Maya Tutorial: Autofocus camera using connection editor for Depth of Field. Arnold & Redshift

In this tutorial I show you how to quickly set up your camera so that the focus distance automatically calculates as you move the camera around your scene.
This was a tip buried in one of my other tutorials but thought it deserved its own video!
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I am a medical illustrator and animator who co-owns a medical illustration studio, Now Medical Studios. On my channel, I share tip and tutorials for digital art, including digital illustration and 3D (mainly Autodesk Maya!).

[@Double_Vision]

Here's the Maya script I use to do this more quickly: Create a measure tool, move one locator to the focal point, and parent the other locator to the camera Then paste this into the script editor or the Command Line in the lower left of the screen: connectAttr -f distanceDimension1.distance cameraShape1.focusDistance; Way faster, and you can even save it into a Shelf button

[@EmilyMcDougallArt]

Genius! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@Double_Vision]

@@EmilyMcDougallArt My pleasure! Here's the script if you want to use Arnold's aiFocusDistance attribute instead: connectAttr -f distanceDimension1.distance shotCamShape.aiFocusDistance"; I name my render cameras as shotCam, so you'll likely need to rename shotCamShape to cameraShape1, or to whatever you have your camera named as

[@hyperface2050]

@@Double_Vision I'm guessing you need to add the word SHAPE in your first term like this. connectAttr -f distanceDimension1Shape.distance shotCamShape.aiFocusDistance;

[@hyperface2050]

Thanks for this!

[@defonten]

@@Double_Vision Thanks a lot bro!

[@elijahpryor4007]

Thank you for this and your other resources!

[@fbory]

Thnak you so much. I was doing the same with a dimension tool constraint on the center of interest for a while... but using the measured distance manually in the "Focus Distance" of Arnold field... This is gonna make me spare soooooo much time !

[@defonten]

So cool! Thanks a lot Emily!

[@icbt1]

you are the one who saved me in internet

[@pechugaslarou3433]

Thank you very much!

[@AnnieCampbellMedical]

Awesome thanks so much Emily!

[@jas4animation]

Very helpful, thanks for sharing.

[@andreabianco96]

Wow thank you so much, I was curious about this thing, and you answered all my questions. Really helpful :D

[@EagerSleeper]

Fantastically useful!

[@CONCEPT0123]

perfect!

[@stuffsbynorik]

awesome, thanks so much for this!!

[@deuksooseo]

Thanks Good video

[@nayandurge8877]

mam you are such a great it is very informative tutorial thank you please make more videos

[@lastmomentplayer3420]

Hey please make some more tutorial for maya please 🥺🙏

[@contactsan12]

What was the end result man ??