Physical camera or normal camera

[Celtic_bhoy88]

Im using vray with 3ds max and following different tutorials...Is it better to use a physical camera to render or just use a stardard camera?

 

what are the differences? Im guessing the answer is for some situations physical and for some standard? what situations would u use one or the other|?

[AubreyM]

I like the control that the physical camera gives me so I always use it in Vray.

[Stephen Thomas]

I'll always use a standard camera if I can get away with it as it keeps things simple. Here's a few thoughts of mine based on my experience of using both.

 

Benefits of physical camera are:

• You can render multiple views of the same scene without having to adjust your lighting per view.
  
• Adjustable white balance and vignetting.
  

Downsides are:

• Too many variables that are not always necessary.
  
• You have to increase the value of any self-illuminated materials to compensate for camera exposure.
  
• Depth of Field and motion blur can be tricky to set up if you aren't familiar with real world cameras.
  

Benefits of Standard Camera are:

• Self-illuminated materials aren't affected by camera exposure.
  
• Less fiddling with light multipliers and output values of HDR environment maps to get a good balance than with physical camera.
  
• Depth of Field and motion blur are easy to set up using Vray Camera override settings.
  
• You can change camera projection to cylindrical or spherical using Vray Camera override settings, useful for photomatching panoramic backplates as well as rendering out spherical environment maps.
  

I usually use the Standard Camera unless I have a specific need to use the Physical Camera for the reasons noted above. Any comments you might read about the Vray Camera 'giving more realistic results', 'handling light better' or that 'you need to use Physical Camera and Vray Sun if you're using a linear workflow' are rubbish.

[Thablanch]

The main benifit of using the Vray Camera is not to play with lights. You correct everything from the camera. This is usefull, 'cause in a same room, you may need different exposure depenfing if you are looking at a dark corner or looking at the windows.

Also, you can just unclick the exposure toggle, and not use the physical correctness of the camera, but they are still aviable if needed.

 

At the opposite of what stef.thomas is saying, i find it is more tweaking around of light values / HDRI with standard cameras, but then again, everybody's oppinion is different...

[Celtic_bhoy88]

That's alot of help. Thanks guys. I have had pretty good results from standard cameras but just wanted to know the difference.

 

stef thomas--Also on a side point how do you get a Saltire as your flag instead of the Onion-jack?

[Stephen Thomas]

Yeah, it's just my opinion. I have a colleague who won't use anything other than physical cameras so I guess everyone is different! Marc, you should be able to get it if you go to http://forums.cgarchitect.com/profile/edit/ and pick Scotland under country.