Single frame for a Nodal Pan...?

[dmf-123]

The other night I was rendering out a camera pass of an interior space. In this particular shot, the camera simply panned across the room, (in other words, the camera was stationary and I only animated the target position). I believe the technical term for this is a 'nodal pan.' It was a rather wide angle camera so there was a bit of a fish eye distortion as the camera moved across the space.

Anyhow, as I was working I was thinking, since there really isn't any 3d movement in this shot, couldn't I render a single frame and then move cross it in post? Obviously moving a flat image from left to right in post looks really lame, but if there was a way to simulate the distortion of the lens, it should be the same as rendering it all out, frame by frame, right? I'm guessing that's what most people would do, and perhaps the purpose of the cylindrical or spherical camera types in the vray settings...? I'd imagine the workflow would be something like rendering a spherical image, then mapping it onto a sphere in After Effects, then animating a 3d camera within After Effects, or something...? Does anyone have a good explanation of this workflow...?

[dmf-123]

any ideas, anyone...?

[super gnu]

you could render out a spherical cam and plop it in the environment slot of an empty max scene.. copy your animated camera in from your original scene and render the anim.. would take about 10 secs to render

[dmf-123]

ah, yes, of course, that'll work! Good thinking Super Gnu, but it might take 15 sec if I'm rendering at that 10k

Even still though, I bet there is a way to do this in After Effects, and cut out the necessity of rendering any sequences in 3d... if only I knew compositing better...

[super gnu]

hehe.. im sure you could do it in aftereffects, but tbh ive never really used ae in 3d mode, somebody else might be able to help you there.. ive rendered out animated bg's in max like this before though (not this specific case, but hdri bg's etc) and it really goes so fast i wouldnt worry about finding another method. ive actually used max for compositing quite a few times, since i know the animation controls so much better there (man i hate the animation curves in ae.. they are totally different to max) and putting layers on planes arranged in 3d space, with opacity maps instead of masks as you would in a proper compositor.. u can use scanline for rendering it.. really is super fast.

[joconnell]

Yep you're right - with a nodal pan there's no parallax so it looks like a 2d pan on the image. You can indeed render out an oversize plate and then animate a pan on it in 2d. If you put a lens distortion tool over the top of this it'll warp the image more toward the edges of your frame and put a little bit of movement in. The only other thing that might change is things like flare / overexposure if your camera pans on to a bright light source. The warp and atmosphere might give it enough movement to work. Maybe make a viewport capture of a camera animation as a guide and try to replicate it in 2d after?

[dmf-123]

Thanks guys. I'll try that out.

[IVOR_IP]

You can even use software like pano tour to do it if you don't want to remap in ae. You are basically doing a qtvr shot.