Setting up Virtual Cameras in Unity

Michael Hatfield
2 min readMar 1, 2023

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Virtual cameras are a powerful tool in game development that allow developers to control the perspective of the camera during gameplay. By setting up virtual cameras in Unity, developers can create more immersive and engaging experiences for their players. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of setting up virtual cameras in Unity, including some code examples.

To get started, first we need to add the Cinemachine package to our Unity project. To do this, we can go to the Package Manager in Unity and search for “Cinemachine”. Once we’ve installed the package, we can begin setting up virtual cameras.

To create a new virtual camera, we can right-click in the Hierarchy window and select “Cinemachine” -> “Virtual Camera”. This will create a new virtual camera game object in our scene.

Next, we can set up the properties of our virtual camera. For example, we can set the follow target to the player character, adjust the camera’s field of view, and set the priority of the camera (which determines which camera will take precedence if there are multiple cameras in the scene).

Here’s an example of some code that sets up a virtual camera in Unity:

In this example, we’ve created a new script called “VirtualCameraController” that attaches to our virtual camera game object. We’ve also defined some public variables that we can set in the inspector to control the properties of our virtual camera. In the Start() method, we set the follow target to the player transform, adjust the camera’s field of view, and set the camera priority.

In conclusion, setting up virtual cameras in Unity is a powerful way to control the perspective of the camera during gameplay. By using the Cinemachine package, developers can create more immersive and engaging experiences for their players. Whether it’s for creating cutscenes, tutorials, or gameplay sequences, virtual cameras are a valuable tool in any game developer’s arsenal.

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Michael Hatfield
Michael Hatfield

Written by Michael Hatfield

IT Specialist / Indie game developer

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