This rig is a part of my Maya camera rig creation project. If you want to learn more about the rigs I have made you can see the whole project here. All rigs are available to download and are free to use.
This is a rig that is used for capturing top-down shots. Good for showing an objective perspective and details within a shot.
This is a simple and specialized rig, for taking straight down shots, so there weren't too many controls to it.
I decided to make my rig similar to the one below in the image.
To make this rig I started with modeling and animating it so that it could be adjusted vertically. Then I attached the camera to it. I also decided to let the camera have completely free rotation even though it is not realistic so that just in case the user needs the rotation they can use it. This is what the rig ended up looking like.
https://www.loom.com/embed/f3d634cf4cc14827a3b9368a1bd826df
This control is used to translate, rotate, scale, and turn on and off the visibility of the rig.
This control allows the rig to change its height. The tallest the rig can get at its normal scale is about ten feet and the shortest is five feet.
While the camera will typically stay facing down, this control allows for the camera to be rotated in all directions.