Camera exposure in the environment tab

[Neilg]

Putting in a request for a camera exposure atmospheric effect.

Once a scene gets setup with a physical camera sun/sky setup, you cant render from the perspective viewport at all. Which means for every test render you want to do when modeling or setting up materials you have to create a new camera, move it into position and deal with awkward camera controls - instead of just pointing the viewport at it and clicking render.


If you could copy the physical camera exposure settings to a section of the atmospheric plugins to be able to render with them from the perspective view that'd make stuff like this so much easier.
One thing that would be essential is to have it look what camera you render from - if standard, use the environment exposure, if physical then it can ignore the environment exposure.

How plausiable is this?

I encounter it nearly every time I work on someone elses scene here and it's infuriating.

[vlado]

You can turn off the camera exposure and only use the color mapping options to get the desired scene brightness; that's what I do anyways.

The last thing we need is yet one more place for exposure control, I think

Best regards,
Vlado

[Neilg]

What if the exposure needs to stay exactly the same between the two and you want to be able to switch between them quickly - as far as i'm aware i'm way out of luck on that one?
I'm after a vray light mtl situation I guess.


i cant believe i'm the only one who would want this, i'm fighting an uphill battle in the office and on here :/

[vlado]

What if the exposure needs to stay exactly the same between the two

Between which two? The camera and the color mapping?

and you want to be able to switch between them quickly - as far as i'm aware i'm way out of luck on that one?

How is an exposure control in the environment dialog going to help in this case?

I'm just trying to understand what is exact reasoning behind the wish

Further on, can use an exposure control in the Environment dialog even now for this purpose (to tone down an overbright rendering of a perspective view).

Best regards,
Vlado

[sv]

Just my two cents, but the curves controls in the vray frame buffer provide MORE than enough exposure control for perspective renders using sun/sky or really high range hdri, and it's real time, and it'll work for any exposure setting.
The vray fb controls are way better than even nukes colourlookup systems IMHO.

[simmsimaging]

I would second CG's wish - this is a common hassle for me to. I understand you can work around it with colour mapping, but it's not as fast or intuitive as fstops and shutterspeeds, and I think it will cause more confusion when working with LWF. Maybe not, but I can see potential problems for me anyway.

What about a compromise: add a radio button like the material override that could get added to the colour mapping rollout (or camera rollout), something like: "get exposure from physical camera" where you can pick your physical camera. Then it could apply the exposure set on the camera to all viewport renders. That way you still have to set exposure only in one place.

I would also still kill for an exposure lock feature as well, so we could dial up or down the fstops *or* shutter speed to simply control DOF or motion blur without having to dick around balancing exposure again.

/b

[Neilg]

How is an exposure control in the environment dialog going to help in this case?

I'm just trying to understand what is exact reasoning behind the wish

Sorry, er... I'll go through what made me want it:
- Someone else in our office makes a scene, does it with sun/sky and physical camera
- I get the scene to finish off/add some models to/change materials, but I dont use physical camera
- If I want to work how I do (lots of quick region renders from perspective view/different angles) I need to relight the entire scene to match theirs. Or create about 10 new cameras a minute just to be able to check if the materials look good in that particular lighting setup.
Changing the lighting isnt exactly the best way though, because it takes ages and they might be taking the scene back after me, wanting their original lighting back which i've just broke.
Changing the colour mapping would be really difficult to match to their lighting exactly and it'd need to be changed back to whatever else it was when i'm done.

I just wanted a copy of the camera settings that can be turned on or off outside of the physical camera, so I can render from perspective then switch it back for them straight away.


However it looks like i'm on my own for this, and it is just because of the way I work and some people in our office insisting on using the physical camera for everything. I'll have a look into the VFB curves, with real time feeback i might be able to get close enough that it doesnt matter.

[m_hinks]

Dont worry, I'm with you on this!! I insist on a Vray Cam/sun/sky setup for all my projects, but I do get annoyed at having to copy the camera, which is often being xref'd in, so I can render with exposure.

I wonder if all we're asking is to have a tick box on the frame buffer, where you can set some exposure controls as the camera has, and you can then toggle it on and off when
your in perspective, or camera? I realise I am going to be now told you can do this with the curves control in the frame buffer, but if the tick box was using the same three settings as the pcam has, you can just copy them from the camera and know the camera will redner the same.

The colour mapping option is a bit annoying as you might forget to reset the settings when you hand back the file to render in the camera.

Might be nice!

[jozef_chvojka]

exposure control in vray fbuffer

... well i usually adjust exposure slider in vray frame buffer when rendering from perspective view...
what would be great is a dynamic exposure slider - i often go beyond the minimal value of the slider and there is no way back from there recently other than turn off/on max.

regards,
.j

[muzzy]

What about a compromise: add a radio button like the material override that could get added to the colour mapping rollout (or camera rollout), something like: "get exposure from physical camera" where you can pick your physical camera. Then it could apply the exposure set on the camera to all viewport renders. That way you still have to set exposure only in one place.

/b

i had the same wish almost a year ago still wishing...

[vlado]

Hm, actually I like the last suggestion - an Exposure control plugin that allows you to pick a specfic camera for the settings, if not rendering from a physical camera.

Best regards,
Vlado

[simmsimaging]

Do you mean the control in the VFB as opposed to the rollout? Functionally it would be the same, but would the toggle in the VFB work with render managers / backburner type renders?

[rmejia]

How is an exposure control in the environment dialog going to help in this case?

I'm just trying to understand what is exact reasoning behind the wish

Further on, can use an exposure control in the Environment dialog even now for this purpose (to tone down an overbright rendering of a perspective view).

The exposure control in the environment dialog is the way Mental Ray controls it's exposure. Using the mr Photographic Exposure Control. The bad thing about that vs the VRay Physical Camera is that one can only have 1 set of exposure control, rather than multiple cameras each with it's own control. Using VRay if an additional exposure control were to control everything other than the Physical camera, like the perspective view, it would be a useful thing. Probably depends on one's own workflow. For exteriors I have a cam setup, but work a lot in perspective to set up the scene materials and objects. Unfortunately I can't render in perspective unless I lower the sun multiplier, which isn't so bad, but when there are many more lights in the scene ... it's a bit trickier. I'm all for a quick way to add exposure to the perspective view. Be it by controls in the environment dialog or a button in the VRay frame buffer.

Hm, actually I like the last suggestion - an Exposure control plugin that allows you to pick a specfic camera for the settings, if not rendering from a physical camera.

That idea sounds good!

[Neilg]

Hm, actually I like the last suggestion - an Exposure control plugin that allows you to pick a specfic camera for the settings, if not rendering from a physical camera.

Sorts my problem out too -my idea was probably a bit clumsy. I guess this is why i'm not a programmer

[s0real]

agreed. this would be a very useful feature for the work i do as well.