I've worked with Blender before, and using iClone 7 is quite tough to get used to. It took me a while to figure out why it didn't feel right to use it, but the I realized it's because the camera pivots around the selected object. This is maddening to set up a shot. In Blender, the camera acts as a separate object, so when you rotate to the right, you look to the right. In iClone 7, if you try to rotate to the right, the camera just swings around the object you've selected. Maybe this is similar to Maya (I've never used it), but it just seems counter intuitive for setting up a shot properly.

I've encountered the same (unintuitive feel) - especially after using Sketchup.
With Sketchup you simply place your cursor where you want the pivot point to be - and bam - left-click hold and pivot ! Very fast, very intuitive.
It'd be great if we could have 'user assignable' controls - that way we could all set the mouse controls to what feels best individually ....
Steve.


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time!   - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

I have to agree with these comments about the camera. Even as a longtime iClone user, I have problems sometimes.

The best I know to do is to have a dummy object for the camera to reign it in, but this should be built in.

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I'd even be happy is the camera would be circling around the selected object. The worst part of all is, that when you rotate camera (real camera - not the "preview" one) around the object you are being misled by the view-port. You think camera is circling around the object, but it is not. It moves a straight line from point to point, just revolving around itself keeping the object in plane range. The only way to revolve around given pivot point or an object... yes animagic, place a dummy at the desired pivot location and link camera to it, then rotate a dummy. Which is dumb....
The other way is to fix it with curve editor, or use a path (the least recommended solution as it gives undesired jitters and does not give much room for tweaking). The whole iClone camera movement system should be reconsidered/redesigned IMO.

An even lazier option that involves no dummies is to use the transform section in the modify tab, that way you rotate the camera on its axis, any axis actually xyz.

Yes, I do that sometimes, monitoring camera view through the mini-viewport.
But the problem remains and it is a static pivot - which is camera itself.
You can only rotate it around itself that way.
Curve editor should be used for tweaking  - not for building x/y sin/cos for circular movements.