First person camera?

yinliang9

I'm sure this has been addressed at SOME point in history, but I can't seem to find a thread. I've fiddled with making first person cameras in the past, and I got a... passable result for a while. However, it required me to hide the head of the character the camera was attached to. With the head visible, I had to move in too close with the camera; the viewing area was far too contained. I tried to mess with some camera sliders, but the only way I found to capture more of the picture without moving the camera back was to distort the image.

The problem with hiding the head in renders is that it doesn't cast shadows, and depending on the light, this can create some illogical phenomena (whereby the character through whose eyes you're looking casts a headless shadow!). Any tips on making this happen without compromising on realism? It'd be appreciated. :)

Richard Haseltine

Try staring fixedly at a point and note, if you can, how much of the area in front of you is in your visual field - you will find the answer is very little. If you want a "natural" looking, rather than realistic, field of view something is going to have to give. Though you may, if you are rendering in 3Delight in DAZ Studio, be able to use the Fantom setting in uber Surface on your figure, or a Shader Mixer shader using different values depending on the ray type, be able to make the figure invisible to direct sight but still visible in reflections and able to cast shadows.

yinliang9

Hmm... That's actually a really good point! I never really noticed how little you can see when you're focused on something. Perhaps it's not so bad to have a narrow view, then. :) If I really MUST have more in the shot, as you say, I suppose I'll have to sacrifice something else. Thanks for the reply!