Interior / Exterior Settings

[JHuman]

I am doing a flythrough of a building for our clinets, but it requires starting on the outside then flying to the inside and back to the roof garden. Does anyone have a good setting that will work both interior and exterior. My exterior settings get to blotchy on interior, and my interior dosnt look right on the exterior. Thanks!

[Jackson_cg]

Re: Interior / Exterior Settings

More of a workaround than anything, but I've never found a satisfactory compromise between settings for interior and exterior shots- one or the other is always going to end up being very compromised IMO. In exactly the same way that a TV camera can't go from inside to outside without adjusting aperture size (plus countless other settings I imagine) V-Ray's camera will result in too dark blotchy interiors or way too bright exteriors. Not to mention that render times for rendering out interior shots are usually many times those for exterior, so you'd be taking a huge render time hit.

Combined with SU's worthless can't-even-move-smoothly-from-one-path-to-the-next camera control I've found it's far better (and all in all saves time) to edit the final film together in Wax 2.0 (freeware) and just fade between your interior and the exterior footage. It sounds like it would look a bit amateur, but it actually doesn't as it's exactly what an architectural cinematographer would do anyway, as the ideal lighting conditions for interior and exterior are almost never going to be at the same time of day/year. Another bonus is that rather than having to worry about an entire film being rendered out in one go which could take days or weeks, you can break it down into segments which, if you've got the time, can all be included in the final cut or if the deadline suddenly looms you can just edit together what you've got so far. It'll be shorter, but it'll look more finished. Speaking from bitter experience (one week of rendering wasted as PC restarted due to auto Windows update LOL).

Just my two cents worth,
hope this helps,
Jackson

[JHuman]

Re: Interior / Exterior Settings

Thanks Jackson. That was my first thought, but some of the interior to exterior runs are real short so I didnt want to have a whole bunch of fade in and fade outs. But, when I think of it, most of the flythroughs ive seen do that more often than not.

Yes, and I dont want it to get on the final frame and windows decides it needs a break, luckily though (in VR4SU)it saves individual frames and not a complete .avi, kind of a plus, i guess. I will give it a go and see what I come up with.
Thanks for the advice and help!

[Jackson_cg]

Re: Interior / Exterior Settings

Yep, you want to keep the fades to a minimum as it just gets annoying to watch if they're too frequent. Best idea is to plan your individual camera paths as linear and as long as possible, but in such a way that when they're edited together they won't be confusing, i.e. changing direction dramatically or from one side of the building to the other. Sometimes (especially from interior to exterior) it's best to fade to white (i.e. simulating camera over-exposure) and then fade in the next exterior segment.

[JHuman]

Re: Interior / Exterior Settings

Good idea.

I have circle around the building, then fly in lower through the main entrance in the lobby then in the elevator. Through the second floors out then out to the roof garden and back to the elevators. then a little more walkin around the third floor and end it somewhere. So that means like 5 or six fade in / outs. hmmm.

I really wish we had more than one license of vray, so I could do all the animations at the same time from different machines. Thanks!

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Interior / Exterior Settings

Sorry if I repeat what was previously said (sorry, its been a long day), but you're probably not going to get a good transition from interior to exterior. The last time I really did that successfully in an animation it was in Max and it involved animating camera parameters to actually adjust the exposure within the animation...obviously something that's not happening in VfSU.

I would really recommend separating the animation into at least 2 parts (one for the exterior, one for the interior) and splicing them together. My best suggestion would be to do that, then simulate a "harsh exposure transition" by darkening the sequence for a split second, then bringing it back up to proper exposure (take a video camera and run from a bright exterior to a dark room and you'll know what I mean...it will take a moment for the camera to adjust). The main reason for this would be more for a "artistic distraction" than anything else. Whether this actually sounds good for what you're going for is another thing...

[JHuman]

Re: Interior / Exterior Settings

No problem on the repeat Dalomar, I ran a couple of tests and no matter what settings I use one or the other (int / ext) stinks. So Im going to try out the suggestions. Thanks you guys. Oh, I just read in the other thread that you cannot use DR on animations!!!? This is going to take weeks to finish at this rate. Any other ideas to speed it up. Currently im running an animation out at 500 x 340 and it takes about 25 minutes a frame. Thanks