shot transition from perspective to orthographic?

I'd like to transition from a cinematic intro (which uses a perspective camera) directly to gameplay (which uses an orthographic camera). Is cinemachine able to accomplish this shot?

 

Thanks for the quick, definitive and helpful response! I'll give it a shot.

 

I took a shot at what you suggested, Gregoryl, but wasn't able to get a smooth transition between even relatively narrow FOVs (18-20) and 1 FOV (to simulate ortho). Even using linear blends, I wasn't able to get the FOV change to layer smoothly with camera position change. So I just ended up going with a pop from perspective to ortho after the camera movement. (If this is something you've gotten to work and can offer any pointers, I'd appreciate it!)

Now I'm running into a related issue. I can't seem to get an ortho cam to co-exist in a scene with a perspective cam so that I can switch over to it for gameplay after the initial transition. I tried creating an ortho camera with a virtual brain in the scene with the perspective camera with a virtual brain. Then, when I made a virtual cinemachine camera, it had an 'orthographic size' field under lens in the inspector, so I thought it would behave as an orthographic camera, but the image it captures is in perspective.

Is it possible to have both ortho and perspective cameras with cinemachine brains in the same scene?

 

Thanks for following up on this in such detail, Gregoryl!! I'll dig in with this info and let you know how I fare!

 

Gregoryl, are you using an actual ortho cam in this shot at the end? In the package you attached above (thank you again!), the final cam is a perspective cam. The shot I'm trying to create transitions from perspective to orthographic isometric. X:30, Y:330. I'm currently looking into how I might set up the two cinemachine brain cameras (one perspective and one ortho) on layers and then switch between them after the transition so I can carry on showing gameplay from a true orthographic camera.

 

Ok, the solution is starting to emerge from the mist. A HUGE piece of the puzzle was finding the Cinemachine Follow Zoom Component in the package you sent. I wasn't using it before. In fact, it doesn't show up in my cinemachine components, so I copied and pasted it from your example camera. That solved the big issue of keeping the framing and composition smooth and consistent as FOV changed. It was exactly what I was looking for!!

After a couple trial runs, I determined I wasn't getting the shot I wanted by just blending between two virtual cameras. So I set up a dolly cam thinking I could just animate the FOV property on the cam as it moved along its track. I'm getting much better camera movement, but the dollycam lens doesn't seem to reflect the FOV settings in its properties. The property animates and updates correctly in the inspector and goes from 18 FOV to 1 FOV, but the shot in the game view stays in perspective. I've been fiddling with different properties to see if I can find what may be influencing or overriding the FOV, but haven't been able to get it to look like an orthographic view. Any ideas what may be causing that? Should that be a workable solution?

If I can get that piece of the puzzle in place and then follow through on the switch to true ortho cam with help from your guidance in your last post, I think I'll have my solution!

Thanks yet again for your expertise and all your help. It's been incredibly timely and is much appreciated!

 

a-ha! I thought the FollowZoom was just stabilizing between two positions with different FOVs. And I was trying to add it as a component as opposed to adding it as an extension. I'm leveling up fast here!

This new revelation has given me a concept I need to digest... I'm not *quite* grocking how to set up FollowZoom to do what I need it to do. Let me try to talk it through...

I want the camera to go from an exact (close-up) perspective shot at the start of the timeline (FOV 18), to an exact (distant overhead) ortho shot at the end (FOV 0). I have the initial shot set up as the first position on a dolly track and it's looking right.

I *thought* what I would need to do at that point was to set the FOV on the camera to 1 at the end shot of the timeline, enable FollowZoom and then manually nudge around the second position on the dolly until it matches my ortho target (and that FollowZoom would take care of keeping the shot stable in between). But now I see I need to somehow arrive at the end shot by figuring out how far away and where the camera would need to be with FollowZoom set with max FOV 18 and min FOV 1 so that it gets the right framing when FOV 1 is triggered by distance from the target?? Am I close?

 

Yeah, I think so. Let me go see! Thanks again, G!

 

I thought for a moment the FOV wasn't kicking in, but I just hadn't moved the camera far enough away! (Because my camera is aimed isometrically, at such large distances it's difficult to 'zoom' it since it means translating on all three axes. Is there a way to translate the camera relative to the direction it's facing? That would be super helpful at the moment!)

So now I've got it set up so my endpoints are correct, but the dolly track is so long (to get enough distance to simulate ortho) that the Follow Zoom script seems to be having trouble keeping up and maintaining a smooth, stable focus.

 

Thanks, Gregory. Switching to local axes was exactly what I was looking for. Right in front of me!

I think you're right. I may be pushing the dolly track beyond its precision. I'm not sure if these shots help clarify. I can send you more specific details non-publicly if you're interested and able to take a look. I recognize I've already soaked up a lot of your time! Thank you again!

​

 

Thanks, Gregory. I'll give that a shot. Stay tuned!

 

That's the cleanest solution so far! The end shots are right and the transition is clean and smooth... BUT, the camera rotation from eye level to birds eye is quite abrupt at the outset. This is something the dolly cam was starting to help address (I know it looked straight in the distant screen shot, but there was a bit of a flat ramp out close to the ground).

I tried a couple things to influence the virtual camera blend... layering some camera animation on the eye level cam with the transition between cams, but wasn't quite able to get the effect I was looking for. I also tried turning off 'center on activate' on the far cam and playing with aim properties, but wasn't able to get the camera to stop immediately turning its focus downward directly at the follow target... so figured that wasn't the right tool for the job.

 

Here's the shot I'm getting using the player and ground from your example package.


The curve you show is more like what I'm going for... I'll do a little homework on custom blend assets. Thank you yet again!

 

ok, read what I could find about custom blend assets and set one up on my main camera. It doesn't look like it's having any effect on the blend in the timeline and playing the scene doesn't seem to trigger it either. What am I missing?

 

Thanks again, G. I truly appreciate all your help.

As you may have gathered, I fall more onto the artist side than the engineering side of things Timelines make more sense to me than activating a second vcam through script. So I tried playing with the blend curves on the cinemachine shots in the timeline, but wasn't seeing them effect the movement much. (I set 'out' on the first clip to 'ease out' and 'in' on the second clip to 'ease out' and then to 'linear', but really didn't see much change in the motion. Transition too fast maybe?)

Here's a quick vid showing where I am at this point. First it shows the shot using the vcam blending in the timeline. Second it shows the shot using the dolly track and flipping over to ortho cam at the end. If I can hide it with fx and other things going on in the scene (we have a character pop in at this point), I will likely go with the latter solution (spending a bit more time fine tuning the dolly track tangents) because I think the camera movement is much nicer (the difference is a bit more pronounced in the fully deco-ed scene)

 

Is there something missing in the package? For timeline I get the error "script missing" and I dont get any playable assets for the playable director.

 

That should explain it. I am 2018.3.6 .

Thanks /m

 

Sorry about the thread necromancy, but I am also trying to solve this problem.

I initially set up two virtual cameras, using a FOV of 1 and distance of 916 on the perspective camera to simulate an ortho camera height of ~8. The problem is that the transition starts or ends with a huge jump, depending on which direction I am going.

I found this thread, and downloaded the demo package. The transition there also ends with a jump/zoom once the view reaches the overhead position. Also, the camera completely loses its mind if the character moves toward it.



Any thoughts on what I need to look at? I am using Unity 2021.1.20f1 and Cinemachine 2.7.8.

Edit: I think it might be the field-of-view and distance for the fake orthographic camera, but I don't know why the project would work in your gif, but have that jump in it when I run it, locally. I am going to try setting all those values from scratch.

 

Hi @Gregoryl

Thank you for the project example. May I ask a couple of questions.
I am trying to make a navigation cube, similar to one in Unity. When you click on a side of it camera will transition to front or side view. Plus you can change perspective to orthographic.

Your example works, but it has this strange jump at the end. Is there a way to fix it?
Currently I have one virtual camera per view (front, back, right, left, top and perspective) I blend between each using priority in the script and trigger it with a button.

I got two problems:

1. For example I blend from perspective view to back view. At the end when the camera at the back I need to switch it to orthographic. Could you please explain how to use LensSettings.OverrideModes?
2. So now camera at the back, if I bland it with camera at the front it will go through the object which looks strange. Is there a way to keep camera at some distance from the target?

Thank you

 

Thank you @Gregoryl
Ok Spherical blend helps a lot.
But I don't see Advanced options for Mode override, unfortunately.

 

Ok I am using 2.6.11 with Unity 202.3.22

 

@Gregoryl your example works.
I did read your previous posts, but still can't get it to work in my scene.

1. What does Follow Zoom Script does and why is the width set to 8.6?
2. Do I have to use x2 cameras per view. One fake and one ortho?
3. Should I use the timeline as well?

I am asking because. I thought it should be easy to have a script that changes the front view camera to ortho when the blend is complete?

Here is what I am getting using just two cameras
ViewNavigation.unitypackage.zip

 

Here is a wee script to be attached to each button. Nothing special but works.
Only the pop is a problem

Code (CSharp):

1. public class BlendViews : MonoBehaviour
2. {
3.     public CinemachineVirtualCamera perspective;
4.     public CinemachineVirtualCamera frontView;
5.  
6.     // Start is called before the first frame update
7.     void Start()
8.     {
9.        
10.     }
11.  
12.     // Update is called once per frame
13.     void Update()
14.     {
15.        
16.     }
17.  
18.     public void FrontBlend()
19.     {
20.         frontView.Priority = 1;
21.         perspective.Priority = 0;
22.     }
23.  
24.     public void PerspectiveBlend()
25.     {
26.         frontView.Priority = 0;
27.         perspective.Priority = 1;
28.     }
29. }

 

Hi, @Gregoryl I think I got a feel of how cinemachine cameras wrork.
I managed to make a nice blend just with two cameras. Both are perspective. The second one has a very small FOV so I had to move it far away.
It looks nice. The only thing I need to figure out is to how to switch the second camera to ortho mode after the blend is finished. This way I will have only 2 cameras in the setup.

Any advice?

 

Thank you.
I think my questions are:

1. I am using a fake ortho camera and want to make a cut to a real one. So basically I transition from a perspective view to fake ortho and then to real ortho. To blend from one to the second I am just changing the property in the script. How now transition or cut into a real ortho camera?

2. I have only 2 cameras. after I have transitioned to a fake ortho camera I would like to use LensSettings.OverrideModes (in my script) to change fake ortho camera. I think is a better way, but I cant understand how to apply LensSettings.OverrideModes to a VC in the script?

Thanks

 

Hi Gregory,

I've been following along this useful thread. Both of you have been super helpful. A question— what if I want to do the transition to Ortho camera from a list of perspective cameras in the scene?

In the current setup, your example works specifically by moving fakeOrtho from vcam1/s position to orthocam position by playing the Timeline asset on the Playable Director. But this transition is only set up specifically for vcam1.

In my use case, I'll be frequently switching from one of many perspective cameras in the scene back to the orthographic camera and then back to a different perspective camera elsewhere. So I want all of the cameras to be able to do the same transition when selected, not just a specific fixed camera in the scene (i.e. vcam1). Is there a way to do this via code?

Would appreciate any help... many thanks!