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pythoncameramayamel
Ben.Zh
Ben.Zh

Reputation: 11

Maya – Convert regular camera to "camera and aim group"

I want to convert a normal moving camera to a camera and aim group.

How can I do it? Using API, matrix, etc? Is there a formula？

Thank you very much!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 580

Answers (1)

Marcos Silva
Marcos Silva

Reputation: 2029

The Maya camera and aim option on the Create menu runs a Mel script that has a few of operations in it. As a simplified version of that, you can use the Python Maya command cmds.aimConstraint to constraint the z vector to a locator to get a similar result.

Below is a Python script that does something similar to that Mel script. I'm creating a new camera here, but you can constraint your existing camera to a new locator.

import maya.cmds as cmds

# Create a locator at the center of the world
locator = cmds.spaceLocator()

# Create a camera
cam_shape, camera = cmds.camera()

# Point the camera at the locator
cmds.aimConstraint(locator, cam_shape, aimVector=[0, 0, -1])

# move the camera back 3 units
cmds.move(0, 0, 3, camera)

With that, the camera will always point to the locator in a similar fashion that the Camera and Aim menu option does.

You can now animate (or move) that camera and it will always point to the locator.

Upvotes: 0

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