pumeco opened this issue on Jun 20, 2014 · 35 posts
pumeco posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 5:50 AM
For a long time time now, I've been wanting to be able to render my images using Anamorphics. I know what it is, what it results in, and what it requires in the physical world. But what I don't know is whether FireFly combined with some sort of scripting would be able to create an adjustable Anamorphic rendering lens for the Poser renderer.
Given the sophistication of the renderer and scripting abilities in Poser, I suppose the idea of creating a physically modeled lens to render through is not too far fetched, but due to all the stuff I read about reflection and refraction in FireFly, I'm wondering if there is something that would render the idea useless.
Would Bagginsbill or anyone else consider making an anamorphic plugin so that we get stretched bokeh in the same way we do when shooting through a real Anamorphic lens? Something that lets us control the geometry of the lens so that we can adjust the squeeze? I think it would sell to pretty much anyone who puts real effort into their renders because seriously, Anamorphic bokeh just looks grand, impressive, magnificent!
It's absolute awesomeness!
cspear posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 9:46 AM
Select the camera and individually adjust the scaling for X and Y axes.
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MikeMoss posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 12:49 PM
Hi
I'm not sure what you want to do; there is no limit on the proportions of the image you create in Poser.
I have done 360 degree images, that are something like 600 pixels high and 6000 pixels wide.
I don't see what the advantage of having it stored in a squeezed format would be.
As I remember anamorphics was developed to allow cinematographers to make wide angle shots on film that was the old 3 by 4ish format.
The lens recorded the image or video, in a format that was squeezed to fit the film, and then when it was projected the lens on the projector did the reverse and expanded it again.
There's no real reason to do that in computer images or graphics because you can just make the image any size you want to start with, there is no limitation as to what format it has to be.
Mike
If you shoot a mime, do you need a silencer?
pumeco posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 2:17 PM
I can hardly believe it, I'll have to pinch myself because I thought nah, that's just too easy and obvious, it's too good to be true, but ah wow, it actually does work! Why on earth isn't this features listed as something that can do Anamorphic rendering?
I mean even a physically based renderer like Octane can't do it. I just did a quick test to see if you was misundersatanding the stretching I was after. My first attempt was to stretch the camera lens in the vertical direction. It worked but in the wrong direction, but the fact that it worked at all literally had me speechless, staring at the damn screen!
So then I tried shrinking the camera horizontally by 25% and ... well ... lets just say you made my day, my week, my month, my year. Wow, actual Anamorphic rendering in Poser all this damn time and I had no idea. As far as I'm aware there are very few renderers out there that can actually do this and I've wanted it sooooooooo badly ever since I got interested in DSLR movie making stuff and Anamorphic lenses!
Anyway, thank you so much, haha, you really have no idea how excited I am to learn that I can finally render scenes with real Anamorphic bokeh, I was begging the Octane guys for it, and it's there in the excellent FireFly all this time :-D :-D :-D
@Mike
Ah yes, but the real Anamorphic beauties we can fit to our cameras were, like you said, for the purpose of Cinemascope (proper widescreen). It's not the wideness of the shots that are a problem for a renderer because of course, we can set it however we want.
The problem with Anamorphics in a renderer is that if you simply render something with a wide aspect ratio, you still lack the vertically stretched bokeh that you get from a real Anamorphic lens, and that's a problem because it's the stretched bokeh that makes things look so cinematic.
But wow, we can actually do full-on Anamorphic rendering by creating a wider scene and shrinking the camera horizontally, then, just as with real Anamorphic footage or images, we squeeze it back in postwork. Check it out, my first successfull Anamorphic render ever!
Notice the difference between the look of the bokeh?
I had the aperture at 1.8 so it's not too heavy in this demonstration, but there's no limit to how far you can push it other than computer resources I suppose. There are no different settings to the focus or aperture between those images, it's just that one is True Anamorphic and the other is just standard defocus bokeh.
You can't tell in that image, but Anamorphic makes things look bigger and more impressive, extremely cinematic, and when you pan around things look very different to shooting through a standard lens. This is absolutely fantastic news, I was already extremely impressed with FireFly but this really is the cream as far as I'm concerned.
Wow!
pumeco posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 3:29 PM
Ah man, some bad news, sort of.
Just noticed that although it works, it's something that is going to need tweaking depending on camera angle, so you need to set your camera angle before setting up the stretch ratio. The reason is that it's not actually distorting the camera, it's stretching the whole scene.
If I rotate the camera on that test, she is the normal aspect ratio from a side view!
Arrrgh!
Shame, although I suppose it could be fixed with scripting, something that causes the stretch to be independent of the camera view. Basically, we're getting the Anamorphic bokeh, but it's effect is independent from the camera. Shouldn't be a problem for stills but it's not going to work for animation if the camera rotates.
Still, the fact that we can render stills in Anamorphic format is fantastic, I'm going to be playing with this big-time!
pumeco posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 3:59 PM
Update!
Good news again, just set Camera zScale and xScale to the same value!
More tests to do, but it seems to be working :-)
pumeco posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 6:18 PM
Nah, not working properly.
It's perfectly doable for stills, but for animation there needs to be a way of ensuring the right amount of stretch on each axis as the camera is rotated. Z and X works for orbiting in parallel around an object, but as soon as you start looking from above, it's wrong and the axis needs changing.
Bit of a bummer that is, but at least it works for stills!
shvrdavid posted Fri, 20 June 2014 at 8:22 PM
What part of Anamorphic are you after?
By definition Anamorphic is basically a squished image that is stretched out horizontally later.
Doing so in Poser seems counter productive since you don't have any film limitations.
If you are after the effects that you can get, you could model a lense and set the shaders up on it to give the effects that Poser is capable of producing.
BB already posted how to do artistic lenses on a flat plane and some of the effects an anamorphic lense produces could be done on a plane with shaders. I don't remember which forum the thread was on, wish I did to point you to it.
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pumeco posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 4:24 AM
Cheers David, I saw BB's lens effects on a plane but that's not going to work for Anamorphic, at least I doubt it.
Basically, yes, Anamorphic squeezes more into the frame but that's not a problem for any renderer, you just set-up a wide shot and a cinematic aspect ratio. It's the result of using Anamorphic lenses that I'm after. There are basically four effects that come of using real Anamorphic lenses:
1 - True Widescreen
2 - Anamorphic Bokeh
3 - Anamorphic Flares
4 - Anamorphic Convergence
The reason we can get Anamorphic Bokeh in Poser is because when we scale the camera, it actually scales the scene, and that's important because what it means is that whatever is in font of the camera still gets a normal DoF blur. In other words, what is in front of the camera is stretched, but the bokeh (defocus effect) isn't.
Look at the demonstration I posted and you'll notice that both figures are identical, nothing was changed, but notice how she looks fatter in the non-Anamorphic image? That's the same difference you see when you look through a real Anamorphic lens, it looks like that because when the image has been squeezed back to the normal aspect ratio, it means that everything that was captures is sort of reversed.
What was stretched, now is not (in this case Roxie).
What was not stretched, now is (in this case, the bokeh).
This causes the subject to be correct but the bokeh gets stretched vertically, that's proper full-on Anamorphic bokeh! Convergence is related the the defocus, and basically, it just makes everything look different, bigger and somehow more impressive even without any notable amount of defocus going on.
To explain it, here are some videos I posted when requesting it for Octane.
Video 1 demonstrates Anamorphic bokeh (the stretched defocus effect I'm after):
Anamorphic Bokeh
Video 2 demonstrates Anamorphic flares and the largeness effect:
Anamorphic Flares and the tall 'Largeness' (convergence) effect
Video 3 Demonstrates Anamorphic in general (short ad midway, but stay tuned, good video):
Anamorphic Demonstration
On the opening shots of that last video, you'll hopefully be able to tell that there's something very different about the footage even without defocus, it's because it's Anamorphic. Anyone who's into cinematography or videography will understand. Even people who have no interest in it know there is something pleasing about Anamorphics even though they don't understand what it is. Just looks nice, more impressive, everything looks bigger and better.
BTW, I hope you watch those videos, you'll be glad you watched them if it triggers something in you (and that happens a lot with Anamorphics because the look cannot be beaten).
Oh, and David, be a good chap and watch them in order if you do watch them ;-)
You'll also learn where Anamorphic came from, and believe it or not, it had nothing to do with cinema!
pumeco posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 5:55 AM
shvrdavid posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 10:56 AM
I know how they work, you can build one with 2 prisms. Let me experiment with it and see if it can be done in Poser with just a plane and shaders.
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pumeco posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 12:02 PM
Good luck with the shader experiment, I hope you can pull it off, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I've been experimenting myself, I've managed to get Bryce to do Anamorphic rendering even without the ability to scale the camera along an axis. That at least means there's more than one way to do this even though until yesterday, I thought there were none!
But yup, in Bryce the trick is to use Camera Space and you can do Anamorphic renders! I'm especially pleased Bryce can do it, she never fails to be able to pull off a rendering or material effect, there always seems to be a way to do everything in Bryce when it comes to that stuff.
Bryce version attached, again not applied very hard, Anamorphic on the left, standard on the right. Anamorphic bokeh looks so much better. I hate standard bokeh in comparison, especially from renderers because standard bokeh almost always looks like that toy camera effect.
shvrdavid posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 12:51 PM
Your versions are missing the color shift at the sides.
I doubt two prisms in Poser would work, Poser does not have caustics.
I'm still experimenting with it on a plane, I can get the shift and the blur, but it desaturates the image. More experimentation obviously required... lol...
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pumeco posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 1:06 PM
Not bothered about shift at the edges, it's just the bokeh and convergence that are important. I like to postwork renders to analogify them anyway, so shift is nothing to be concerned about. Actually, I reckon shift towards the edges is going to be small-fry compared to the actual bokeh and convergence. To be honest, I think you're underestimating what needs to be calculated when you attempt to do it on a plane.
If you pull it off using a plane, you're one disgustingly clever dude, put it that way :biggrin:
Don't forget, the bokeh needs to stretch depending on it's distance from the camera if you're going about it that way, and I can't imagine how you're going to simulate convergence correctly using a plane! That said, I know Poser is crazy sophisticated, so who knows!
WandW posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 3:47 PM
Here's BB's "Artistic Lens" thread...
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2754029&page=1
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maxxxmodelz posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 4:34 PM
Quote - I mean even a physically based renderer like Octane can't do it.
You sure? Did you try switching the camera lense from "Thin Lens" to "Panoramic"? You can use Spherical or Cylindrical cameras from that point, then render to any aspect ratio you want.
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pumeco posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 4:47 PM
**
@Rod**
It's major cool but it doesn't do Anamorphic. That said, it's because of that lens filter that I mentioned Baggins in the title of the thread.
There's stuff it does that I have interest in (CA for example), but I can't see any Anamorphic stuff. It would be the icing on the cake if it did, but like I said to David, I can't see it being possible to do Anamorphics with a plane due to a convergence effect being involved.
I could be wrong though, and probably am :-P
@Maxxxmodelz
Sounds promising, is that something from the new version?
maxxxmodelz posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 6:16 PM
The Panoramic camera has been in Octane since v1.2. There's options to use a spherical and cylindrical lens to create panoramic shots. You were always able to change the aspect ratio to whatever you wish. Any image size dimensions are possible under the "custom" aspect ratio selection.
Tools : 3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender
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shvrdavid posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 9:18 PM
Exaggerated to show effects.
If used in an animation you may have to keep world center: well in the center of view, rotate the scene instead of the camers, and some interesting groupings and animations.... Didn't experiment with it in animations.
I doubt it will work so well with IDL and SSS.
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shvrdavid posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 9:50 PM
Preview
Rendered
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shvrdavid posted Sat, 21 June 2014 at 11:02 PM
Hmm, noticed it does not always work right....
Back to the drawing board i guess....
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pumeco posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 4:41 AM
**
@Maxxmodelz**
I actually started a thread on the Octane forum literally begging for Anamorphic, and while one guy gave it a good effort and there was some enthusiasm about Anamorphics, no one was able to join in and mention what you just pointed out.
I'll take a look, see what youy're on about!
BTW, here's the thread if you're curious:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=38859
@David
All the same, big thumbs up for the fact that it looks more organic than the standard render. It looks more sort of Fisheye than Anamorphic but I just downloaded it and will have a nosey at it (it's a good way for me to secretly pick at your brains).
:biggrin:
shvrdavid posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 8:39 AM
It still has fish eye in it, still trying to figure out how to get an all vertical effect out of it.
There is probably a way to do it that is just eluding me.
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maxxxmodelz posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 9:28 AM
I don't know then. I guess it isn't what you're looking for. Here's my renders using the panoramic camera, at the exact same screen resolution I have uploaded. The first one is cylindrical.
Tools : 3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender
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maxxxmodelz posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 9:30 AM
Thanks to Luxxeon for the great modern clocks.
Tools : 3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender
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maxxxmodelz posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 9:38 AM
I forgot the DOF, aperture, etc. You can test all that yourself I guess. This prob isn't what you want, but it's there to play around with.
Tools : 3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender
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pumeco posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 10:17 AM
@David
To be fair, I'm surprised you're trying to do it with a plane. We know for a fact that Poser has the ability to do Anamorphic rendering thanks to the ability to stretch the camera axis. All we need now is a script that monitors the camera trackball and applies the stretch to each axis in the correct amounts.
With that, it would even work perfectly for animation!
For a 2X Anamorphic lens for example, all we need is a plugin that automatically stretches the axis 2X in the X direction of the camera plane. The problem at the moment is that the camera scaling doesn't actually scale using camera coordinates, it scales uses object coordinates.
If we were able to look at a scene from any angle and then scale what we see along the X axis of the actual camera plane, that would work perfectly no matter what angle the scene is viewed from. Unfortunaltely I cannot see any option in Poser for scaling using camera coordinates, so I reckon a script is the best way to do it.
@Maxxxmodelz
Thanks, but yup, it's not the same thing. I just took another look at Octane but it seems to have no capabilities in doing Anamorphics other than messing around manually after setting your camera angle. There's no camera scaling or scaling of objects based on camera coordinates. Bryce for example, can pull off Anamorphics because it has a camera coordinate system called 'Camera Space', but unfortunatley, Octane doesn't have that, so even that way of doing it is not an option in Octane.
Nice renders BTW!
shvrdavid posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 10:25 AM
You still need an object to do the parts of it that the camera can not do. Yes you can scale the scene, render, unscale, move it, the scale it up and render again. But you wont get the entire effect that a true lense produces. There is far more to it than just scaling the x axis.
A script to do so just the x scaling could be made, but it would be far easier to just figure out how to do it with something parented to the camera. You could do what you are trying to do with magnet parented to the camera and the effect on all objects set to world space.
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pumeco posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 10:48 AM
I still reckon a script is the way to go for the Anamorphic stretching, it's flawless!
If you're talking about other stuff like flares, then yes, I agree, that would be something for a plane parented to the camera to reproduce, but again, scripting would be involved to get it all working. So yup, for Anamorphic flare as well as Anamorphic bokeh I reckon a trackball-controlled object-scaling axis along with a camera-parented flare-processing plane would do it!
Hint ... try it or I'll set Roxie on ya :woot:
maxxxmodelz posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 10:51 AM
Funny thing. Anamorphic effects are simple to do with the standard, non-physical 3dsmax camera, and a little maxscript. Vray has a built in camera distortion and scaling option, and can do anamorphic the correct way. Vray might be the only "physical" camera I've seen that can do it. None of the "true" physical renderers I've seen have this feature. I'm going to check to see if Maxwell could do it, or Arnold. Not that it will help you here, but just to see, since they are supposedly two of the most powerful physical engines. Very interesting thread, Pumeco.
Tools : 3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender
v2.74
System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB
GPU.
pumeco posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 11:12 AM
Quote:
"Funny thing. Anamorphic effects are simple to do with the standard, non-physical 3dsmax camera, and a little maxscript. Vray has a built in camera distortion and scaling option, and can do anamorphic the correct way. Vray might be the only "physical" camera I've seen that can do it. None of the "true" physical renderers I've seen have this feature. I'm going to check to see if Maxwell could do it, or Arnold. Not that it will help you here, but just to see, since they are supposedly two of the most powerful physical engines. Very interesting thread, Pumeco."
Yes, please post anything you find out, I'd love to know which renderers officially handle Anamorphics :-)
Doesn't matter whether it helps directly, and anyway, I absolutely love Anamorphic images and footage and could bore people to tears about it so nothing Anamorphic would be out of place here, and I agree, it's strange that the true physical renderers don't seem to cater for it.
That's pretty much the angle I used with Octane, I basically asked *"If Octane is physically based, then why can't I get Anamorphic renders out of it?" * Maybe the physical aspect is strictly down to the light and materials and doesn't include the virtual glass you're shooting through.
shvrdavid posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 11:49 AM
Max supports it.
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Anamorphic+Bokeh
Arnold can simulate it.
https://support.solidangle.com/display/AFMUG/Perspective+Camera
Ironically OpenGl supports it live....
http://www.vrjuggler.org/index.php
http://www.aces.dri.edu/freevr/index.html
So does Direct3D.
Many game engines do as well.
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maxxxmodelz posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 12:35 PM
Quote - Max supports it.
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Anamorphic+Bokeh
Arnold can simulate it.
https://support.solidangle.com/display/AFMUG/Perspective+Camera
Ironically OpenGl supports it live....
http://www.vrjuggler.org/index.php
http://www.aces.dri.edu/freevr/index.htmlSo does Direct3D.
Many game engines do as well.
Great info there. Saves me the trouble of looking it up myself.
I'm not surprised that Maxwell and Arnold can do it. Maxwell has been used in production for years, and Arnold is on it's way to assuming the top spot as THE go-to render engine of some of the biggest studios in the industry. It's been known to handle any task you can throw at it.
Octane currently doesn't support it, apparently, but as Pumeco suggests, it's physical correctness is currently focused on lighting and material algorithms. However, I expect the cameras will follow suit in future releases. Octane is still only a baby, compared to some of these other physical render engines, like Maxwell, Vray, Arnold, etc. in terms of development. It's moving ahead farily quickly though.
Tools : 3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender
v2.74
System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB
GPU.
shvrdavid posted Sun, 22 June 2014 at 1:15 PM
Seems two of the links I added are not public, sorry about that...
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pumeco posted Mon, 23 June 2014 at 6:40 AM
Arnold looks really nice, though I must admit I'd never even heard of it until I saw it mentioned on this forum a few months back :-P
Anyway, nevermind Arnold, that's for the rich boys.
What I'd like to know is have you done that script yet? :woot:
