How to use a Dolly Track in Unity!

Objective: understand what a dolly track is, and how to implement into your project.

In film making, sometimes to get the perfect panning shot directors/Camera operators will attach a camera to a track and smoothly move the camera along the track to get a smooth stable shot. In Unity we can also utilize a dolly track and it’s quite simple.

To create a dolly track you need to select Cinemachine > Create Dolly Camera with Track.

This will create a virtual camera and a dolly track.

Hypothetically, if you already have a virtual camera you want to connect to the dolly track simply delete the virtual camera paired to the dolly track.

Select the virtual camera you want to pair and, in the inspector, under body, by default it it selected to Transposer. Hit the drop-down box and select tracked dolly. Then under path select the dolly track.

Now we can place the track where we need it.

Inside the inspector you can add waypoints. Zero is the starting point and one would be where the camera goes next, and so on.

you can use the X, Y, and Z anchors to reposition your waypoints individually.

One method to add curve to your track is to add another waypoint and position the middle point accordingly.

This all there is to setting up your dolly shot. In the next tutorial I’ll show you how to animate your dolly shot. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your tracks, and I’ll see you in the next tutorial.