Anamorphic Process?
Serefina_Moon
Posts: 106
in The Commons
I'm working with some guys who shoot music videos and short films using anamorphic lenses in front of thier camera.
For doing the storyboards, I'd like to render static scenes with the anamorphic bokeh and the like.
Has anyone got a proper method to get Iray to render with an Anamorphic lens?
Especially if you know how to get the Flares?
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Comments
Bit of experimenting,....
I set up a basic scene, model, props, sphere primitive with Iray shader to be a 'China Ball' style light in the background.
Next, thinking about what makes up the physical lenses, I created a cylinder, 1m tall and 1m diameter.
To this I added the Iray base shader with the Glass preset, so, Index of Refraction set to 1.55, and I turned OFF 'Thin Film' in the 'Volume' part of the shader.
Placing this cylinder between the model and the camera gave the sort of distortion you'd expect - similar to looking through a glass ball, but in one direction only, and rather muddy.
Turning all the dial to zero in the Volume section of the shader got rid of the muddy effect inside the 'glass' cylinder.
Moving the cylinder so the camera is inside it, and lying it on it's side, gave an image which is like what I see before the editor stretches the footage out from the music videos.
Note,... This is with the Cameras DoF set OFF.
When I turn the DoF on, it's impossible to focus.... But I think I'm on the right track to creating a simulation of the Anamorphic Lens.
Goof moment,... if you set Scattering Measurement Distances below zero, your carefully chosen glass looks like obsidian,....
I'm going to keep updating thise, because I'm finding it kinda fun, creating virtual lenses and distorted images,... Now I just have to get the cinematographer in our group to let me measure the 'real' lenses and see if I can replicate them in 3D.
Interesting idea.... so far, I had not ventured past making a magnifying glass.... (using a sphere, scaling down one of the axis....). I have seen one menber posting some images in the galleries of a - more or less - functional telescope, using 2 'lenses'.
I did some reading about the 'real' lenses, I think I can use Hexagon to make some primitive like shapes that match.
Last effort, involved using the Iray Section Node to slice a cylinder in to a convex surface and a flat surface,... was even able to get that positioned between the camera and model, and then get the came to focus through the sliced section. Woke up to find the render worked, but my lighting sucked and the model was over exposed.
Desqueeze the jpeg by 150%, and looks like that worked,.... More tweaking to do later in the week.
I'm not sure I understand your aim. Your sample image shows how an anamorphic image would appear on film after "squeezing," which is the same as taking a 2:35:1 aspect and squeezing into about 4:3. Isn't that something you could do in Photoshop?
You mention bokeh and other flare effects; an anamorphic flare that occurs past the main optics will render as a circle on the film, since the light path is already behind the cylindrical lens. Therefore, when the film is projected, that circle will elongate in the X plane, making a horizontal ellipse.
Do you have a real-world example or two of what you're trying to achieve? I'm curious because lens flares are virtual, but the effects you're showing are part of the physical scene. I'm interested in what you're trying to accomplish.
This is not possible. Anamorphic glass takes an "image" that's too big for the frame of film and squeezes it in there. When projected through an anamorphic lens on the projector, it "unsqueezes". Nowadays, we do it digitally.
As far as flares go, make sure you don't use spherical flares. Video Copilot offers an optical flares plugin for After Effects and Nuke. They're worth every penny.
The sample above, was rendered 'squeezed', I haven't De-squeezed it.
The eventual aim, is to have our 3D storyboards, be closer to what the Cinematographer is telling me the effects will come up like in the actual shoots,... then we can use those storyboards to sell our teams skills with the muso's understanding what the clip will really look like.
Oh/And,... I don't use photoshop, not even for my behind scenes photos. A little Lightroom, but none of the gross repaints that stop the performers looking like what they do in the real world.
This is Mid shot from the same scene, but I shifted the lens I'm getting the anamorphic warping from into the scene itself, so the effect can be seen with the light behind it being reshaped.
Sun of A,....
The new Iray implementation solves all this,... Yay! for Cylindrical lenses in the render engine.
Anyone got a handle on the K1, K2, and K3 settings?
I'm still not following. The example you posted already has a widescreen aspect. If the anamorphic process allows for a (let's say) 2:1 horizontal expansion, your image ends up being at least 4:1 when "unsqueezed." That seems rather extreme.
Except for lens aberrations such as flares caused by internal reflection, you should not really see any outward effect of using an anamorphic lens. That's the idea, and their original selling point, given the constraints of a vertically oriented 35mm film strip. If you want a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, create your storyboard image with that aspect and cropping.
I understand wanting to capture the artistic intent of the actual shoot in a storyboard, but I always like to consider the time and energy it takes to convey that, compared to other digital techniques. In any case, I'd be interested in seeing any final results you come up with.
I've used the widscreen shape, that is irrelevant to what I want to achieve, it's just the shape of the frame used for the example, not the way the lens will warp the incoming scene.
Mirroring the abberations of an Anamorphic lens is what I'm trying to achive.
This is why I was happy to see the latest version of Iray has cylindrical options,.... but you can't adjust it, it's the whole scene height, with 360 degree horozontal. :(
The Poly3 option uses K1 input only
Poly5 uses K1 & K2
Ptlens (which I think is like the 'toy lenses') uses K1, K2 & K3 adjustments
So I'm back to building lenses as models and playing with SSS and the like.
This link leads to a page that helps explain some of the new features.
https://www.lightworkdesign.com/images/support/3dsMaxDocumentation/features/settings.html
Okie, for those interested, the ptlens function, and the distortion settings, used sparingly,.... Are like the pincushion and barrel distortion in a lens.
The X & Y offset don't seem to do anything if the camera has DoF switched On - We were hoping they'd work like a Tilt-Shift lens.
Haven't really tried the new lenses yet (got some other projects going), but looks like still a lot of experimenting ahead. It's very possible I'll hardly use any of those features; it's more the 'technical side' that attracts me....