Add Camera Rigs

The first two rigs are very similar except the “Crane Rig” has two extra adjustable bones (Arm Height and Arm Length) to make it easier to achieve a cinematic crane shot.

When the Rig is selected, the camera properties will be displayed in the Sidebar.

This is the parent of the entire rig. Move this around in 3d space to control all the components at once.

This is the control that will translate the camera around. By default it will track to the aim control.

This is a child of the Camera control. It is a secondary control to enable extra rotation or translation of the camera object without affecting the main control.

The camera will point at this control. You can also tilt the camera by rotating the Aim on its Y axis.

This control is designed to raise and lower the height of the rig from the Root control. You can scale the control or use the slider in the UI to adjust the height setting. It can also be animated if you wish.

This control is designed to increase or decrease the length of the crane boom arm. This makes it easier to achieve arcing motion just like a real crane camera rig. You can scale the control or use the slider in the UI to adjust this setting. It can also be animated if you wish.

Root is the parent of the entire rig. It is the only bone that you should rotate to aim approximately at the action. Root_Offset and Root_Tweak provide additional levels of parenting and can be used as offsets or to add a shake to the camera.

This control provides a convenient way to move both corners at once, to make sure a pan does not change the zoom.

You can move the camera around, and it will compensate its settings to frame the two corners. For instance, if you leave the corners fixed on both sides of the subject and move the camera forward, you will achieve an efficient dolly zoom effect.

Rotation is the default mode, and will rotate the camera to aim at and keep the corners in its frame. Shift mode, on the other hand, uses the Shift properties on the Camera to achieve a cropping effect instead of a pan.

When moving the corners too far to the side in rotation mode, perspective makes the rig much less accurate.

Rotation mode is unsupported for orthographic cameras.

When a rig is built, the add-on will create a collection for all the custom bone shapes (named Widgets). By default when the widgets are built they will use the prefix "WGT-". If you have more than one rig in the scene, it will use the same widgets in the same collection rather than duplicating them. The default collection name and the widget prefix can be set in the preferences of the add-on. (This will not change the name of any existing widgets or collection, only ones that are created after you change the setting.)

All Modes

3D Viewport ‣ Sidebar ‣ Item ‣ Camera Rig

The UI panel will display the most used camera settings. Only the added features will be explain here, for more information refer to the Cameras section.

When you enable this operator, the Aim control will be linked to the focal length. This makes it very easy to achieve the classic Dolly Zoom effect.

The Aim bone will turn red to give visual feedback that Dolly Zoom mode is active. There is a further offset value that can be animated if you wish, and when you turn this mode off, it will keep the current focal length.

This operator will shift the Camera and Aim controls directly over the top of the Root control while maintaining their current distance from each other. This is useful if you want to use the rig for a turnaround shot.

Will make the rig object visible through all other geometry. (Useful if you have a fly through scene or if other meshes are in the way.)

The Lock Camera Select is a toggle button to make the camera unselectable (so you can’t accidentally delete it).

This slider controls the Track To constraint on the control bone. Turn it off and the bone will not point to the aim bone anymore.

The Arm Height and Arm Length sliders at the bottom of the UI show the Y axis scale of the relevant bone. By default, both the height and the arm length are at 1 unit in size. These values only show in the interface when a crane rig is selected, they are also animatable.

The Rotation/Shift slider lets you switch between Rotation and Shift modes for the 2D Camera rig. You can also choose an intermediate value to have a bit of both.

If the Aim tracking or 2D rig are not functioning, check that you have “Auto Run Python Scripts” enabled in the Preferences Preferences ‣ Save & Load ‣ Auto Run Python Scripts.

A blog post explaining the 2D rig by its authors.