Working with Cinemachine
Using the Freelook Virtual Camera
So far we have only covered the basic virtual camera as a whole, but it was necessary to understand the base virtual camera before we leap towards the more specialized cameras. One of the those cameras is the “Freelook” camera. Common uses of the “Freelook” camera are within 3rd person to RPGs which the camera is allowed to view the player from all angles. This function is very similar to the “Orbital Transposer” founded in the base virtual camera, but the freelook has more features. In this article we will go over what the differences are between those two settings and how you can apply the freelook camera to your game.
Understanding Freelook Camera:
Once you have added the freelook camera into your scene, (this can be achieve by going to Cinemachine > Create Freelook Camera) you will notice that nothing is really added until you slot in the Player as the look at and follow target. The you will see 3 red rings around your player and a virtual camera hovering behind it.
The 3 red rings are the limited pathway which the camera is allowed to follow and they are identified as the Top, Middle and Bottom rig. These Rigs are adjustable within the Inspector under the Orbits section.
By changing the Radius and Height of the Rigs you are able to freely place the position of the camera to the proper viewing angle that matches the view you want.
Further application of the Freelook camera would be adjusting the Rig radius when you scroll on the mouse wheel allowing the zoom in and out effect. This can be done by accessing the cinemachine freelook camera via script and adjusting the orbital values and attaching it to the values of the scroll wheel.
A quick tutorial of zooming in and out via freelook camera was done by a youtuber “Corkie Software Design”.
Overall the freelook camera is quite useful when it comes to viewing your targeted object in a 360 fashion.
