Take Your Best (Still) Shot in Autodesk Showcase

“The camera can photograph thought”
Dirk Bogarde

I've done it many a time before.

I've created a series of images of a scene in Autodesk Showcase, only to realize I don't have an easy way to reproduce one at a later date.  I have to carefully arrange the shot again, making sure I got all the camera angles right and then recreate it.

I like this shot, but how do I recall it later?

This isn't the fault of Showcase, it's a result of me getting anxious, and forgetting to use a tool that can save me a lot of time and trouble.

Camera shots.

Camera shots in Showcase allow camera angles to be saved and recalled, along with some built in camera effects, camera angles, and in Showcase 2014, depth of field settings.

So how are camera shots accessed?

The first place it can be found is in the Story>Camera Shot pulldown. The other is the hotkey "T" which is what I prefer to use.

Accessing the shots

This will bring up the toolbar that shows the existing shots.

The shots panel in the upper left.

Choosing Still from the Camera Shot pulldown, or using the hotkey "Ctrl+T" will take a still shot of the current camera position and camera properties. 


This is how a shot can be saved for later!

A new shot created

But there's more that can be done!  Right clicking on a shot will bring up options that allow the shot to be changed.  But here, I'm just going to choose Properties.

Choose properties

The properties screen will allow for the changing of  different settings for the shot.

These include the transition type between shots (Still, Animate, Cut to Shot), and duration, as well as Animation types, which I'll cover in my next post. 

But feel free to experiment with these, and get an idea how they work! 

And for a video version of this post, take a look below!