Camera language for AI video and game cinematics
From the OpenDrama Create Wiki
Camera language is the shared vocabulary of shot size, angle, movement and lens that every film crew uses, and after the subject itself it's the instruction AI video models follow most reliably. Write "slow dolly in, 85mm lens" and most current models get close; write "make it cinematic" and you get a slow, aimless float. In-engine cinematics use the same vocabulary, except that there you set every number yourself.
This page maps each term to what the camera physically does, the words models actually respond to, when the move earns its place, and how to build the identical move with a game-engine camera, so your AI clips and your gameplay capture cut together.
When to use it
- A video model keeps giving you a static frame, a vague drift, or a zoom when you asked for movement.
- You're writing a shot list for a trailer, an ad or a short drama, and every shot needs a job.
- Your flythrough or cutscene in Unity, Unreal, Godot or Three.js looks like a debug camera.
- You're cutting AI clips together with gameplay footage and the cuts jump because moves and lenses don't match.
Most bad camera prompts come from three confusions. Dolly vs zoom: a dolly moves the camera forward, so the foreground slides past faster than the background (parallax); a zoom changes focal length from a fixed spot, so everything scales together and the picture goes flat. Truck vs pan: a truck slides the camera sideways; a pan rotates it on the spot. Pedestal vs tilt: a pedestal raises or lowers the whole camera and keeps it level; a tilt nods it up or down.
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- 1 copy-ready prompts
- 3 reference tables
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See also
Breakdowns that use this
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