Freeze camera so accidental mouse movements don't zoom...?

CypherFOX

Greetings,
I'm going nuts.

I use a Magic Mouse by Apple, and as I'm sliding my mouse over the screen, sometimes DAZ Studio will misinterpret a motion as a 'zoom' event, and my camera will zoom in or out.

I desperately want to fix this, and lock down my cameras so that this never, ever, ever happens again on a non-'Perspective View' camera. (It seriously screws with rendering partial fixes to a scene, for example.)

Is there any way to make a camera refuse to zoom? Is there any other way to fix this problem?

-- Morgan

p.s. In an unrelated note, is there any way to set up different cameras with different aspect ratios? So I want to do a 16:9 render with Camera 3, but a 4:3 render with camera 4...? Or how would I write a script that I can click to 'Select Camera 3, set aspect ratio to 16:9'?

SimonJM

Select the camera, go to Parameters in Pose tab and click the context menu, and there should be a Lock node option (as a sub-menu) - I'd be more specific but I am in the midst of a render! If you do this it is worth, beforehand, creating a new camera so you will be able to zoom around as you wish.

arioch

I lock my cameras ALL THE TIME! I have a habit of switching to a camera then trying to navigate around the scene, unaware that I haven't switched back to perspective first. If I need to adjust my selected camera view I unlock it first, make my adjustments, then immediately re-lock it so I don't screw it up.

The way I lock cameras is to select the camera in the scene tab, go to the edit menu, select object, then lock, then lock selected node(s).

SimonJM

Miss ed the aspect ratio question - that is 'linked' to the render engine, not the camera so each will use the same ratio. It's an interesting idea though!

Back on locking the cameras. I've started doing it a lot more frequently recently as (for whatever reason) DS does not retain the DoF enabled setting, nor the F/stop across saves, unless the camera is locked.

Szark

In DS3 it was Shift+L to lock and selected node, cam or light and Shift+U to unlock, very handy. Now DS4.6 only has Shift+U to unlock. One day I will get around to assigning a KB shortcut to Lock.

SimonJM

Szark said:

In DS3 it was Shift+L to lock and selected node, cam or light and Shift+U to unlock, very handy. Now DS4.6 only has Shift+U to unlock. One day I will get around to assigning a KB shortcut to Lock.

I wondered about that - seemed really weird to have a shortcut for the Unlock but not the Lock!

Szark

It does and I still haven't figured out the why yet.

SimonJM

Now here's a question for you ... does the Shift-L shortcut do anything? If so, what?

Szark

Haven't found it yet but that it not to say there isn't one.

CypherFOX

Greetings,
Thanks VERY much for the hints on locking! That's been incredibly helfpul, and a sanity-saver.

I'm now teaching myself DAZ Scripting, so I can set up a signal/slot that detects camera changes and sets aspect ratio's appropriately.

I'm actually ~80% of the way there (the hard part was figuring out how to monitor active camera changes), I just need to figure out how to actually set the aspect ratio...

-- Morgan

CypherFOX

Greetings,

SimonJM said:

Missed the aspect ratio question - that is 'linked' to the render engine, not the camera so each will use the same ratio. It's an interesting idea though!

Just to follow up on this, I've created a script that allows you to put the aspect ratio in the camera name and it'll automatically pick it up.

So you can have 'Whole Scene (16x9)' and 'Closeup (3x4)' cameras, and when you set one as active, it will set the aspect ratio to that.

It preserves the resolution multiplier, which can be jarring. (So if you have 768x1024 in a 3x4 camera, the resolution multiplier is 256. When you go to 16x9 it will be 4096x2304, which has the same resolution multiplier.)

The script is over here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/32015/#475390

-- Morgan