Blender School: Camera Rig

Extension: Add Dolly Cam (Now pre-installed by default) 

If you want to use Blender's default camera setup for anything like a real-world camera operation, you'll have your work cut out. Almost every common camera operation requires extra functions and constraints. For example, orbiting a Blender camera around a target object can be achieved by adding an empty object and parenting the camera to it. That's fine as far as it goes, but you can go straight to a fully integrated camera rig.

Add a Camera (Dolly Camera), and this is what you win...

The Dolly includes a collection of bone-system-based widgets configured with various constraints to mimic the functions of a real-world camera rig.

Given this is a bone system, you edit it using CTRL+Tab.
Or you can select the rig and go into Pose mode.

The Main Dolly Rig sits beneath the camera; move it to move the whole rig around, much like the default camera.

The Camera Offset sits immediately behind the camera. Move this as if you were placing the camera on a mount that is located away from the rig. For example, you can place the rig on a car model; they use the Camera Offset to position the camera on the side of the car, pointing back at the rig.

The Aim widget is always located in front of the camera's optics. When you move the aim widget, the camera moves to point towards it. This is really useful when you want to move the camera relative to a target.

 Hitem3D Upgraded!

I held off following through with their offer until the v3 model arrived. I'm gone for the 70% discount deal for a year on their pro account, but I absolutely must cancel or downgrade before next year, as I can't afford the full price of £350. In fact, let me create a Google Calendar reminder! 

Generated figures, old and new. Some super results!

 Blowing the dust from terrains with True Terrain 3.5 and True Sky 3. Plus an explosion cloud from my Cloud volume collection.

Boom today!