bevy-cameras

Bevy 0.19 — Cameras

When to use this skill

• Spawning the main game camera.
• Rendering to a texture (mini-map, portal, post-process target).
• Wanting a drop-in free-look or pan controller without writing your own.
• Configuring multiple cameras with different order for overlays.
• Setting ambient brightness on a per-camera basis.
• Building a third-person pivot/boom camera with fixed-pose interpolation and Rapier obstruction casts.

Canonical pattern

FreeCamera/PanCamera are gated behind Cargo features. In Cargo.toml:

bevy = { version = "0.19", features = ["free_camera", "pan_camera"] }

use bevy::asset::RenderAssetUsages;
use bevy::camera::RenderTarget;
use bevy::camera_controller::free_camera::{FreeCamera, FreeCameraPlugin};
use bevy::prelude::*;

fn main() {
    App::new()
        .add_plugins(DefaultPlugins)
        .add_plugins(FreeCameraPlugin) // adds the input wiring
        .add_systems(Startup, setup)
        .run();
}

fn setup(mut commands: Commands, mut images: ResMut<Assets<Image>>) {
    // 1. Main camera with the built-in free-look controller.
    commands.spawn((
        Camera3d::default(),
        FreeCamera::default(),
        Transform::from_xyz(0.0, 4.0, 8.0).looking_at(Vec3::ZERO, Vec3::Y),
    ));

    // 2. A texture target for an off-screen render pass (mini-map, portal).
    let size = bevy::render::render_resource::Extent3d {
        width: 512,
        height: 512,
        depth_or_array_layers: 1,
    };
    let mut image = Image::new_fill(
        size,
        bevy::render::render_resource::TextureDimension::D2,
        &[0; 4],
        bevy::render::render_resource::TextureFormat::Bgra8UnormSrgb,
        RenderAssetUsages::default(),
    );
    image.texture_descriptor.usage =
        bevy::render::render_resource::TextureUsages::TEXTURE_BINDING
            | bevy::render::render_resource::TextureUsages::COPY_DST
            | bevy::render::render_resource::TextureUsages::RENDER_ATTACHMENT;
    let image_handle = images.add(image);

    // 3. A second camera that draws into the texture.
    //    RenderTarget is now a *separate* component, not Camera.target.
    commands.spawn((
        Camera3d::default(),
        Camera { order: -1, ..default() }, // -1 = render before the main camera
        RenderTarget::Image(image_handle.into()),
        Transform::from_xyz(10.0, 5.0, 0.0).looking_at(Vec3::ZERO, Vec3::Y),
    ));
}