3dcheapskate opened this issue on Dec 18, 2014 · 11 posts
3dcheapskate posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 9:03 AM
This is a follow-on from my "Focal Length Value For An Exact 90 Degree FOV ?" thread here in the Poser forum. The conclusion from that thread was that a dolly cam focal length of exactly 12.7mm produces an exact 90° FOV, accurate down to the individual pixels of a 2000x2000 render.
My next step is to create six separate 2000x2000 cubemap renders (north, east, south, west, up, and down is the way I like to refer to them) that butt together into a vertical cross cubemap. This is going very nicely, except for one thing...
The problem I have now is that parts of the plane I'm using for the ground do not get rendered, but seem to be clipped as per the annotated image below:
I'm using Poser 9 Firefly renderer, Manual Settings - 'Acquire From Auto' halfway between Draft and Final, and then IDL enabled and Irradiance caching and Indirect Light Quality both set to 50.
The groundplane is a single sided square, 4 vertices and 1 face, scaled at 1250%.
I don't think it's anything to do with 'Hither' and 'Yon', since these are only relevant to the preview (I think?)
I don't think it's anything to do with displacement, as I have the same problem with "Use Displacement Maps" UNchecked in Render Settings
Anyone have any ideas?
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
bagginsbill posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 9:12 AM
Sorry I don't have a solution - I'm just here to chime in and say I see this, too. When it happens I either move the camera or I delete the whole scene and play Skyrim.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)
3dcheapskate posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 9:39 AM
I'm not a gamer, so Skyrim isn't an option for me. I'll try a third option - go to bed and hope the problem goes away... ;o)
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
markschum posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 11:15 AM
what have you got as the poser ground ? could that be interfering.
3dcheapskate posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 10:02 PM
Okay, new day new ideas.
markschum - I used a separate ground prop because I want the dolly camera at (0,0,0) and my ground slightly below that - the default Poser GROUND prop has no way to adjust its height. I made the default Poser GROUND prop invisible (Visible, Visible In Raytracing, and Cast Shadows are UNchecked; Visible In Camera is checked) so it shouldn't be having any effect... but I guess it could be some odd interaction. Definitely worth trying a couple of tests.
But before that...
I recall that large values for 'Scale' can sometimes cause odd things to happen, so I tried reducing my groundplane's scale from 1250% to 100%. The bottom parts of the N, E, S and W renders are no longer clipped, but the right half of the groundplane in the W render is still not showing. Here's the W, N, E, S renders butted together (renders were 500x500 - I got the same result with a 2048x2048 render, so I don't think render dimensions have anything to do with the problem
I'm wondering whether my groundplane having only 4 vertices (1 face) may have something to do with it, so it's probably worth trying with a mesh groundplane - the Poser GROUND prop for example.
(sidenote: the reason I'm using a 4 vertex ground plane is that it enables me to use displacement to make the ground bumpy. If I use a mesh I get artefacts along the mesh grid if I'm using AO - example image of that effect here http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2557344 )
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
3dcheapskate posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 10:53 PM
I just tried using the Poser GROUND prop instead of my DIY groundplane. I moved the dolly camera up a bit (36" above the origin) to put it the same height above the ground as my original.
Here's the 'West' render with the GROUND scaled at 100% - everything seems as it should (the ground prop isn't big enough to reach to the buildings):
But here's the 'West' render with the GROUND scaled at 1250% (the 'North render seems fine - haven't tried 'South' or 'East' yet):
Hmmm... not sure if I can draw any conclusions yet.
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
3dcheapskate posted Thu, 18 December 2014 at 11:12 PM
Continued from previous post (timeout for editing)... Even with the Poser GROUND prop scaled at 12500% the N, S, and E renders are okay, but the W render has the problem noted above.
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
SamTherapy posted Fri, 19 December 2014 at 4:14 PM
I've had this happen numerous times but I've yet to figure out a consistent way to beat it. the only solution which seems to work - some of the time - is to use a much higher res mesh for the ground. I couldn't give you a figure for that, unfortunately; you'll just have to faff about.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
3dcheapskate posted Sat, 20 December 2014 at 12:12 AM
I've had this happen numerous times but I've yet to figure out a consistent way to beat it. the only solution which seems to work - some of the time - is to use a much higher res mesh for the ground. I couldn't give you a figure for that, unfortunately; you'll just have to faff about.
I'm still chipping away at this little conundrum. Your "using a higher resolution mesh" seems to tie in with the results I'm seeing - I'd really like to nail this one down by coming up with some figures! I think it's worth summarizing my thoughts so far.
I'm fairly sure there are two distinct (although probably related) problems, which likely occur under a broader range of conditions than I state here (I assume that you're using more 'normal' FOV values when you see this? I don't think many people use a 90° FOV?):
1)The bottom edge of a 1-face/4-vertex groundplane being 'clipped' in a 90° FOV horizontal (N, S, E, or W-facing) render. My thoughts so far (for which I'm still doing more tests) are that this seems to occur when the face exceeds a certain size - increasing the scale definitely causes it, but I'm not sure yet whether increasing the size of the square's actual geometry does.
Also it can be only part of a face that's clipped (i.e. when using a 1-face/4-vertex groundplane).
When using a multi-face mesh it appears to be only the closeset face(s) in the right hand side of the West render that get clipped.
When using a multi-face mesh it seems to occur when the mesh/faces exceed a certain size - increasing the scale definitely causes it, but I'm not sure yet whether increasing the size of the square's actual geometry does.
(I get a very vague idea that there could be an error in the maths with one of the circular functions, under very specific circumstances - but that's just grabbing at straws! )
Like I already said there's more tests to try.
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
3dcheapskate posted Sat, 20 December 2014 at 7:12 AM
Okay, I've discovered a bit more. Even with the standard Poser GROUND prop unscaled (i.e. scale = 100%) the closest squares of the ground mesh in the right half of the west-facing render (dollycam yaw = 90) are still somehow being 'clipped'. (I had to open up the FOV even more to see this - I used a focal length of just 2.5mm. See the image below)
Then on a whim I set the dollycam pitch to -0.00000001 and rerendered - the groundplane rendered correctly.
But most curiously, when I set the dollycam pitch back to exactly zero and rerendered the groundplane still rendered correctly.
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity
3dcheapskate posted Sun, 21 December 2014 at 1:16 AM
The 'setting Pitch to a non-zero value and then setting it back' that I mentioned in the previous post - I haven't been able to repeat it. Setting Pitch to a couple of degrees down (e.g. -5°) does appear to get rid of the 'right half of the west-facing render groundplane'. But that's no help, since I need an exact 0° pitch.
However, following SamTherapy's suggestion I tried using the Poser 9 "Square Hi-Res" primitive prop for the ground instead. Even scaled at 10000% it seemed to render fine (I'd also raised the dollycam to be 72" above the origin)
So I now have my first 8192x4096 lat/long (±180° azimuth / ±90° elevation) Poser-generated environment map (I used HDRShop v1 to convert from vertical cross cubemap to lat/long map). Here's a reduced version of my first success, with complete groundplane - no holes!
My attempts to understand why the 'right-half of the west-facing render' problem occurs are now floundering. But since SamTherapy's workaround seems to work for my particular situation I don't think I'll bother investigating further - unless somebody has a bright idea.
The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours - DAZ and Renderosity