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Let's suppose we have a medium-poly mesh, and we want to snapshot several different closeups by just flying in the camera or using the user's perspective to flyover.

Is there a keyboard shortcut for adding a camera to the user's current view without all having to moving the camera all over the scene to fit a desired position? The switching back and forth from user perspectives to camera view is annoying.

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2 Answers 2

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To make your active camera match up with the viewport, use Ctrl + Alt + 0 (Numpad 0, the other zero won't work).
Also, you can track the camera to an empty with the Track To constraint. This will force your camera to point to the empty, which you can place in the center of your medium complexity face mesh.

To set up the Track To constraint:

  1. Select your empty first, then camera.

       Both selected, camera is brighter because it is the active object

  1. Ctrl + Shift + C key, and choose Track To from the menu.

     Contraint Menu Pops Up

  1. Then, go to the Properties panel > Object Constraints tab. The Target: should say Empty. Change the To: axis to -Z and the Up: axis to Y.

       Track To Constraint

Now your camera will always point to the empty, making things easier for you to position.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, I got my rep score up, so I was able to add the screen shots. $\endgroup$
    – PoxBox
    Commented Jun 11, 2013 at 17:16
  • $\begingroup$ yep but my original question was retrieved and altered and now it doesn't fit the original purpose. what you think? $\endgroup$
    – ogeid
    Commented Jun 11, 2013 at 17:21
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    $\begingroup$ can this be done with menus? Ubuntu will close the window if i press those keys $\endgroup$
    – cammil
    Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 21:04
  • $\begingroup$ @cammil System Settings -> Keyboard -> Minimize Key -> Set it to 'CTRL ALT 0'. Not the Numpad-0 of course. I'm pretty happy I found this shortcut in Ubuntu! +2 if I could. I used a similar shortcut in MacOSX for the longest time and never new it existed in Ubuntu. $\endgroup$
    – Brad Goss
    Commented Jul 19, 2016 at 16:39
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    $\begingroup$ For @cammil and also my future self: it's found in the menus at View > Align View > Align Active Camera To View. $\endgroup$
    – nickiaconis
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 3:43
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CtrlAltNumpad 0 will snap the active camera to your viewport position :)

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    $\begingroup$ How do you do this with menus or the Python api? I am on ubuntu and ctrl+alt+0 will close the active window. $\endgroup$
    – cammil
    Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 21:03
  • $\begingroup$ It works under windows $\endgroup$
    – Jaroslav Kotowski
    Commented Feb 16, 2017 at 13:56
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    $\begingroup$ Its because in windows CTRL+ALT+Numpad 0 is not associated to any system functionality, in UBUNTU it is used to minimize window. There is simple solution, just change shortcut in blender to CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+Numpad 0. Here askubuntu.com/a/618581/69037 is described ho to do that. $\endgroup$
    – Jiří Doubravský
    Commented Jul 1, 2017 at 9:26

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