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LuxRender Cameras
LuxRender supports three different camera types. The differences between the camera types and the available settings are explained below.
Perspective, orthographic and environment camera.
The perspective camera is similar to cameras in most 3D packages: it does create a perspective image out of a three dimensional scene, but it does not aim to represent the imperfections and distortions that lenses of photo cameras typically create.
View angles of 70, 40 and 20 degrees
The value for field of view indicates the angle between the camera and the leftmost and rightmost visible points in the scene (or the top- and bottom-most points, if the image is vertical). The exporter normally gets this information from the selected camera in the scene, but the value can be overridden.
Depth of field indicates how sharp (infinite depth of field) or blurred (shallow depth of field) objects that are not in focus appear. For the perspective camera in LuxBlend, this is defined by the "lens radius" which calculates aperture diameter, or the f-stop value, f-stop being 1/focal length, thus larger f-values will result in a smaller aperture diameter and thus deeper depth of filed. The default lens radius value (0) calculates at infinite f-stop, and thus an image where everything is in focus. Larger lens radius values result in a more shallow depth of field.
The alternative method (and only one available in LuxBlend25) is to define an f-stop value in the camera tab (This is the method used on real cameras). With f-stop, smaller numbers create a more shallow depth of field.
Focus distance is the distance between the imaginary plane in the scene that will be in focus and the camera imaging plane. You can either use an object or a distance to set the focus distance. An easy way to use this feature in Blender is to create an Empty object, place it where you want the camera to focus and select it in Depth of Field box.
Various lens radius settings, from left to right: 0, .05, .1.
Note that for the different examples, the focus distance is the green sphere in the front. As the lens radius increases, the background becomes more blurry. Lens radius setting is not currently available in LuxBlend25.
Various f-stop settings, from left to right: .5, 1.5, and 4.
Note that for the different examples, the focus distance is the green sphere in the front. As the F-stop is increased the background objects become more in focus.
Uniform depth of field light distribution across the bokeh disk at power settings of 0, 10, and 100, with a six bladed iris.
Note that the power setting has little or no effect on the uniform distribution parameter, remaining uniform.
Exponential depth of field light distribution across the bokeh disk at power settings of 0, 1, and 10, with a six bladed iris.
Note that at the power setting of 0 the lens closely mimics the light distribution of a catadioptric lens.
Inverse Exponential depth of field light distribution across the bokeh disk at power settings of 0, 1, and 10, with a six bladed iris.
Note that this is simply the inverse of the exponential setting, and that higher power settings closely mimic a catadioptric lens.
Gaussian depth of field light distribution across the bokeh disk at power settings of 0, 1, and 10, with a six bladed iris.
Note that the power setting has little or no effect on the non-uniform distribution of light across the bokeh disk.
Inverse Gaussian depth of field light distribution across the bokeh disk at power settings of 0, 1, and 10, with a six bladed iris.
Note that the power setting has little or no effect on this no-uniform distribution of light across the bokeh disk.
The shutter open and shutter close entries in the .lxs file are typically used for Motion Blur. Check the Motion Blur page for more details.
A shift lens is a lens that can move the position of the horizon up or down without introducing perspective distortion in the vertical direction. Amongst others, this can be useful for architectural perspectives where most of the subject is above the horizon.
The unit of measurement for lens shift is the size (either horizontal or vertical, depending which of the two is biggest) of the image. For example, using a horizontal value of 0.5 will result in an image whose left edge is straight in front of the camera.
A normal perspective view from a horizontal camera; the same view with the camera tilted vertically; the same view using lens shift instead of camera tilt.
Camera clipping hides part of the scene, based on the distance to the camera plane. There are two settings, Start and End. When Start is set to 0 and End to a value bigger than the size of the model, everything will be visible. The geometry that is hidden by the camera clipping is still taken into account for the lighting calculations.
No camera clipping; start set to 30; end set to 50.
The orthographic camera creates an orthographic projection of the scene. This can be used to create straight projections (like a top view or a frontal view) and axonometric projections.
A camera that is looking in a horizontal or vertical direction creates a projection, a tilted camera creates an axonometric view.
The scale value sets the scale of the view. The scale number indicates how many model units fit in image. For example, at a scale of one, one model unit will fit exactly in the width of the image (or the height, in case the height is bigger than the width) and at a scale of one hundred, one hundred model units will fit in the image.
These settings work the same way as the perspective camera settings.
The environment camera creates a 360 degree image from the current camera position. If the camera is completely horizontal, this results in a panoramic image. Amongst others, this can be used to create high dynamic range environment images for image based lighting.
Rendering generated with an environment camera.
These settings work the same way as the perspective camera settings.