Camera placement for interiors

[Cesar R]

this has been my biggest problem... I model a space lets say 12X12 then place furniture and then i place my lights the whole 9 yrds. then when I place the camera and I used a 25mm+ lens (because i want a nice prescpective) it seems like I am right agains the far wall. so I end up having to place the camera outside the space and using clip planes..

 

I just wanted to know some thoughts and maybe someone can shed some light and tell me when I've been doing wrong all these years.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

it is a common problem.

 

the only time you see rooms through a lens in the entirety is on television and movie sets. this is because there is no wall, so they can pull the camera back to capture the entire room.

 

our eye doesn't really notice because in real life we can take in so much of a room at one time.

 

think about when you look through a physical camera in a boxed in room. you only see a fraction of the room. the only way i know around this without knocking a hole in the wall (in real life) is to use a fish eye lens. which of course will come with distortion.

 

as visualizers we often tend to force a camera in a room, and use a really wide angle to fit everything in the scene that we want. this is as much the fault of the client as our own. ..but when we do this, it usually distorts the view, and makes the room feel a lot larger than it really is, and causes furniture and the such to be distorted around the edges.

 

a work around for this is to add barrel roll to the image to create a fish eye lens effect. this will make the furniture at the edges feel not distorted, but it will also distort the rest of our view. so it is a trade off.

 

look at interior arch photography. either they only capture a portion of the room at a time, or they use a wider angle lens, and make the distortion work for them.

 

i imagine there are expensive physical lenses that correct barrel roll in real world photography, but they would be expensive. ...just as there are ones that will force a 2 point perspective in the real world no matter how the camera is tilted when you look at the building. the are expensive lenses, which i think can run $10,000.

 

i don't know all of the technicalities of the way the lens in our eye works, but our brains are wired to correct for the distortion. we see almost 180 degrees of a room at a time, but there is little distortion in the image we see in our heads.

 

....but bottom line, using a clipping plane is similar to building a studio set, and shooting into the room. so you are doing nothing wrong i.m.o.

[Justin Hunt]

Nothing wrong with putting a camera outside of a room, afterall archviz is closer the cinematography in movies/TV than it is to photography in a magazine.

 

Instead of clipping planes, try making that wall invisible to the camera.

 

JHV

[Cesar R]

okay just checking, thank you guys !

[Cesar R]

here is my max 8 file, if someone can take a look at it and tell what would you do differently. keep in mind that client wants this perspective of what will be a "bathroom" once I add the fixtures.

[Justin Hunt]

In the top view, I would move the camera up to the grid line and the target down to suit. This way the door wont block the view and the true depth of the room will be easier to assertain.

 

JHV

[Cesar R]

you are right, I will post a finished render or some test render in a few days when I get more of the modeling done. thanks for your help !

[ronel]

hello guys,

 

as an interior designer i dont usually focus my camera on the whole room, rather i set it to more interesting view of the room. i make the camera on a two-point perspective position. i seldom use a one point perspective because it will just distort your furnitures. try to play with the camera position first before do the renderer. sometimes i hide the wall in front of the camera, then i add it later a bit invisible showing that the wall is there but be sure it will not affect your point of interest

[Cesar R]

thanks