DS Atmospheric Effects cameras - question

Storypilot

I saw it at the 8.97 price at first and was considering getting it, and then realized I wasn't logged in, and it went down to 4.49 for me. i'm a PC member. i jumped on it immediately. I'm not sure why it has the discount, but it does seem it is tied to PC.

kyoto kid

...not sure either as it isn't listed as a DO. Maybe he's just being generous (or has something new in the pipeline?).

Tramp Graphics

Well, regardless, I snagged it anyway. It definitely looks like a useful tool to have in the arsenal.

kyoto kid

...I find it will be very handy for a lot of my Sprawl scenes.

nightkin

i'm having a few problems using the volume camera outdoors - it doesnt seem to work well with skydomes and totally messes up worldbase xtreme because even dim lights are flooding the sky, and losing the cloud details. does anybody have any tips for this? i can just about get away with using cyclorama and backdrops - but even they are not coming out perfect.

Artini

nightkin said:

this is a nice simple set to show how to get the god rays from the volume camera. I have loaded a simple cyclorama backdrop (but even a vertical wall would do) and created a primitive plane for a reflective floor. I loaded genesis with a female shape, and a few clothes, then chose a nice pose. the only lights in the scene are two spotlights - one above Genesis and slightly to one side, then angled downwards. I viewed the scene through the spotlight, and then rotated and zoomed to get the light pointing where i wanted. I made the angle quite narrow, and made the light fairly intense.

the other spotlight is on the floor and angled upwards , with a low intensity and tinted so as to simulate light reflected from the shiny floor.

Now for the camera. I loaded the Volume camera, set the light density pretty high (.0046), and set the volume density at .0021. I also set the quality high, because otherwise it will look somewhat grainy. I set the cameras color to yellow - but thats just a matter of personal choice.

if you follow those steps, you should get the same effects. if there is too much light, try reducing the intensity of the spots.

Thanks a lot for your tutorial, nightkin. Thanks to it, I could manage to render my first scene with the Volume camera.

Joe Cotter

Sorry, forgot about this thread.. In response to my earlier statement, basically from what I understand (and anyone can correct me if I misspeak) shaders refer basically to any treatment of modifying lighting in the scene, thus camera, volume etc shaders. Shaders that modify surfaces are modifying the interaction of light with that particular surface. Shaders that are attached to a light source modify light that are directly tied to that light source, and thus same with camera shaders.. they are modifying light that is channeled through that particular camera. This is why one needs to use the specific camera tied to the effect shader to see the effect. In the end, the light processing is a cumulative effect of all shaders involved between point of origin light sources, around the scene with interaction of various surfaces, and then back through the camera in question. I hope this helps. Sorry if this is not clear, I was on my way to bed but didn't want to forget to answer this again.

In the end, it's all painting with light.

kyoto kid

nightkin said:

i'm having a few problems using the volume camera outdoors - it doesnt seem to work well with skydomes and totally messes up worldbase xtreme because even dim lights are flooding the sky, and losing the cloud details. does anybody have any tips for this? i can just about get away with using cyclorama and backdrops - but even they are not coming out perfect.

...here is a scene I did with a skydome (Cloud9) using the fog camera just to give a sense of distance & depth. Notice the clouds are still visible.

OK here are the settings I used:

I used the "Haze" preset in the camera presets (this resets the maximum fog visibility to 600meters and gives it a slight a bluish tint).

Fog Visibility: set to 1000 meters This is accomplished by changing the maximum of the visibility parameter slider (click on the small gear on the upper corner of the slider and then select "Parameter Settings" that will open up the settings pane where you can change the maximum value).

Fog Off-On: set to 0.55 (this effectively reduces the fog opacity)

Fog Vignette: Set to 25%

Fog Multiplier: Set to 140. Note: this is a hidden control which can be activated by selecting on "Show Hidden Properties" (click on the small square at the upper right corner of the Parameters Tab). This will need the maximum parameter reset just like was done for Visibility above. I set it to 200.

Hope this helps.