Simple Camera Rig Tutorial for 3ds max

This tutorial covers setting up a basic camera rig that should help you achieve smoother camera rotations, especially when orbiting objects. If you are having issues where simple linear point-to-point animation is slightly changing the size of the viewed object in the frame, give this rig a try!

[@sMw89]

Thank you, this is a life saver! Before this i was trying it through assigning a path to a camera, which led to so many difficulties, since i have a giant building and lots of orbits around objects. Thanks again!

[@JoelHoweDotCom]

Glad to hear that this helped. Thanks for watching!

[@ashishsharma-rs6mn]

Thank you very much, you literally save my life and time.... Very easy and helpful tutorial. Thanks for sharing...

[@JoelHoweDotCom]

I would assign the upnode control of the camera to the point that is the target of the lookat constraint. That would allow rotations of the point to roll the camera. Great question!

[@viniciusdeoliveiraroman]

Thank you man, great tutorial.

[@princesseblack]

thanks! great tutorial!

[@emilydonnelly9150]

Thanks, this helped a lot!

[@JoelHoweDotCom]

Keyframe the position and rotation of the parent dummy, and then you can also keyframe the camera along its axis to dolly the camera, and you can also key the position of the LookAt dummy.

[@sp.7303]

thank you

[@SystemsDevel]

Hey Joel nice tutorial!

[@JoelHoweDotCom]

Thanks!

[@bullmonkey]

Good tutorial. Not too brief and not too drawn out. If you had a sexy voice it would have been a straight 10/10.

[@skipperay]

In using VRay camera, you cannot tilt your camera using the helper - you should roll it in VRay camera view . Also by looking left and right, it is wiser to rotate helper from top view.

[@kumagzter]

hi, I like your this tutorial but I'm having trouble with the point helper. It is making an arc motion even though I animated it on a straight path. thanks

[@lirimhoxha9464]

What should I do if I want to slightly rotate in the X-axes to get a nice angle - how can I do that? Any idea ? btw this tutorial really helped me. Thank You

[@matthiaswegger]

great tip - thank you! question - how would i add an orientation control (angles) to this rig for camera rolling functionality?

[@JoelHoweDotCom]

Good question! Check out the LookAt constraint for the camera in the motion tab of the command panel. I am guessing the "upnode" is set to be the world, but you could change that to say the point that the camera is looking at. Then any rotations of the point (rolling) would be seen in the camera as well.

[@SystemsDevel]

what exactly should i key when animating it?