Resetting the camera

[Nicinus]

This feels like something that has been discussed a lot, but I couldn't find anything either in this or the old forum, but perhaps I'm searching on the wrong words.

 

Anyhow, while in a 3D view when I orbit around my design, I often find the whole view 'shooting away'. After this happens I usually can't recover or find it again, and if I do it is typically heavily distorted. A couple of times I've zeroed some of the values in the camera dbx, but this is cumbersome and not always successful. Is there a button or short cut to reset the 3D camera?

[dshall]

This feels like something that has been discussed a lot, but I couldn't find anything either in this or the old forum, but perhaps I'm searching on the wrong words.

 

Anyhow, while in a 3D view when I orbit around my design, I often find the whole view 'shooting away'. After this happens I usually can't recover or find it again, and if I do it is typically heavily distorted. A couple of times I've zeroed some of the values in the camera dbx, but this is cumbersome and not always successful. Is there a button or short cut to reset the 3D camera?

I get that once  in awhile.    Easy fix is to go to plan view and select the END OF THE CAMERA and put it in the middle of the middle,  now it won't fly off for that camera.

 

Create a new camera and it might fly off again.  Try resizing your terrain and see if that helps.  Another possibility is you have something way off in the distance and CA is trying to include that in the view.

[Nicinus]

That was a good idea, and now I found the building and I centered it like you said. However, I can't get rid of the distortion, there does not seem to be a way to set zoom length of the lens? It looks ok in plan, and there is nothing off in the distance.  :/

 

[dshall]

That was a good idea, and now I found the building and I centered it like you said. However, I can't get rid of the distortion, there does not seem to be a way to set zoom length of the lens? It looks ok in plan, and there is nothing off in the distance.  :/

 

Never seen that,  I assume you reopened the camera.  

 

SAVE THAT CAMERA,  now close the bad view,  select camera and reopen,  all should be good.

[Nicinus]

I closed it and created a new one, and then saved it. At least I can now go back to a good location. Thanks!

[Joe_Carrick]

Also, look at where the Camera and the Focal point are located.  You may be able to just drag those 2 items to get where you need to be.  The Camera should be located outside the structure and the other endpoint should be centered on the building.  Then you can simply pan around with the mouse.

[Doug_Park]

Preferences > Render

 

Uncheck "Zoom Using Field of View"

 

This won't fix your already distorted view, but it will prevent it from getting distorted if you zoom using the mouse wheel.

[Nicinus]

Doug, I looked and that was already unchecked. 

[Brad_M]

If "Zoom Using Field of View" is unchecked, you can use "Fill Window" to reset the zoom in 3D views. I think its default hotkey is F6. This is how I prefer to undo zooms in 3D views since zooming in and out using the scroll wheel tends to cause distortion.

[Nicinus]

That doesn't seem to work for me. It was unchecked, but neither of those zoom buttons did anything useful  

[DRAWZILLA]

I have also seen this, not sure why.

[Nicinus]

This most often happen to me when using the orbit tool, and then holding down the middle mouse button to pan. Often the design then starts to sail away in one direction and goes off the screen, and cant't be recovered.

[Nicinus]

Looking a little further into this it appears I'm pushing the middle mouse button sideways, which apparently trigger some form of angular rotation of the whole scene.

[CJSpud]

Shooting from the hip but is it possible you have something in the plan that is located a ways from your model that could be causing this?  What happens in plan (you might have to check this on each floor) when you fill the screen?  If the model centers up nicely and pretty much fills the screen, then this probably has nothing to do with your problem.  If you have terrain and the model isn't centered on the terrain, that might change the camera location a bit.

 

If your post #13 was your solution, then please pretend you didn't read this post.

[Nicinus]

When I use the Fill Screen tool it works as expected, this seems to be something else. The thing in #13 definitely is related to the issue, but I have no solution for it. Haven't found what a left/right press on the middle mouse button is supposed to do, but whatever move it triggers it ignores the Fill Screen tool. 

[Kbird1]

If "Zoom Using Field of View" is unchecked, you can use "Fill Window" to reset the zoom in 3D views. I think its default hotkey is F6. This is how I prefer to undo zooms in 3D views since zooming in and out using the scroll wheel tends to cause distortion.

Yes I have seen this distortion too , so will try these tips in the thread,thx....

Nicinus , do you have software on the mouse programming the scroll wheel to do something in applications?

I used to have a mouse that let you scroll up down with the wheel but if you applied side pressure to the wheel it also scrolled left or right. My current mouse has a "button" (middle) on the wheel too, so I can pan with it by click/hold>move mouse.

M.

[Nicinus]

That seems to be it. In the control panel there is a setting for the wheel, where I can set the number of characters that it scrolls horizontally if I push the wheel sideways. The default setting is 3 and unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to turn this function off. As I can't remember ever using this in Word or similar it only seems to generate trouble. Can't remember this being a function/feature in 3ds Max either.

[Nicinus]

Old topic now, but for those that search for it I've found the following:

 

1) Sometimes when I use the middle mouse to pan in the 3D window, I accidentally press the MMB sideways and the geometry scoots away for me. I now know when this happens and a couple of taps in the other direction brings it back. Initially I tried to recover by using zooms and dolly, which generated massive distortion and consequently not a good idea.

 

2) The view can be reset with '3D/View Direction/Restore Original View"