Keying Visability

[FLP]

So I'm trying to animate a 360 spin around a building. The preferred FOV and framing takes the camera through a few buildings in the foreground. I need the buildings in question to produce shadows and reflections still. My preference is to do this in one pass.

1. I have tried this with camera clipping on but it clips the HDRI background resulting in a black background.
2. I tried turning off Visible to Camera in the object properties but I can Key it on or off. FYI I can do this in C4D no prob and that's pissing me off lol
3. I tried the Vray clipper but I cant key it on or off either

Any thoughts or am I missing something?

[rivoli]

there's a visibility spinner in the object's properties, that one can be animated. if it's greyed out make sure the properties are controlled by object and not by layer. do you think that can work?

[Svetlozar Draganov]

there's a visibility spinner in the object's properties, that one can be animated. if it's greyed out make sure the properties are controlled by object and not by layer. do you think that can work?

Nope, this won't fit the requirements since the object will disappear completely from the scene while FLP would like to keep its shadows, reflections etc.
I'll try to figure something out and will update the thread afterwards.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

OK, I found one way to do that and it's with 3dsMax scene states.
1.Create two states, one where objects will be with Visible to Camera enabled and another one with Visible to Camera disabled. I tested it with Visible to Camera from Object Properties but I guess it will work with V-Ray Properties as well.
2.Set the desired frame range for each Scene State.
3.Render All States from State Sets editor.

This is something like a workaround for keying Visible to Camera checkbox.

I guess there are other ways to do the same thing but let's see if this one works for you or not.

[rivoli]

it makes sense. I guess it may even work with two copies of the same object: one invisible to camera, and the other one with animated visibility but invisible to reflections, refractions, gi and so on.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Duplicated meshes are not the best way to do that.
It often leads to confusion and if meshes are heavy it will even affect render time and viewport performance.

[FLP]

OK, I found one way to do that and it's with 3dsMax scene states.
1.Create two states, one where objects will be with Visible to Camera enabled and another one with Visible to Camera disabled. I tested it with Visible to Camera from Object Properties but I guess it will work with V-Ray Properties as well.
2.Set the desired frame range for each Scene State.
3.Render All States from State Sets editor.

This is something like a workaround for keying Visible to Camera checkbox.

I guess there are other ways to do the same thing but let's see if this one works for you or not.

Thanks for the feedback. I did end up using the duplicate mesh method as I needed a quick solution for a WIP shot. You are correct in that the dup mesh method is confusing and difficult to change (with updated meshes).

Followup quiestion, does Maya have the ability to key check boxes akin to C4D ?

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Yes, Maya allows keying checkbox attributes like Primary Visibility through Attribute Spread Sheet editor.

[rivoli]

Duplicated meshes are not the best way to do that.

yep, it's certainly less elegant.