3D Scene Creation and Camera Oddness

[luckynth]

Hello, all. Please let me know if this is posted in the wrong place.

I have many questions about 3D perspective and using the camera. I am an experienced user of Maya and After Effects and I'm perplexed by AS 9 Pro's camera views and general weirdness.

Here is the file I created:


a. Why do the ortho views (top, side, left, right) show perspectives?

In Maya, top view shows objects edge on. In Anime Studio, I still see the perspective of objects.

[

b. Is there a way to change camera or viewport depth of field?

Right now, the objects stretch on and on as if the whole pic is being sucked into a black hole!



The upshot is that when I move the camera, the perspective is all wonky and the character glides across the floor. How can I fix this?

[slowtiger]

b) You're mixing up some concepts.

The effect of your last example is that of a wide angle lens. Change the lens, and the effect changes. It's the Camera zoom tool (5) with a default of 60 which very roughly gives you the viewing angle of the lens. Smaller values = tele, higher values = wide angle.

[luckynth]

That is very useful. Thank you!

Anyone have any other insight. particularly as to why top, front and side all have perspective? Are you saying that these are not Ortho views as in Maya, but just other camera views?

[slowtiger]

Just other camera views.

[ddrake]

Yeah, it's a little different to work within the confines of Anime Studio. As there are only perspective angles, it can get tricky placing things exactly as you want them in the 3D space.

One of the things to wrap the mind around is considering that when you are depth rotating a layer you aren't simply turning an object in that space, you are turning a vector layer that technically stretches infinitely in x and y axis from the point of origin, and that point of origin only recognizes the 2 dimensions of its own plane.

The camera then is responding to it's mathematical distance from that point of origin, but in a 3 dimensional space. You can get some pretty odd things happening at the edges, esp. if you your camera is very close to one origin but far from another, but those planes technically intersect. The camera will still treat the entire layer with the closest origin as if it were actually closest.

In practice, I tend to eyeball things a little more than I should and should probably really pay closer attention to coordinates, but sometimes it's quicker to use the workspace "orbit " tool to drag your scene around to get a broader sense of your space than I find toggling from Top/Bot/Left/Right views. Then, if moving things through the space, I'd select one of those angles and slide my layers. These views while not ortho views are at least not going to output as much of the extreme perspectives. (Unless your workspace is incredibly large scale wise)

As I said, I do a lot of eyeballing and adjusting til I get something that looks right to me, so I'd suggest manipulating the camera with a test area to get a feel for it. If you hold Alt while using the "track" Camera tool, you are actually tracking on the Z axis, push in/pull out. So if you want less distortion, track the camera farther from your scene, and then use the zoom to bring it back to size in your field of view.

[ddrake]

Also, sorry for the lengthy response. Not sure if it made any sense, and probably the way it's worded some of it is actually untrue of the way Anime Studio really interprets the information. But essentially that's a decent way to describe the mechanics at play.

[luckynth]

Thanks for your helpful suggestions everyone. Ddrake, the lengthy posts were very useful and I appreciate your insights.

[hayasidist]

agreeing with what's already been said, I'd offer this addition: when creating a "full 3d" scene in AS you need to choose a scale factor and stick with it in x, y and z. You can choose any scale you want, but it has to be consistent in all 3 dimensions. (a less than "full 3d" means you don't have the consistent scale in x,y,z and that you're drawing and taking care of perspective, parallax and so on - as was the case back in the days of cels and multiplane when the artist managed all the variations in visual size).

there's that wrinkle with the AS camera system that ST has pointed out: the default is for a very wide angle lens very close to the (default) z plane - if you draw a (6ft) person who fills the y dimension, your camera is about 5 feet away, 3 feet off the ground (which is at y=-1) and aimed at their belly button. All that needs to change if you want AS to deal with the 3d environment as ddrake has suggested (but, to repeat, not if you're happy to draw perspective etc).

so key messsages from me are: if you go for a full 3d environment decide on a scale and use it -- for now I'll suggest 1AS unit = 1 yard / meter - this works well for scenes with people. Place things at the "correct" z: if your person is 10 yards in front of the house then the person is at z=0 and the house is at z=-10. If you're rotating a vector layer about the x axis to create a ground, lift your camera from its default y=0 and put it at (say) y=1.5, and draw things that are "at ground level" (e.g. a standing person's feet; the base of the house) at x=0 and draw upwards from there: people are (say) 1.8 units high and houses are 3 units per storey plus their roof.

[luckynth]

Yes, I did eventually get it working. My conclusion was that if I needed to make this kind of environment, I'd create it in Maya and import the lot into AS and sidestep 3D issues altogether.

I like using the grid to "line layers up" along the Z axis.

Thanks again, everyone.