Blender: Camera Orbit

  1. Go to the Animation workspace
  2. Delete the default cube with x
  3. Add Suzzane with shift + a –> Mesh –> Monkey
  4. Select the camera with right-click (or left-click whichever is you select button)
  5. Reset the location of the camera to the origin with alt + g
  6. Reset the rotation of the camera to zero with alt + r
  7. Open the options panel with n
  8. Set the camera’s x rotation to 90 degrees
  9. Move the camera back along the y-axis with then y, pull the camera back in front of Suzzane until Suzzane is in frame. You can check this by pressing 0 on your numpad.
  10. Create an empty with shift + a –> Empty –> Plain axes
  11. Scale the plain axes with s so that they are bigger than Suzzane
  12. Parent the camera to the plain axes by selecting the camera then shift + selecting the plain axes. Then press ctrl + p –> object.
  13. We need three keyframes of the plain axes so select just the plain axes.
    1. Set the first keyframe in front of Suzzane with i –>  Rotation. Make sure your mouse is in the 3D viewport.
    2. Go to frame 20 on the dopesheet. Set the rotation of the plain axes along the z axis to 180 degrees. Set the keyframe again with i –> Rotation.
    3. Go to frame 40 on the dopesheet. Set the rotation of the plain axes along the z axis to 360 degrees. Set the keyframe once again with –> Rotation.
  14. Set the end frame for the animation to 40.
  15. To make the animation smooth, hover over the timeline and press t then select linear.
  16. That’s it! Feel free to play around with it!

References