Maya Orthographic Camera Problem

Nuclear Angel

Hey there Polycount, I am an 3ds Max user that is now trying to learn Maya, as it is the software used in my school. But one thing is bothering me, it is that I can not work in an orthographic view as I work with my perspective view.

Long story short, I want to have the ability to switch between an orthographic view in Maya from an perspective one with the press of a button. Much like you got the hot-keys "p" and "u" in 3ds max. And I do not want to work in the top side and front views. I want to be able to tumble and rotate the ortho camera much like the perspective one.

Is there any possibilities to do this in Maya or do I need a separate script to be able to do this? And if I do need a script, where can I find it?

If any one needs a better explanation its just to ask me and I can try to explain it better.

Thanks for your time. ^^

DireWolf

While viewing through any camera, including the perspective cam, go to
View > Select Camera
on the top left of your view port. Then press ctrl+A to open attribute editor.
(There's also option to open the attribute editor in the view menu too.)

In the attribute editor, scroll down a bit you'll see a tab and a check box to turn the camera Orthographic.

You can't turn your view around, but you can still select your camera and input the rotation manually in the channel box.

Nuclear Angel

@DireWolf, thanks for the input. But it was not exactly what I were looking for. Because if I changed my camera to Ortho it started to step about, not behaving like the ordinary perspective cam. But I found a solution which I posted below.

I did actually find a solution, it ain't as glamorous as having a hot-key that you switch camera with on the fly. But I did alter one of the other viewport-cameras so that the orthographic camera behaves like the ordinary perspective camera so i just switch view with spacebar to the new fixed ortho camera.

If anyone is interested you do that by going in to "View" > "Camera Tools" > "Tumble Tools". In tumble tools you turn on Tumble about to : Tumble Pivot. Also on the option "Orthographic views", make sure that the camera ain't Locked and that stepped is also checked out. The step button makes it so that when you use the camera it takes steps so it aint fluent like the ordinary perspective camera. But if you turn it off you got yourself an orthographic controllable camera.

claydough

make hot keys for whatever "angle of view" u want.

choose an angle of 1 for an orthographic projection you can "manually tumble" in any perspective camera. ( fluid not stepped )

test with spheres ( say along a z axis... no matter how far spaced. with an angle of 1 in that viewport the projection should show each sphere as the same size ) "Orthographic" ( telecentric )


do u know how to make hotkeys?

Nuclear Angel

claydough, I do not understand what you mean, I do not think that I will need to use hotkeys, as I just changed one of the main viewport cameras so that it fitted my need. But I do think I know how to create my own shortcuts yes .

So I can say thanks anyone wanting to help me, but I found a solution, posted it above.

claydough

ok...
but if u know how to make hotkeys then u can have yer cake and eat it to ( glamorous hotkey ease )

just change a perspective camera"s "ANGLE OF VIEW" to 1.

AND TUMBLE FLUIDLY WITH ORTHOGRAPHIC PROJECTION.
( or do the same hotkey ease of use for yer ortho camera solution )

JamesTKirk

Narrow perspective FOV doesn't actually work in newer maya versions because of modeling toolkit. It's transform gizmo gets blown up to the whole sreen.

Alvor

This little bit of mel might help too... it toggles the persp cam between orthographic and perspective mode.

$state = `camera -q -orthographic persp`; camera -e -orthographic (!$state) persp;

claydough

JamesTKirk wrote: »

Narrow perspective FOV doesn't actually work in newer maya versions because of modeling toolkit. It's transform gizmo gets blown up to the whole sreen.

yuck! I do not use the nex implementation yet. Is this a known bug?