This is very cool!! could you explain a bit how to use it? I tried without luck, when i run the script the Camera’s target is Detached from the camera (marked with green circle) and the view is changed.
Sorry I didn’t have much time yesterday when I replied but I’ll try to go through a few points now. The script I posted isn’t a finished tool, it’s little more than a proof of concept really. However you should be able to get it to work with a bit of help.
I have updated the script in my earlier post because it didn’t work with targeted cameras (as you found) and it now makes a copy of the camera you select so you don’t lose your original camera settings. It works by animating the horizontal and vertical offset and roll of the camera over the next 20 frames. It also randomly varies the white balance, shutter speed and vignetting slightly.
So the steps the use the script are:
1. Pick a VRay camera.
2. Run the script.
3. Change the camera viewport to the new camera.
4. Render frames 1 to 20 from the new camera. (400 x 300 px should be ok.)
5. Open the rendered frames in photoshop (or similar).
6. In photoshop create a new image (Something like 2000 x 1500 px) and copy and paste the frames as new layers into the new image. The frames are rotated slightly so you need to rotate them back so they line up correctly. The amount you need to rotate them is the camera Y rotation for that frame. If you select the camera and move the time slider you can see this in the transform type-in box in Max.
Well what can i say, thank you very very much for your help!! is working really cool now…this is a quick test without using all the frames. What i like of using this technique is the ability to focus in the subject you consider important (rather than giving a “generic impersonal rectangle frame”), judiciously, like this shot.
Will play with this tool a lot, thanks again!!
EDITED: Second one using Photomerge from photoshop, he did not like frames from 16-20 (were ignored from the comp.)
Glad you got it working and there’s no need to thank me I didn’t write it just for you :).
It really needs a GUI, if I have time will add one next week. In the mean time, there are some variables in the script that you could try changing. At the moment it makes 20 images in a 5 x 4 array. This is controlled be the lines:
local [FONT=monospace]xShots = 5
local yShots = 4[/FONT]
So if you want more images you just need to change these.
You could also change the focal length (and therefore the field of view) with [FONT=monospace]UserCam.focal_length = 80[/FONT]
Increasing this will make the rendered frames zoom in more.
You probably worked all that out for yourself anyway…
Btw, thanks for the tip using photomerge, it took me about 20 minutes to put my image together.
Thanks, I’m a bit snowed under at work at the moment so I didn’t have time to post any instructions for using the new version. It should be quite straightforward though. The main changes are:
1. The preview - but only meant to be a rough guide to the what the final output will be.
2. Added Auto Roll Camera - rolls the camera more in the corner images.
Anyway give it a try and if you find any bugs let me know.
I am having force closes every time i try to use the script :(, after creating the frames no matter what i do (click “X” icon to exit script…etc) Max is freezed.
Could you please post the previous 0.1 and/or 0.2 versions? will test these for a real arch. school project