Plane Distance & Focal Length¶
When Planes are not perfectly placed¶
You may notice that when you create a Plane in the Level/Map, the Plane might not be placed over props. And if you stop piloting the camera it be even more obvious:
In the image above, the character is in front of the wooden bar, which is incorrect. In this lesson, we will see how to fix that easily.
Plane Distance¶
When selecting a Plane in the Sequencer, 2 options will be displayed on the Viewport:
an area with digits
a menu and three options : No Scale, Relative Scale and Scale 100% Camera.
The area with digits allows you to move the Plane away from the Camera or closer to the Camera. The smaller digits are, the closer the Plane is. The bigger digits are, the farther the Plane is.
The options in the menu will affect the Plane’s size:
No Scale will move forward or backward the Plane, without rescaling the Plane.
Relative Scale will rescale the Plane relatively to its current size (if it was already edited in the Detail panel) when moving the Plane backward and forward.
Scale 100% Camera will automatically rescale the Plane when moving the Plane backward and forward and make sure it corresponds to the Camera View.
In the example below, the Plane was moved backward with the option Scale 100% Camera.
By the way, please note this feature can only work if the Plane is centered and faces the camera. If you offset it or if you rotate it, then the option Plane Distance won’t be available anymore.
Focal Length¶
When selecting the Camera and not the Plane in the Sequencer, you will also have the same options:
an area with digits
a menu and three options : No Scale, Relative Scale and Scale 100% Camera.
However, in this case the digits will affect the Focal Length of the Camera.
The options in the menu will also affect the Plane size, without changing its position:
No scale will simply change the Focal Length of the Camera.
Relative Scale will rescale the Plane relatively to the current Focal Length of the Camera (if it was already edited in the Detail panel)
Scale 100% Camera will rescale the Plane to make sure it corresponds to the Camera View and its Focal Length.
In the example below, you can see a Plane with a Focal Length of 22, with extra empty margins around:
If we change the Focal Lenght to 9 with the mode Relative Scale, the Camera sees much more elements from the Level / Map, and the Plane become much bigger, but the ratio of margins has been respected:
