A camera clip can be moved in three different ways: by keyframing it yourself, by flying it along a path you draw in 3D, or by handing it a Camera Rig — a ready-made orbit, crane, dolly or follow move that you set with a few numbers instead of drawing. The MOVEMENT section of the camera inspector picks which one drives the camera.
This page covers the movement types, every rig move and its settings, and the camera’s motion path. For adding a camera, its motion presets, depth of field and Capture Camera, see Camera Layer.
The Scene menu
Cameras and the scene rig are added from the Scene ▾ menu in the timeline toolbar. The button reads Camera while the project has a camera but no scene rig, and Scene otherwise.
| Entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Camera | Adds the project’s camera channel with its first camera clip. With several layers selected it reads Camera over N and spans them. |
| Another camera move | Shown once a camera exists: drops another camera clip on the same channel, so you can chain moves. |
| Scene Rig | Adds the lighting rig that every 3D layer stands in — and a camera too, if the project has none. See Scene Rig. |
| Select the scene rig | Shown once a rig exists: a project has one rig, so this selects it instead of adding a second. |
Movement types
Select a camera clip and choose a type in MOVEMENT:
| Type | What moves the camera |
|---|---|
| Free | Your own keyframes — Zoom, Pan, Roll, Dolly and Tilt in CAMERA KEYFRAMES, a motion preset, or Capture Camera. This is where every camera starts. |
| Motion Path | A 3D curve you draw in the 3D view. The CAMERA PATH section appears, and Path Progress says how far along the curve the camera is. |
| Camera Rig | A parametric move — orbit, dolly, crane, push-in, truck, spiral, handheld or follow. The CAMERA RIG section appears. |
The three types are exclusive but never destructive. A rig writes no path, so switching from Camera Rig to Motion Path finds your drawn curve exactly as you left it, and switching back to Camera Rig finds the rig settings untouched.
While Camera Rig is active, or Motion Path with the path followed, the rig or path owns where the camera stands and where it looks. Pan and Dolly keyframes — and Tilt and Roll, unless the path’s Aim is Free (keep Tilt / Roll) — are kept on the clip but have no effect until you switch back to Free. Zoom and the whole DEPTH OF FIELD section still work on top of a rig or path, so you can keyframe a lens zoom or a rack focus during an orbit.
Keyframed moves from Motion presets — Quiet Push, Punch Through and the rest — are Free moves. If you apply one that animates pan, dolly, tilt or roll while the camera is on a rig or path, the movement type switches back to Free and the panel says so. Your rig settings and path are kept, so switching back restores them. Presets that only animate focus — Rack to Near, Rack to Far and Focus Chase — leave the movement type alone.
Camera Rig
Choose Camera Rig and the camera starts moving at once: the rig is created with the Hero Orbit settings, and Path Progress is keyed from 0 to 100 across the clip.
Rig presets
The grid at the top of CAMERA RIG sets a complete shot in one click. Each button shows a small diagram of the move, so an orbit and a spiral are told apart by shape. A preset replaces every rig setting, but it keeps your Follow Object list — which layers to follow belongs to the project, not the shot.
| Preset | Type | The shot |
|---|---|---|
| Hero Orbit | Orbit | A 90° arc that starts front-left, slightly above the subject. |
| Slow Reveal | Orbit | A wide, low 150° arc that starts far to camera-left. |
| Turntable | Orbit | One full 360° turn around the subject. |
| Crane Down | Crane | Starts high and drops about 1,100 px while swinging 55° round. |
| Rise & Reveal | Crane | Starts near subject height and climbs about 1,200 px while swinging 80°. |
| Push In | Push In | Travels 1,800 px toward the subject and lands hard. |
| Pull Back | Dolly | Backs away 1,700 px from the subject. |
| Truck Left | Truck | A 2,200 px sideways slide past the subject. |
| Product Spiral | Spiral | A 300° climbing spiral that tightens around the subject. |
| Handheld Drift | Handheld | A slow, gentle operator drift from one spot. |
| Drone Follow | Follow Object | Circles the followed layer wide and high. |
| Chase Cam | Follow Object | Sits low and tight behind the followed layer, barely swinging. |
Rig types
Type picks the move. Every type reads Radius, Height, Start, Tilt and Roll; each adds its own settings. Settings a type does not use stay visible but greyed out, so the panel does not jump around when you switch type.
| Type | The move | Extra settings |
|---|---|---|
| Orbit | Circles the subject at a fixed distance and height. | Sweep |
| Dolly | Travels straight toward (or away from) the subject. | Travel |
| Crane | Circles while rising or dropping. | Sweep, Rise |
| Push In | Like Dolly, but eased hard at the end so the shot lands rather than arrives. | Travel |
| Truck | Slides sideways past the subject at a fixed distance. | Travel |
| Spiral | Circles and climbs while pulling in closer. | Sweep, Rise, Turns |
| Handheld | Stands in one place with an organic operator drift. | Amount, Rate |
| Follow Object | An orbit built around a layer instead of the frame centre, so a moving layer drags the camera with it. | Sweep, plus the follow list |
Rig settings
| Setting | What it does | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radius | Distance from the subject. | 100 – 20,000 px | 1,800 px |
| Height | How far above the subject the camera stands. Negative goes below. | −8,000 – 8,000 px | 400 px |
| Start | Where round the subject the move begins. 0° is straight in front; positive angles go camera-right. | −360° – 360° | −40° |
| Sweep | How far round the subject the camera travels over the move. Negative goes the other way. | −720° – 720° | 90° |
| Rise | How much height the camera gains over the move. Negative descends. | −8,000 – 8,000 px | 0 px |
| Travel | Dolly and Push In start this far beyond Radius and end at Radius, so positive moves in and negative pulls back. Truck slides this far sideways, centred on the subject. | −20,000 – 20,000 px | 1,200 px |
| Turns | Multiplies Sweep on a spiral. | 0.25 – 8× | 1× |
| Tilt | Aims above (positive) or below (negative) the subject. It moves the aim point rather than turning the camera, so the subject stays framed while the rig travels; the shift scales with Height. | −80° – 80° | −8° |
| Roll | Cants the horizon. | −180° – 180° | 0° |
| Amount | Handheld: how far the drift wanders. | 0 – 2,000 px | 0 px |
| Rate | Handheld: how many times the drift changes direction over the move. | 0 – 40× | 0× |
Handheld does nothing until Amount and Rate are above zero — start from the Handheld Drift preset (90 px at 1.5×). The drift is seeded, not random, so the shot moves exactly the same way every time you play it and in the final render.
Path Progress carries the move
Rig settings are not keyframable: a keyed radius would rebuild the whole move every frame. Instead, Path Progress is the track that moves the camera along the rig, and it is keyed 0 → 100 for you the first time a rig is applied. Keys you have already tuned are never overwritten, so re-picking a preset keeps your timing.
Open CAMERA KEYFRAMES and edit Path Progress to reshape the timing — ease it harder, hold it at 50 for a pause, or key it back down to reverse the move. See Keyframe Builder.
Follow Object
Follow Object keeps the camera looking at a layer while Radius, Height, Start and Sweep place it and circle it. Because the whole move is built around the layer’s current position, a layer that moves drags the camera with it, drone-style — including a layer riding its own motion path or following a parent.
- Set Type to Follow Object, or click Drone Follow or Chase Cam.
- Click + Add object to follow and choose a layer in the Object 1 dropdown. Any layer with a place in the scene can be followed; audio and voice layers cannot.
- Add more objects for a shot that moves between subjects. The trash icon beside an entry removes it.
Until at least one object is picked, the camera circles the centre of the composition.
The Follow Object number says which entry in the list the camera looks at. It is keyframable — click its stopwatch — so a key from 1 to 2 pans the look from the first object to the second with that key’s easing. In-between values blend the two positions, so the hand-off is a smooth camera move, not a cut.
Dragging the rig in the 3D view
Open the 3D view (the cube button at the right of the preview’s transport bar) and the rig’s whole move is drawn as a curve with a handle at each end. Drag a handle and the rig’s numbers follow:
- On an orbit, crane, spiral or follow move, the start handle sets Start, Radius and Height; the end handle sets Sweep and Radius (and Rise on a crane or spiral).
- On a dolly or push-in, the handles set the near and far ends of the travel, along with Start and Height.
- On a truck, they set the distance from the subject, the height and the length of the slide.
- On a handheld move, either handle moves the spot the camera stands on.
The handles are never the source of truth: every drag is converted back into rig settings, so the panel and the view cannot disagree.
Motion Path
Choose Motion Path and the CAMERA PATH section appears. The path is a 3D curve the camera rides, drawn and edited in the 3D view — every control that needs the view switches it on for you.
- Click Draw path, then click in the 3D view to drop points on the camera’s plane. Drag to orbit the view between clicks. Click Finish drawing when you are done.
- Click Follow path (it needs at least two points). The button reads Following, and Path Progress is keyed 0 → 100 so the camera flies the whole curve over the clip.
- Shape the curve: drag an anchor with the gizmo, select one to reveal its curve handles (Alt-drag a handle to make a corner), or Shift-click several anchors to move, rotate or scale them together.
While drawing, two buttons work by subject rather than by cursor:
- Focus layer — click a layer in the 3D view to aim the whole path at it. The camera turns its head; it does not move.
- Position layer — click a layer to add a point where the camera sees that whole layer in frame.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Closed loop | Joins the last point back to the first (three or more points). Progress then wraps round to the start. |
| Aim | Where the camera looks while it travels: Along the path, Look at a Target (the comp centre or any layer), or Free (keep Tilt / Roll), which leaves the aim to your Tilt and Roll keys. |
| Path progress | How far along the path the camera is, 0 – 100%. Click its stopwatch to keyframe it. |
| Offset X / Y / Z | Flies the path from a distance — right of, below or in front of the curve — without moving the curve. The aim is worked out after the offset, so the camera still looks where it should. Each offset is keyframable, which lets two cameras, or a camera and a layer, share one curve. |
| Make keyframes for each point | Replaces the 0 → 100 travel with one Path Progress key per anchor, so the camera reaches each point on a keyframe and you can pace every segment separately. Click Remove keyframes for each point to go back. |
| Smooth path… | With three or more points, smooths the curve and drops the points it does not need. The change previews on the curve; Cancel puts the original points back. |
Select a point to see its X / Y / Z fields, step through the points with Prev and Next, Reset curve handles to return an anchor to the automatic smooth curve, or Delete point. The Copy path button in the section header copies any other curve in the project — a layer’s motion path, a shape path, a mask outline or another camera’s path — into this one. The dot in the header removes the camera path.
Saving a camera move
SAVE THIS MOVE at the bottom of the camera inspector stores the clip’s keyframes — including Path Progress and Follow Object — and its un-keyframed settings as a preset in Motion presets ▸ Saved. The rig’s own settings and a drawn path are not part of a saved move, so apply the rig preset or draw the path again when you reuse one. See Camera Layer.
Where to go next
- Camera Layer — adding a camera, motion presets, Capture Camera and depth of field
- Scene Rig — the lights and backdrop a rigged camera circles
- 3D Model Layers — real objects for an orbit or a turntable
- Keyframe Builder — shaping Path Progress and Follow Object keys
- Motion Paths — the same path editor for ordinary layers
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