“Driving” the camera while looking thru the lens (R17)

[Jim Scott]

Pan – left mouse button while holding 1 key, or center mouse button while holding ALT/OPT key
Dolly – left mouse button while holding 2 key, or right mouse button while holding ALT/OPT key, or scroll wheel
Orbit – left mouse button while holding 3 key, or left mouse button while holding ALT/OPT key
Bank – Right mouse button while holding 3 key

Some people prefer to keep their keyboard hand over the 1-2-3 keys and always use left mouse button, while some prefer to switch fingers on the mouse from left-center-right buttons while keyboard hand is ready on the ALT/OPT key (assuming you have a three button mouse). I learned the latter first, so that’s what I tend to stick with. Go with whatever floats your boat. Hope this helps.

[Steve Bentley]

Ya gotta watch that scroll wheel. Depending on your set up you can actually be changing your focal length instead of dollying, which is why, after a bit of in and out and moving around (no really, I’m talking about C4D here) you’ll find that your camera is now crazy wide and everything is distorting and clipping or your lens is now so long that it takes a lot of scrolling just to move a little ways in.

I finally broke down one year and picked up a Connexion Space mouse. I don’t use it every day but when I need a walk through it’s really nice.
We also built a DIDO that mimics the pan, tilt and ped cranks of a real fluid head and also has a dolly crank. When a shot isn’t looking right we’ll often get the DP in to move the camera for the shot and they love the controls. Then the shot has the same feel since its the same guy behind the “camera”. But once they use that dolly crank, they leave wanting more control over the guys who push the dolly in and out.