Interior scenes - how do you set up your cameras?

[wannabeartist]

Hi,

 

I'm working on one of my first interior scenes and I'm not very happy with my current camera setup.

 

Do you generally try to keep your cameras inside the room or do you use some technique to enable the camera to see trough walls in order to use bigger focal lengths?

 

I have a fairly small scene in terms of dimensions and keeping the camera indoors only enables focal lengths up to about 20mm, which in turn don't look very pleasing. I could take the camera out of the building of course, but are there any other things to consider? what are generally good settings (focal length, etc.) for indoor still renders?

 

Thanks!

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Hey Vasco... it is always troubling to me to try to find a good camera angle within a tight space. I believe there is no secret to this other than just playing around till you find an angle that pleases you. I rather sacrifice a part of my space, then to zoom out with such a wide angle that it distorts the image. If you can manage to take the camera outside the model, then there's nothing wrong with cheating a little. But bottom line is play with camera and focal lengths, and dont forget to apply camera correction. I recently saw a post of a user who modeled a very tiny apartment, yet managed to make it work: http://forums.cgarchitect.com/39607-interior-simple-apartment.html

[wannabeartist]

Thanks!

 

Yeah, that apartment render is pretty much what I'm looking for in terms of focal length. Now that I looked at some example scenes, it seems that at least some people use the "camera outside" trick - better try it out!

[mondex]

I agree with Sancheuz. Also I found a lot of inspiration going through my mother's interior design and decorations magasines! Some pictures in there are very interesting, and inspiring.