Hiding Walls: an appeal to vendors

marble

I've just paid for another year of PC+ and am looking through what's on offer in the sale. The Cozy Kitsch Living room is one that caught my eye but, again, the product description does not tell me the all-important information: can the walls be hidden? I was caught out by this before with the Japanese Corridor product which is like a one-piece building and individual walls can't be hidden. Some camera angles just need a wall to disappear.

So, two things: vendors please say what can and can't be hidden (I know some vendors do specify, thank you all). Secondly, does anyone have the Cozy Kitch product and, if so, can you confirm or otherwise about walls/ceilings? My guess is that, judging by the promo shots, the room is a one-piece box so all camera angles are from within (some wide-angle shots, perhaps). If so, I'll give it a miss. The same goes for another product from the same vendor team: the Little Corner Room.

 

Thanks.

Richard Haseltine

Are you rendering in Iray or 3Delight, if you are using DS? In Iray there is an Iray Section Plane in the Create menu which can be used to cut off part of a model (anything on the camera side of the plane) at render time - by default the hole is visible in reflections and lets light through but you can turn light clipping off in the item's parameters so that the room will behave as if solid for lighting and reflectiosn while allowing the camera to see in.

DarkSpartan

marble said:

I've just paid for another year of PC+ and am looking through what's on offer in the sale. The Cozy Kitsch Living room is one that caught my eye but, again, the product description does not tell me the all-important information: can the walls be hidden? I was caught out by this before with the Japanese Corridor product which is like a one-piece building and individual walls can't be hidden. Some camera angles just need a wall to disappear.

So, two things: vendors please say what can and can't be hidden (I know some vendors do specify, thank you all). Secondly, does anyone have the Cozy Kitch product and, if so, can you confirm or otherwise about walls/ceilings? My guess is that, judging by the promo shots, the room is a one-piece box so all camera angles are from within (some wide-angle shots, perhaps). If so, I'll give it a miss. The same goes for another product from the same vendor team: the Little Corner Room.

 

Thanks.

If they can't be hidden outright, usually you can select the wall in question and set the opacity to zero, which is pretty much the same thing.

As for the Cozy Living Room, you can turn the opacity off for individual bits, and it works pretty well.

Well, some of them anyway. The walls at the ends are a combined group, but the long walls are separate, as is the bay window set.

marble

No, sorry Richard, I have to give you the same response I did in the Compositing thread. I'm using DS, yes, but Reality/Lux to render. IRay doesn't work for me and my iMac (CPU is just too slow but that's for another discussion).

 

Male-M3dia

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

marble

DarkSpartan said:

marble said:

I've just paid for another year of PC+ and am looking through what's on offer in the sale. The Cozy Kitsch Living room is one that caught my eye but, again, the product description does not tell me the all-important information: can the walls be hidden? I was caught out by this before with the Japanese Corridor product which is like a one-piece building and individual walls can't be hidden. Some camera angles just need a wall to disappear.

So, two things: vendors please say what can and can't be hidden (I know some vendors do specify, thank you all). Secondly, does anyone have the Cozy Kitch product and, if so, can you confirm or otherwise about walls/ceilings? My guess is that, judging by the promo shots, the room is a one-piece box so all camera angles are from within (some wide-angle shots, perhaps). If so, I'll give it a miss. The same goes for another product from the same vendor team: the Little Corner Room.

 

Thanks.

If they can't be hidden outright, usually you can select the wall in question and set the opacity to zero, which is pretty much the same thing.

As for the Cozy Living Room, you can turn the opacity off for individual bits, and it works pretty well.

Well, some of them anyway. The walls at the ends are a combined group, but the long walls are separate, as is the bay window set.

Setting the opacity to zero only works if the wall is a separate surface. If the whole box is one prop/one surface, then making one wall invisible is not possible. I know, I've hit this problem before, as I said.

As for playing with focal length/widt, I've tried that too but it doesn't always give me the shot I'm trying for. I guess that's why movie sets have removeable walls: to get that shot from behind when someone is sitting on a couch which is placed against a wall.

Havos

Male-M3dia said:

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

In small rooms where you still want to see the whole character's height, that can look very odd though, like a fish eye camera, where the walls are warped. That is why hiding the walls is better in these cases, even though it is an unrealistic camera shot, as it could not have been taken by someone in the room.

Male-M3dia

Havos said:

Male-M3dia said:

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

In small rooms where you still want to see the whole character's height, that can look very odd though, like a fish eye camera, where the walls are warped. That is why hiding the walls is better in these cases, even though it is an unrealistic camera shot, as it could not have been taken by someone in the room.

I believe you adjust the camera dials as well to get rid of the fish eye in renders. It's really a matter of learning the camera rather than trying to hide props.

marble

May I take it from the answers so far that these products do not have individual walls/ceilings?

prixat

Another method is to use the geometry tool to select the wall, or part of a wall, and make it into a new material.

Then you can make that new material transparent.

Havos

Male-M3dia said:

Havos said:

Male-M3dia said:

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

In small rooms where you still want to see the whole character's height, that can look very odd though, like a fish eye camera, where the walls are warped. That is why hiding the walls is better in these cases, even though it is an unrealistic camera shot, as it could not have been taken by someone in the room.

I believe you adjust the camera dials as well to get rid of the fish eye in renders. It's really a matter of learning the camera rather than trying to hide props.

I would be interested in tips how to do this, as I can not get rid of the warping effect when the focal length goes below around 28mm. The only other setting that changes what the camera sees is the frame width, but this does not get rid of the warping. Are there some camera controls I am missing?

 

Marble, sorry for hijacking the thread. I do own the Cozy Kitsch Living room and I can confirm that all the walls and the roof can be hidden individually. Just ask if you need more info or a demo render.

marble

Havos said:

Male-M3dia said:

Havos said:

Male-M3dia said:

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

In small rooms where you still want to see the whole character's height, that can look very odd though, like a fish eye camera, where the walls are warped. That is why hiding the walls is better in these cases, even though it is an unrealistic camera shot, as it could not have been taken by someone in the room.

I believe you adjust the camera dials as well to get rid of the fish eye in renders. It's really a matter of learning the camera rather than trying to hide props.

I would be interested in tips how to do this, as I can not get rid of the warping effect when the focal length goes below around 28mm. The only other setting that changes what the camera sees is the frame width, but this does not get rid of the warping. Are there some camera controls I am missing?

 

Marble, sorry for hijacking the thread. I do own the Cozy Kitsch Living room and I can confirm that all the walls and the roof can be hidden individually. Just ask if you need more info or a demo render.

No problem - I would also appreciate the advice on camera settings. Thanks for the confirmation too - my bank account is going to look a little naked after today, methinks.

Richard Haseltine

Havos said:

Male-M3dia said:

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

In small rooms where you still want to see the whole character's height, that can look very odd though, like a fish eye camera, where the walls are warped. That is why hiding the walls is better in these cases, even though it is an unrealistic camera shot, as it could not have been taken by someone in the room.

Film and television sets generally lack a fourth wall, with the camera placed well outside the natural bounds of the room, for precisely this reason. having hidable walls is the equivalent.

JOdel

Probably why so many of the classic PC sets lack the 4th wall, too.

Tobor

Havos said:

I would be interested in tips how to do this, as I can not get rid of the warping effect when the focal length goes below around 28mm. The only other setting that changes what the camera sees is the frame width, but this does not get rid of the warping. Are there some camera controls I am missing?

You're not missing anything, because it's not possible to adjust the camera position and focal length without also altering perspective, and that's the key. Just as with a real camera, the more zoomed out you are, the deeper the perspective -- objects appear farther apart. Zoom in, and the perspective compresses. For compositional freedom, you want to be able to  adjust the camera position and focal length to get the perspective look you want. This takes not having walls in the way.

There are reasons to adjust Frame Width, but this isn't one of them. Its main use is in broadening the field of view without altering depth of field. If you adjust focal length to make a scene wider or narrower, the depth of field (at any given camera f/stop) will also change. With Frame Width, only the camera view (and perspective, since they are tied) will change, leaving the depth of field alone. 

Then, of course, with PBR renderers, walls and ceilings block out lights external to the set. Forget using an HDRi of an indoor scene. It won't show if the set is an enclosed box. You have to resort to removing polygoons, plane slicing, and other tricks youi shouldn't really have to do.

To get back to the subject of hidable/movable walls and ceilings: I fully agree. There is no effective alternative that works in all situations. Unfortunately, some vendors still haven't gotten the memo. There are a couple that continue to only model "unitized" meshes of interiors. I simply avoid buying anything of theirs.

It's good to know this model has separate wall objects. I'm not needing it at the moment, but I'll make a note for future reference. 

marble

OK - I did buy 3 of the products from this vendor team:

The Little Corner Room

Hallway Chilling Out Cubby

Cosy Kitsch Living Room

The first two don't have selectable walls with the little visibility eye but they do have individual surfaces that can have opacity turned off. The Kitsch room has selectable walls. So, thankfullyt, I can work with these sets :)

sriesch

Here is how to hide just part of an object like one of several walls (by creating a new surface):

    To select individual polygons and create a new surface: Tools > "Geometry  Editor".  In the viewport, click on one poly to select it then hold Ctrl down and select any other polygons you want (or optionally you can right-click, Geometry > "selection mode" and select with a rectangle (marquee) or by freehand drawing (lasso)). . To remove a polygon from a group of selected polygons, ALT key and Left Mouse.  Right click and choose Geometry Assignment > Create Surface from Selected.  Give the new surface a name. You will then see a new material zone in the "Surfaces (color)" pane. You can set it to 0% opacity to make it permanently hidden.

Velvet Goblin

I don't know exactly how it's done in DS (I'm sorry), but you should be able to take any prop or figure, select the polygons you want to keep by polygon group or by material group and generate a new prop. I do this to convert figures into props. And I also do it to take those props that are all once piece and cut them up into many usable parts. Also useful to make fixed doors into separate props so that they can open and close. It's very fast and easy to do in Poser, so it must be easy in DS. If someone who knows DS can explain how it's done, it would surely help because this feature makes A WHOLE LOT of content a hundred times more useful. Kitbashing becomes a real addiction once you've learned to do this quickly.

If DS can't do it, then I'm sure Hexagon can.

Edit: That said, I agree that vendors should totally avoid making scenes that are all one or two big pieces. You don't want a million little bits, of course. But each *major* element should probably be a separate prop or figure element, especially anything that would obscure a camera view.

marble

Velvet Goblin said:

. Kitbashing becomes a real addiction once you've learned to do this quickly.

 

Edit: That said, I agree that vendors should totally avoid making scenes that are all one or two big pieces. You don't want a million little bits, of course. But each *major* element should probably be a separate prop or figure element, especially anything that would obscure a camera view.

If Kitbashing includes morphing clothes, then I'm an addict too. I hardly have an item of clothing that I haven't stretched and pulled and folded in some way in a modelling app. So now I've learned some more tricks I can look at some props and give them a bash.

LeatherGryphon

Male-M3dia said:

You don't need to hide walls. Select the camera and use the Focal Length and Focal Width dials to adjust your scene, that doesn't move the camera and require hiding walls. 

Short focal lengths give distorted views.