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Atmospheric Cameras Tutorials: Are there any?

ParallaxMasterParallaxMaster Posts: 12
edited December 1969 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I recently purchased Age of Armor's Atmospheric Effects Cameras but I can't get them to work to save my life. I have followed the documentation that comes with the plugin, but it's more a description of the program, an its features. As I understood it from the promo materials, God lights and light reflections from fog or volume (such as water) can be produced without post-work.

I've been working of a scene that includes the Proteus mini-sub. I have placed some spotlights with narrow beams for the sub's headlights, hoping to see the bean showing in the fog or in the volume. I get neither. I have the lights set up as visible, I have played with the parameters of both the lights and the fog/volume without success. the lights don't show up, nor do they make visible beams. Any ideas, anyone? I tried both the fog camera and the volume camera. So, I have two questions for anyone who who has purchased these cameras and gotten them to work.

1. (and I I should have asked around before buying) Is this even compatible with DS 4.5? The promo page doesn't specify.
2. Does anyone know if there is a tutorial somewhere (text or video)?

BTW I've tried rendering with both 3Dlight and LuxRender. Same result.

ParallaxMaster

--God wanted us to see in 3D; otherwise, He would have given us only one eye.

Comments

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 2012

    There is this link from the Product Page, http://www.ageofarmour.com/3d/tutorials/AoA_atmospheric_cameras_help.html have you seen that?

    These are Shader based cameras as far as I can see, and they will ONLY work inside DAZ Studio using the 3Delight render engine. They will not work in Luxrender, and you will not see any effect in the Viewport, the effect is only visible when rendered.

    EDIT:

    I'm sorry, I forgot the important part, I don't know if these will work in DS 4 or 4.5, but hopefully someone will. There were changes made to the SDK for 4.5, but they may not affect this item.

    If all else fails, you could always return it for a refund, but you should maybe wait to see what help turns up.

    Post edited by JimmyC_2009 on
  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    I have used them in DS4.5.1.6

    WHat other lights have you got in the scene and are you looking throught the AOA Camera itself as looking and rendering thriugh another camera won't work.

    If you are and you don't have any other lighting could you post a sceencap of your Volume Camera settings as it is the Volume Camera you need to do this effect.

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,885
    edited December 1969

    JimmyC_2009 said:
    I'm sorry, I forgot the important part, I don't know if these will work in DS 4 or 4.5, but hopefully someone will. There were changes made to the SDK for 4.5, but they may not affect this item.


    I had some correspondence with Age of Armour about this when 4.5 first came out. According to him, everything works correctly in 4.5 except for the contrast function, which causes some "mosaic like effects". He wasn't sure at the time why. One person had some difficulty during the release candidates testing phase, but that's all I've heard about.

    Since it uses Shader Mixer, it wouldn't be compatible with any other renderer.

  • ParallaxMasterParallaxMaster Posts: 12
    edited December 1969

    Szark said:
    I have used them in DS4.5.1.6

    WHat other lights have you got in the scene and are you looking throught the AOA Camera itself as looking and rendering thriugh another camera won't work.

    If you are and you don't have any other lighting could you post a sceencap of your Volume Camera settings as it is the Volume Camera you need to do this effect.

    Szark:

    It turns out that the intensity on my sunlight (a distant light) was high enough that it was washing out the effect. I now have the beans from the subs headlights showing up in the volume. So at least I know that the cameras do work. I will have to tweak the volume and light parameters until I get the effect I'm after. Thank you to all who responded.

    ParallaxMaster

    —God wanted us to see in 3D; otherwise, He would have given us only one eye.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Great stuff. I wondered if that was the case and yes these cameras aren't click, load and render and after using them a few times I am still playing with the settings and scratching my head...but I am getting there. :)

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