Unique Body Bindings in Cinemachine
Yesterday, we looked at the basic principles of the Follow target and it’s Body properties. In terms of the Binding Mode, we stuck to the default Lock To Target With World Up, that allowed us to follow the target object around the scene, and pivot in an arc around the target if it rotates around the Y axis. If you missed it, check out the article here, as well as a quick reminder GIF below.
Additionally, we can make use of the other Binding Modes to achieve unique results.
Lock To Target On Assign allows for the Virtual Camera to follow the target at an offset, based on the orientation when either the camera is activated or a new target assigned, leaving the offset constant in world space. Therefore, no matter the orientation change of the object, the camera’s offset will stay relative to the target’s initial rotation. It also has no Pitch, Yaw or Roll settings so will not rotate to follow.
With this binding, we can also apply our Damping to each axis, allowing for either sharp or slow follow camera movement.
Where this mode could become interesting is when we introduce camera swapping or target swapping. If we were to activate the Virtual Camera at the point in the animation where the cube is rotated, our offset would be applied from the local rotation, but be assigned in world space. Our camera would face the same direction as earlier, but the offset would be at a diagonal.
Lock To Target No Roll works the same as Locks To Target With World Up, but additionally follows the target’s roll on the x axis. Once again, we have an offset, axis damping, and Yaw damping, as well as Pitch Damping for the camera movement on the X axis.
Lock To Target works in the same sense as it’s namesakes with World Up and No Roll but with all three axes! On top of the Pitch and Yaw movements, we can have the camera Roll with the target’s Z rotation. In our previous examples, our offset has been -10 on the Z axis, but this still keeps the target in the center of the frame. To achieve roll as the object rotates on the Z axis, we need additional offset.
World Space allows for the same target offset to be applied, but in world space rather than local, whilst staying relative to the follow target. This means that the camera won’t change position on target rotation, only target movement. We can still apply damping to the axes.
Lastly, Simple Follow With World Up mimics more of a human camera operator. The offset is interpreted from the camera’s local space, and no X axis offset can be applied. Without aim enabled, this can quite tricky to visualize, but essentially, as the target moves, the camera will follow to keep it’s offset based on the direction from the camera to the target. In our case, the object will always be 10 units in front of the camera, regardless of orientation.
Depending on how we want our camera to interact across the different axes, we have plenty of different Binding modes that can be used appropriately for all sorts of results, let alone the different Damping combinations. While many achieve similar results, there are instances where we only want rotation on certain axes.
