Orthographic Views and Cameras
The viewport can show your groom either in perspective, which mimics how a real camera sees the world, or in one of six orthographic views, which look straight down an axis with no perspective distortion. Orthographic views are ideal for precise alignment and symmetrical grooming, while perspective is best for judging the final look.
The standard views
Ornatrix App provides the usual set of axis-aligned views:
- Perspective
- Top and Bottom
- Front and Back
- Left and Right
By default the Top, Bottom, Front, Back, Left, and Right views are orthographic and the Perspective view is not, but any view can be switched between the two - see below. You can orbit, pan, and zoom an orthographic view just as you would a perspective view; the framing stays consistent as you navigate. Zooming an orthographic view keeps the point under the cursor in place (with Alt and the right mouse button, the point where the drag began), so you can zoom straight into the part you are working on. See Viewport Navigation and Display.
Switching views
There are three ways to change the current view:
- Click the view-name label in the top-left corner of the viewport and choose a view from the menu.
- Open the viewport settings menu and pick a view from the camera submenu.
- Use the keyboard shortcuts (numpad based):
- Perspective: Ctrl+Numpad 5
- Top: Ctrl+Numpad 7 / Bottom: Ctrl+Shift+Numpad 7
- Front: Ctrl+Numpad 1 / Back: Ctrl+Shift+Numpad 1
- Left: Ctrl+Numpad 3 / Right: Ctrl+Shift+Numpad 3
Switching between perspective and orthographic
Any view can be switched between the two projections: turn the Perspective view orthographic to check alignment without perspective distortion, or turn Front into a perspective view to judge depth. Tick Orthographic in the viewport settings menu, or press Ctrl+Shift+P.
Switching preserves your framing. The view keeps looking at the same point from the same direction, and whatever filled the viewport still fills it afterwards, so only the distortion changes. Switching back returns the view exactly where it was.
Each view remembers its own projection, so switching views restores the projection you left it in, and the choice is saved with the groom.
Working with cameras
In addition to the standard views, you can look through any camera that exists in the scene. Selecting a camera from the view menu makes the viewport show exactly what that camera sees, which is useful for matching a render or a layout. Cameras you create yourself start as perspective cameras, and can be switched to an orthographic projection like any other view.
The Cameras view
The Cameras view lists the cameras of your scene, so you can switch between several reference cameras with a single click. It is docked as a tab beside the Scene view. Open it from View > Cameras, from the camera icon in the status bar, or from the Cameras entry at the bottom of the viewport's camera menu.
- Click a camera to look through it. The camera you are looking through is highlighted. A locked camera shows a lock icon after its name.
- The Default Views section at the bottom, collapsed at first, lists the standard views.
- Double-click a camera's name to rename it, or its picture to select its camera operator and show its properties.
- Press Delete while the Cameras view has the focus to delete the camera you are looking through. The viewport then looks through the next camera. Undo brings the camera back and looks through it again.
- Alt+1 to Alt+9 look through the camera with that number in the list, and Alt+Page Down and Alt+Page Up step to the next or the previous camera.
The buttons at the top of the view create a camera at the current viewport pose and choose what each camera shows:
- Icons lists the cameras compactly, one line each.
- Image planes shows each camera's image plane, which is how you tell reference photos apart. A camera without an image plane shows an empty frame.
- View previews shows what each camera sees. The preview of the camera you are looking through follows the viewport. The others are rendered once, without the viewport switching, and the refresh button renders them again. In the Raytraced and Realistic display modes a camera's preview is taken when you look through it.
With image planes or view previews, the magnifier button sets the thumbnail size. Thumbnails of 50 pixels and more are laid out as a grid with the camera names under them, smaller ones as a list.
Locking a camera
A camera matched to a reference image, such as one imported with its image plane, loses that match as soon as the view is orbited or zoomed by accident. To prevent this, lock the camera: look through it and choose Lock Camera from the view-name menu, press Ctrl+Shift+L, or tick Locked in the camera's properties.
While you look through a locked camera, orbiting, panning, zooming, the mouse wheel, dragging the orientation tripod, framing with F and switching the projection leave it where it is, and a message says the camera is locked. Framing the cameras on newly imported or created geometry skips locked cameras too. A thin red frame around the viewport and a lock icon after the view name show that the camera is locked. Hover the frame for a reminder, and click it to unlock the camera.
The lock only stops navigation. You can still move a locked camera on purpose with the transform gizmo or by editing its properties. The standard views cannot be locked. Locking is undoable and saved with the groom.
2D Pan/Zoom
When you match a groom to a photo seen through a camera, you often need a closer look at part of the picture without losing the match. 2D Pan/Zoom does this as it does in Maya: it pans and zooms the picture the viewport shows, like moving and enlarging a print, instead of moving the camera. The camera's position, direction and field of view stay as they are, so the scene and the camera's image plane stay aligned.
Press the backslash key (\), or choose 2D Pan/Zoom from the view-name menu, the viewport settings menu or the View menu, to turn it on. While it is on:
- Drag with the middle mouse button to move the picture, or roll the mouse wheel to zoom it about the cursor. Alt and the right mouse button zoom it too, while Alt and the left mouse button still orbit the camera.
- An orange frame runs around the viewport and a label at the top shows the zoom. Click the frame or the label to turn 2D Pan/Zoom off.
- Selection, brushes and the other tools work on what you see, and the Raytraced and Realistic display modes render the same panned and zoomed picture.
Press backslash again to turn it off and see the camera's full frame. The pan and zoom are kept, so turning it back on returns to them; choose Reset 2D Pan/Zoom to go back to the full frame. Holding the key down turns 2D Pan/Zoom on only for as long as it is held.
Each view keeps its own pan and zoom, and they are saved with the groom. Because the camera never moves, a locked camera can still be panned and zoomed this way. While a locked camera's red frame is shown, clicking the frame unlocks the camera, and the orange label turns 2D Pan/Zoom off.
The Thumbnail view
Alongside the standard views there is a special Thumbnail view, used to set up the picture saved as your groom's thumbnail preview - the small image shown for the groom in the Recent Files menu and the Grooms Browser. Choose it from the Default Views list in the view-name menu or the camera submenu; like the standard views it is created the first time you switch to it and is then remembered with the groom.
The Thumbnail view is an ordinary perspective view that you can orbit, pan, and zoom to frame the groom however you like. Because thumbnails are square, while you are in this view the parts of the viewport outside a centered square are darkened, so the bright area shows exactly what the thumbnail will contain.
Once you have set up the Thumbnail view, saving the groom captures its thumbnail from this view regardless of which view you are currently working in. If you never set it up, the thumbnail is taken from the current view as before. See Saving and Loading Grooms.
Framing your work
Press F to focus the current selection, fitting the selected geometry neatly inside the view. This works in both perspective and orthographic views.