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Unlocking the viewport so I can see large scenes

RemiliaSuttonRemiliaSutton Posts: 173
in Blender Discussion

Is there a way to unlock the viewport in blender 2.9x so I can see all of reeeeally large scenes like cityscapes or scenes from reeeeally high up? Is there a built in setting I have to toggle? Or do I have to purchase an addon and if so what where and for how much? Moving the city around to fit in the area that the viewport is not cutting off doesn't always work and Shrinking the cityscape causes it's own set of headaches. An high altitude scenes are currently a no go.

help please....

im new to blender just FYI. I'm trying to learn more Cg software to expand my creative horizons 

Comments

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 26,198
    You can unlock docking and then undock the viewport.
  • RL_MediaRL_Media Posts: 339
    edited September 2021

    Depends exactly what you mean. If your scene looks like it is just vanishing. Press N key, go to view tab, and add some 0's to the "end" box. That will allow the camera to see farther without just vanishing. If you just want to fit more into your view, and it's not vanishing, try lowering the "focal length" in the same view tab.

    Post edited by RL_Media on
  • margravemargrave Posts: 1,822
    edited September 2021

    RL_Media said:

    Depends exactly what you mean. If your scene looks like it is just vanishing. Press N key, go to view tab, and add some 0's to the "end" box. That will allow the camera to see farther without just vanishing.

    Note that increasing the distance between clipping planes will create rendering artifacts, so make sure to adjust the near plane as well.

    Post edited by margrave on
  • RL_MediaRL_Media Posts: 339

    Really? I never noticed that one. Usually I am adding zeros to the close pane so I can zoom in closer, so I suppose it's not as drastic affect being able to zoom in a tiny bit more, VS being able to see a few miles further.

  • margravemargrave Posts: 1,822

    RL_Media said:

    Really? I never noticed that one. Usually I am adding zeros to the close pane so I can zoom in closer, so I suppose it's not as drastic affect being able to zoom in a tiny bit more, VS being able to see a few miles further.

    IIRC, I think it has to do with Blender losing floating point precision when the range is too great. So if there's too much space between them, you'll see artifacts.

    Like you, I also immediately drop that near clipping plane and I agree it's never an issue there.

  • RemiliaSuttonRemiliaSutton Posts: 173

    Ummmm what are clipping planes? Where are they? Again newbie to blender speaking 

  • margravemargrave Posts: 1,822

    Press N in the 3D Viewport and go to the "View" header. It will be the first two fields, as RL_Media said.

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 3,220

    And hit ctrl-alt-space to maximize you screen realestate. Better yet, select Window|New Window and move it to a second monitor if you have one.

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 3,220

    RemiliaSutton said:

    Ummmm what are clipping planes? Where are they? Again newbie to blender speaking 

    The clipping planes are the minimum and maximum distance from the viewpoint where Blender will render objects.

  • brainmuffinbrainmuffin Posts: 1,267

    I used to know how to do this and tried it with a scene. I have a scene with Urban Future 3 (several animations made too) and Blender chokes on it when trying to navigate. I finally started placing cameras using the X/Y/Z corrdinates and rotating till I could see what was needed. Was faster than trying to scroll around using the geometric calculations of Blender. The other thing people do is scale items down and adjust the cameras accordingly.

  • RemiliaSuttonRemiliaSutton Posts: 173

    This claims to have a feature that does what I'm looking for. Anyone use this to deal with my issue of things like brainmuffin is talking about?

     

    https://blendermarket.com/products/physical-starlight-and-atmosphere

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 3,220
    edited October 2021

    That plugin is awesome and you should have it anyway, but it doesn't have anything to do with viewport navigation. It sets up environmental textures to light your scene naturally. As far as I know, it has nothing to do with the scene geometry at all. When it talks about altitude, it is talking about the properties of the Earth's atmosphere and how it affects sunlight.

    But getting back to your original problem, if you want to display many objects far away, it's better to make very low poly versions of the objects, and distribute them over a surface using a hair particle system. Or better, yet, learn how to get the new Geometry Nodes to do it for you. Or even better still, buy a scatter plugin. There is no point in making Blender render geometry that you won't even be able to make out.

    Can you get the same effect you are looking for with a 2D drawing as a backdrop?

    Post edited by TheMysteryIsThePoint on
  • RemiliaSuttonRemiliaSutton Posts: 173

    I can't get the same effect with a 2d backdrop or scattering as that's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm trying to do a really large scene for example a large Daz scene imported into blender but it's cut off around the sides like those sides vanished or something. Same with other really large scenes like terrains. I'm trying to fix that. Hence the the viewport unlock question. Any help from anyone?

  • brainmuffinbrainmuffin Posts: 1,267

    I found this. It has a few suggestions:

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