I followed a couple of tutorials, and I even tried the “Turnaround Camera” add-on in 2.79b. I have not met with good results because of my lack of understanding. I have a Camera parented by an Empty Sphere, named Camera Focus, plus a “Track To” constraint exists between the Camera to the Empty Sphere.
I desire for the Camera to orbit around the Empty Sphere. I believe I should rotate the Empty, but I am not sure on how to properly mix this with “animation” I guess. Here is a link to my current “.blend” file:
Normally, you just create a 3-dimensional path and place it where you want the camera’s track to be. Then, tell the camera to follow that path, and animate the “percentage of path-distance travelled” to finish in the specified amount of time. (You can animate this to make the camera move faster or slower, forwards or backwards, as you please.)
To cause the camera to track the specified point, use a constraint. Place an Empty at the exact spot you want, parenting it to the “apparent” focus-object. (The camera will see the apparent-object but not the Empty.)
No, you don’t need to “rotate the Empty.” An Empty is “merely a point in 3D space.” It has no meaningful concept of “rotation.”
The camera “orbits” because it follows a circular 3D path which has been placed around the object-of-interest.
Meanwhile, the camera “points to (an Empty parented to …) that object” because of the constraint.
The two motivations are independent of one another and achieved by different means. (If the camera wasn’t orbiting – following that 3D path –, it would still always point to the object. Or, if the camera wasn’t pointing to the object, it would still be orbiting.)
Empties can rotate as easily as anything else, and cameras parented to them will orbit just fine. Just like with so many things in Blender, there are many ways to get the same output.
But I’m not sure what you’re having trouble with, shatterblast. I downloaded your file and there is no animation that I see.
Not sure how much background you have here. Select the empty (“Camera Focus”), ‘i’ register keyframe -> rotation, scrub to frame 30 or so, rotate the empty 180 degrees in z axis, ‘i’->rotation to register a new keyframe. Then jump to your camera view and play, and you’ll find that the camera is orbiting the empty (through 180 degrees of rotation over 30 frames.)
Note that your track to constraint needs a target object to work properly.
sundialsvc4’s method is a good method too, more general purpose.