( pivot, rotation,
7.                     GetSizeFromDistance( sceneView, distance ) );
8.  
9.         // From SceneView.cs / GetPerspectiveCameraDistance().
10.         static float GetSizeFromDistance( SceneView sceneView, float distance ) =>
11.             distance * Mathf.Sin( sceneView.camera.fieldOfView * 0.5f * Mathf.Deg2Rad );
12.     }

 

This worked for me. It seems that SceneView.lastActiveSceneView.Camera .position & .rotation do nothing.

Code (CSharp):

1. Vector3 Pivot = Vector3.zero;
2. Quaternion Rotation = Quaternion.identity;
3. float Size = 1f;
4.  
5. void StoreCamera()
6. {
7.     var scene = SceneView.lastActiveSceneView;
8.     Pivot = scene.pivot;
9.     Rotation = scene.rotation;
10.     Size = scene.size;
11. }
12. void RestoreCamera()
13. {  
14.     var scene = SceneView.lastActiveSceneView;
15.     scene.pivot = Pivot;
16.     scene.rotation = Rotation;
17.     scene.size = Size;
18.     scene.Repaint();
19. }

 

Thanks for this thread y'all, it's still top of Google ranking and helped me a lot trying to figure this out.

Setting camera transform directly still does not work, and AlignViewToObject works... however it does the aligning over a period of time, instead of setting it immediately.

Setting the camera's pivot, rotation, and size works wonderfully. Just wanted to elaborate a bit on the math there in the formula and diagram given by this page: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SceneView-size.html

The formula given is:
sin(BAC) = BC / AB
Where:
BAC = fov / 2 and fov can be obtained from the SceneView.lastActiveSceneView.camera.fieldOfView
AB is the camera distance value that we are trying to set, so this value is also given
BC is the "size" we're trying to figure out

Solving for size gives us:
size = cameraDistance * sin(fov / 2)