Camera Item

Move camera item

Rotate around Target Distance

Rotate around Camera center

Rotate around the Z axis

Move Forward/Backward only

Adjust Focal Length

Move Forward/Backward only

This data field displays the current item name. You can change it by left-clicking within the field and typing the new name.

An item transform that allows you to numerically position the Camera Item in XYZ space. By default, Position transforms originate from the item's center position.

An item transform that allows you to numerically set the rotation of the Camera Item. By default, Rotation transforms originate from the item's center position.

Allows you to set the order in which rotations are applied to the Camera Item. Changing the order that rotations are applied can sometimes help to reduce, or eliminate gimbal lock.

An item transform that determines the size of the icon in the 3D Viewport. Scale otherwise has no effect on the final rendered image.

Resets the selected transform values to (0,0,0), returning the items to their default state.

Returns the Camera Item's Center position to the world space center (0,0,0), without changing the position of the Camera Item itself.

Transform Items are the channel groups associated to an item that store its transform values, controlling its position, rotation, and/or scale. By default, new items do not have any transform items associated with them (even though they are visible here within the Properties panel). This is useful as an optimization as only the necessary transforms are added on an as-needed basis, reducing scene overhead.

There are several ways to add Transform Items. One is by simply transforming the target item with one of the various transform tools (or by editing the values input fields). This action causes the particular transform item to be added automatically to the Channels viewport list. The Add function here can also be used to add the selected set of transforms to the Channels list while keeping the default 0,0,0 values (a necessary step for Referencing; in order to override channels, they must first exist).

This option allows you to target specific items in a scene, automating the rotation of an item, so that it continuously points toward the targeted item. To use Set Target:

Remember though, that the camera looks directly at the item's center position, regardless of the location of geometry within the target layer. Once activated, additional options appear:

• Remove Target - Removes the target link between the two items.

• Enable - Toggling this option off temporarily disables the targeting function while retaining the link between the items.

• Set Focus Distance - This option sets the focal distance for DOF when targeting camera items to other item.

• Roll - Provides the ability to offset the item's rotation angle away from the target.

This value defines the point around which the camera orbits. When you start a fresh project, the camera is back 4M on Z and the Target Distance is 4M. That is why it orbits around 0.

This value is reset automatically when you zoom in the 3D Viewport. Modo fires a ray out from the camera and automatically sets the target distance based on the first surface the ray intersects.

This option changes the position and orientation of the currently selected Camera Item to match the currently selected 3D Viewport as closely as possible. There are some caveats in that the camera's view scale depends on the focal length and image resolution (for aspect) and therefore cannot be matched precisely.

Modo can render traditional perspective cameras as well as orthographic cameras and spherical cameras. This control allows you to choose the desired camera type:

• Perspective cameras show perspective distortion where the scale of an element appears to diminish in the distance. This traditional perspective view is what most artists would expect when rendering; similar to what a real world camera might capture.

Perspective cameras are found most often in visual FX, product and architectural visualization, and anywhere artists are trying to mimic reality.

• Orthographic cameras do not exhibit any perspective distortion as all rays are fired from the camera in parallel lines.

Orthographic rendering is very useful in news/info graphics and architectural plan rendering.

• Spherical cameras capture the entire 360 degree view of a scene.

Spherical cameras are useful in capturing images that can be later applied as image based lighting and reflection maps, among other things.

• Cylindrical projection captures the entire 360 view from the perspective of a tube, removing the polar areas of the projection.

Cylindrical Projection

This setting controls the amount of zoom, just as it would with a real world camera. The actual definition of Focal Length is the distance between the lens and the point where the rays converge after having been refracted by the lens.

Wide angle lenses (those with short focal lengths) capture more of a given scene than their telephoto counterpart. Lower focal lengths exhibit more perspective distortion, conversely, longer focal lengths minimize the effect of perspective. To zoom out you should decrease the focal length and to zoom in you increase the value. This control is set in real world metric units to match physical cameras.

Focal Length can be adjusted on the Camera Properties panel or interactively in the 3D Viewport. If you are looking through the Camera (and 3D Viewport set to Camera) you can use Ctrl+Alt+right-click and drag to adjust the Focal Length interactively (Ctrl+Alt+left-click and drag moves the camera itself forwards and backwards).

In some instances, it may be easier to specify an angle of view instead of a Focal Length. This setting allows you to specify the Angle of View as a number of degrees horizontally, and once set, the Focal Length is updated to reflect the new value.

In a real world camera, light rays are bent through a spherical lens element resulting in a slightly distorted image. 3D rendered images don't pass through a lens and likewise don't exhibit the distortions we're accustomed to in photography. The Lens Distortion setting can be used to introduce these familiar distortions in a realistic way. Positive values create an increasing Barrel distortion, and negative values create increasing Pincushion distortion effects.

Same view w/ Lens Distortion applied

In the real world, every camera has certain attributes that are a fixed physical size. In the analog days, this was based on the film size (such as 35 mm, 70 mm, and so on). With digital cameras, it is the sensor size (such as 1/3, 1/2, APS, and so on). The size of this fixed capture area works in conjunction with the focal length to control the field of view that is captured. Modo offers the ability to modify the virtual capture area to any conceivable size.

For example, should you wish to compose 3D rendered elements together with images from a camera, for the most convincing results, matching the real-life sizes and aspect ratios of the original camera is highly recommended. Many popular preset sizes are provided for convenience, but you can also define custom values with the Width and Height settings. The Film Fit setting allow you to control Modo's behavior when the frame size specified in the Render Item, is a different aspect ratio than the film back settings.

This control allows you to choose from a number of available preset real world cameras. Choosing a preset automatically sets the Film Width and Height, and the corresponding Frame Size (in the Render Items > Frame Tab). You can also save your own presets by selecting (new preset) from the bottom of the list. When selecting this option, a dialog displays asking you to name your preset. Your new preset is saved in Modo's config file and is available immediately for selection.

Film Width and Film Height correspond to the exposed region of the film negative in a real camera set in real world measurements. In some applications, this is known as the Film Gate. One way to visualize this is to imagine the camera frustum as a pyramid whose base dimensions are the Film Width and Height and terminating at the apex. The distance from the base to the apex is the Focal Length (the apex being the position of Modo's virtual aperture and the position where the camera rotates, which incidentally, is also the nodal point). The base of the pyramid can be shifted around within its plane (shearing the pyramid) by using the Film Offset controls.

This function allows you to offset the position of the Film Back without changing the position of the Camera Item itself, providing unique perspective views not otherwise possible. The function is especially useful when rendering architectural type images that prefer two point perspective as opposed to three. By rotating the camera on the X axis to 0° (eliminating the vertical perspective), the offset can be adjusted to modify the camera's view (framing the subject properly) while retaining the perspective of the camera's original position.

The three images below illustrate the differences between film offset and simply moving the camera.

A.) The camera standard perspective view with the subject centered in the frame.

B.) Rotates the camera X axis to 0° and uses a Film Offset to frame the subject eliminating the vertical perspective.

C.) Is the default perspective camera again with no offset, but the camera was rotated to 0° on the X axis again and the camera's position was modified upward to frame the subject producing a dramatically different perspective than that offered by B.

C.) 0° X-axis rotation w/ camera offset

Depth of Field (DOF), as it relates to photography, is the area of acceptable focus in an image; any area outside gets increasingly blurry as it recedes from the focal plane. The softening of edges as they recede from the plane is highly dependent on the F-Stop setting. Smaller values represent larger apertures producing softer blurs, conversely, higher values represent smaller apertures producing less blurriness.

This option toggles the Depth of Field effect on and off when rendering.

When rendering with Depth of Field enabled, this value sets the distance out from the camera center at which the image is perfectly in focus. To quickly set the focus distance for the camera, you can use the Autofocus button or press Ctrl+A with the mouse over the Camera viewport. You can also set this value interactively with the Item Transform tool (Y) when the Camera item is selected.

This command sets the Focal Distance to whatever geometry is at the direct center of the current camera view. Setting the Focal Distance is only useful when rendering with Depth of Field enabled. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F when the mouse is over any Render Preview window.

This control on the Modo camera is only effective when Depth of Field is enabled. In this case, lowering the F-Stop decreases the depth of field (apparent area of focus) just as it would in real-world cameras.

NOTE:  F-Stop does not affect exposure of light since the Modo camera captures real world radiance values as they are striking the virtual CCD. This provides linear light values to the final image which provides an opportunity for post processing the exposure for maximum flexibility.

This controls the way the blurriness looks in images with shallow depth of field, generally referred to as Bokeh. Bright areas, when out of focus tend to take on the shape of the camera's iris, so a smaller number of blades make more obvious geometric patterns in the bokeh shapes, while larger values look more circular. A setting of 0 makes a perfectly circular shape.

Iris Blades 9

This option changes the rotation angle of the virtual iris when rendering shallow depth of field in images, which in turn rotates the bokeh shapes in the final rendered output.

When Modo calculates Depth of Field, rays are fired in a pattern that simulates the iris blades producing the bokeh effect shapes. The edge weighting option concentrates those rays toward the center or edges of the iris, depending on the value.

A value of 0% concentrates all the values at the center of the iris, while a setting of 100% concentrates the rays toward the outer edge. A value of 50% evenly distributes the rays. As light tends to be stronger in the outer edge of the iris in the real world, setting around 60% to 70% tend to produce the most realistic results.

Edge Weight 100%

Real cameras don't freeze time, but capture brief moments, causing moving objects to blur in the frame. This natural motion blur that our eyes are accustomed to can be simulated in Modo. Once Motion Blur is enabled, Modo takes time samples forward and backward from the rendered frame blending them together to create the blur effect. Depending on the strength of the effect or the speed of motion in your frame, you may find it necessary to increase the number of anti-aliasing samples. Adjustments to Blur Length (like adjusting the exposure time for more or less blur) and Blur Offset can be found in the Camera Item's properties.

This option toggles the Motion Blur effect on and off when rendering.

This control affects the length of the motion blur effect when rendering animations. The default value of 50% is similar to a real-world camera set with a 180 degree shutter. In Modo, the 50% value results in the shutter being open for half of the exposure time of that frame. The blur effect is calculated by taking time samples both forwards and backwards from the current frame time and blending them together for the final blurred result. As such, it may be necessary to increase the level of anti-aliasing to produce a smooth result.

This lets you control the center position in time where Modo samples its motion blur from. A setting of zero centers the motion blur on the current rendered frame, while a setting of -100% moves the position backwards one entire frame and a setting of 100% moves the position forward one entire frame.

TIP:  The Antialiasing setting's effect is most apparent on geometric edges. A setting of 8 is generally acceptable and is a good trade off between quality and speed, though in reproducing effects such as Depth of Field or Motion Blur you may need to increase this value, possibly all the way up to 1024 to produce a pleasing result. If you find your shaded edges, such as cast shadows, refractions, reflections, procedural and image based textures are aliased (not smooth), then reducing the shading rate value or lowering the refinement threshold can help to increase shaded edge quality. If you are finding specific areas of an image to be noisy, that cannot be solved by Antialiasing and Refinement, such as soft reflections, blurry refractions, soft shadow edges, subsurface scattering, it may simply be a case where raising the number of samples specific to the effect eliminates the noise. These setting can be found in the associated Properties panels. Always keep in mind though, as more calculations are taken into account, the longer an image takes to render.

We see with two eyes, each slightly offset from the other, providing our brains with enough information to create a sense of depth to the world around us. Modo scenes are likewise 3D with depth, but the monitors we view scenes with are two-dimensional, as are the renders Modo creates. Activating the stereoscopic function in Modo brings back that missing depth information by rendering two offset images, that when viewed in tandem, reveal the depth present in your original scene.

The Stereoscopic function, when enabled, renders two separate frames, one appended L for left and R for right, noting which eye the frame was rendered for.

NOTE:  When enabled, the Stereoscopic function is rendering two completely separate frames, so increased render times are to be expected. If applicable, only a single Irradiance Cache is calculated for stereoscopic renders.

This setting is the global toggle to enable or disable the Stereoscopic function when rendering. When enabled, Modo renders two frames slightly offset from each other (like our eyes). The resulting images can then be combined in a variety of ways that, when viewed appropriately, reveal the depth present in your original scene.

When Stereoscopic rendering in enabled, you can use this option to choose which eye is rendered. Choose to render only the Left eye, only the Right eye, or both simultaneously. When rendering both, you can additionally choose a Stereo Composite option to determine how Modo combines the resulting stereo images for final output.

Modo offers a variety of options for composing stereo images into a single image for viewing. Which option you choose is largely based on how the resulting image is viewed:

• Anaglyph Red-Cyan - This method replaces the red channel or the right image with the red channel from the left image.

• Anaglyph Grayscale - This method makes both frames into grayscale (luminance) images, then puts the left one in the Red output channel and the right one in the Green and Blue channels.

• Anaglyph Red-Cyan Half Color - This method basically converts the left image to grayscale and puts it into the Red channel, and uses the right frame's Green and Blue channels for the output Green and Blue channels. This technique reduces 'retinal rivalry', which is a disturbing phenomenon caused by differing brightness of what should be the same objects seen by either eye.

• Anaglyph Red-Cyan Optimized - This method further combats retinal rivalry by discarding the red channel from both images, keeping the right frame's cyan component, and mixing the left frame's Green and Blue channels at 70%/30% ratio to use in the output red channel.

• Anaglyph Red-Blue Least Squares - This algorithm was invented by Eric Dubois. He used the optical properties of standard red and blue filters used for anaglyph glasses and derived magic numbers for blending stereo pairs into color anaglyphs by minimizing the error using a "least squares" method.

• Side-by-Side - Half-width frames are rendered and composed side by side into full width regular frames, with Left on Left and Right on Right.

• Side-by-Side Full Width - Full sized frames are rendered separately and composed side by side in double width frames, with Left on Left and Right on Right.

• Side-by-Side Cross Eyed - Half-width frames are rendered and composed side by side into full width regular frames, with Left on Right and Right on Left.

• Side-by-Side Cross Eyed Full Width - Full sized frames are rendered separately and composed side by side in double width frames, with Left on Right and Right on Left.

The Interocular Distance technically means the distance between the center point of a person's two pupils, but here it is the measured offset between the two rendered images in Modo. The default setting of 65 mm is the average distance between the eyes of an adult. For scenes modeled to real world values, this is an appropriate setting that produces good results. Scenes of varying scale or exceptionally close/far objects may require this distance to change.

The convergence distance is the point within 3D space where the two offset images converge. In front of this point, objects appear to come forward, and behind this point, object appear to recede. It is easily understood by imagining it as the focal point of your scene, much like with DOF.

Where the focal distance is the position in space where all objects are in focus, objects in front or behind this position gradually blur, the Convergence Distance is the point in the scene you wish to direct your viewers eyes, as it is the most comfortable to view. This is exactly how your eyes work as well. If you were sitting in a restaurant and your eyes were focused on your glass of water on the table, this would effectively be the convergence point of your two eyes, your dinner plate would be in front of the glass coming forward, and your guest would be further away on the other side of the table.

Clipping refers to removing part of a scene from a rendered image while leaving the actual scene geometry intact. You can define a distance where all (or selected) surfaces are clipped, by enabling the Clipping Plane option and then defining a Clipping Distance. You can disable clipping on a per-material basis by disabling the Enable Surface Clipping option in the Material item.

TIP:  A similar effect can be obtained through the use of Render Booleans that are not camera view dependent.

When enabled, any scene items within the bounds of the camera position and the clipping plane are clipped from the scene, removing them from the rendered image while retaining the actual scene geometry.

The Action Safe Area is the space determined to be where important action of a scene is clearly visible, but the bounds could possibly be against the edges of the screen. The Action Safe Visible option toggles the visibility of the outer guide of the Safe Area Overlay.

These margins determine the distance away from the edge where the guide is actually drawn in the viewport.

The Title Safe Area is the space where all on-screen text and graphics are guaranteed to be visible, ensuring clear legibility. The Title Safe Visible option toggles the visibility of the inner guide of the Safe Area Overlay.

These margins determine the distance away from the edge where the guide is actually drawn in the viewport.

TIP:  The Camera Safe Overlay guidelines only appear when a viewport is set to the Camera view type. Also, the camera must be set to Visible within the viewport (check the Display > Options to ensure Show Camera is enabled.

This refers to the amount of depth of your scene between the front-most and back-most elements. It is an important quantity for designing a stereo image. It is referred to as a volume because it includes the entire space width, height, and depth of the frame. It is also related to the stereo budget, which is yet another way of saying the amount of depth used by the scene.

You can activate the display of this important visual guide in the 3D Viewport by enabling the Show Stereo Volume option in the Display viewport. Once enabled, the following options appear in the Properties panel when the Camera Item is selected.

This parameter sets the desired front and back parallax amounts. It is given as the separation distance's percentage of the screen width. When you set this, Modo computes the distance from the convergence plane where objects have that parallax amount, and draws the front or rear plane there. There are also two circles drawn with centers that are separated by the parallax amount.

When enabled, draws volume as filled quads, instead of outlines, making its apparent area more obvious.