Orthogonal views…

Couldn’t you just place the camera above your scene to get the view you want ? Or to the side ? Or have I misunderstood the point (again) ? Or would this give depth to you model that you don’t want ? (If this is the case couldn’t you flatten your objects ? Hope you meet your deadline.

Richard,

How come the animation camera doesn’t support orthogonal views for rendering? I need to render my current model in those orthogonal views for a model reference sheet, and the Perspective view just doesn’t cut the mustard for orthogonal-aspect viewing.

I only just noticed this yesterday because I’ve never needed the renderer until now. Also, using the DirectX renderer is *essential* because it gives me the perfect andquot;game qualityandquot; rendering feel as opposed to the overly realistic POVRay/BMRT renders.

I’ve got a publishing deadline to meet. Any ideas on how I can go about getting orthogonal renders out of the animation camera?

-Mel Ebbles

Unfortunately there is no way to do that with 3DC. Did you want to create an animation of an orthographic view? If you just want a snapshot it is easy to do using print screen. But you won’t be able to render anything larger than the 3DC Window. You can hide all of the tool bars etc. if needed to get a large render area.

Richard

Anti-aliasing, in its simplest form, is just rendering larger than you need and scaling down. If you open a 1600×1200 window, have only an orthographic view open take a print-screen and then scale it down using a good photo editing program you will get an anti-aliased image.

Richard

Oof…

I considered the snapshot option like you suggested, but there’s no anti aliasing in the viewports. So the results are kinda less striking than I’d like. I can fix stairstepped edges around the model’s silhouette in Paint Shop Pro, but fixing all the jaggies within the silhouette is a really tall order.

I don’t have the faintest of clues how to go about fiddling around in POV-Ray or BMRT to keep that fresh-from-the-DirectX-bakery look in my renders. Heck, I don’t even know how to use POV-Ray or BMRT since I’ve never had to do projects that involved photorealistic rendering. So using them natively is out of the question, I guess.

I guess orthogonal rendering would be the only real entry on my wish list for 6.0 then, if you’re doing a total rewrite anyway <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

-Mel Ebbles

Richard,

I’m really glad to hear 3DC is making you a good living, since it better be a permanent part of my toolkit for a long time to come <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Lately I’ve come to appreciate your position as a shareware developer and online marketer a lot more. It’s insanely difficult to get started selling anything online, at least for me. I’ve been wearing a lot of hats lately, as a desktop publisher/webmaster/marketer/model designer/copy editor, and I’m slowly going batty in the process, LOL

Oh well.

-Mel Ebbles

Thanks Mel. A few more andquot;3DCandquot; sites would be good promotion. But it does require lots of time for such a thing.

The bright side is that 3DC sells better virtually every month. You woudn’t know it from the activity here, but 3DC is actually a success. I don’t have to work a second job. But no mansions for me <!– s:-( –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif" alt="" title="Sad" /><!– s:-( –>. Maybe one day <!– s:-) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:-) –>

Richard

Alan,

Thanks for the kind words and suggestions <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Yeah, it adds depth that I don’t want, because I’m doing top, bottom, front, back, and side views of model aircraft for a project involving paper models. There’s a very slight fisheye effect that’d confuse people when looking at the pictures, and I needed a way to render models exactly as they looked in orthogonal views. Richard, as usual, had a perfect solution/workaround.

God, I love this program. I keep wishing I had the time and resources to do a full-blown 3DC site so more people would know about it and learn how to use it productively.

Richard deserves to lead a life of decadent opulence in a palace that makes Bill Gates’s mansion look like a tarpaper shack. Forget those Hollywood types, it’s people like him who should be celebrities.

-Mel Ebbles

Richard,

That’s so simple it never occurred to me. Oops.

It does work, the best results tend to come from 3:1-4:1 screen capture-to-final output ratio. Then a little bit of sharpening afterwards, and the results are almost as good as the DirectX renderer. Though in this case, it helps even more if you add more triangles to the model for the sake of lighting.

Thanks. Saved my bacon again. <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Changing my resolution only goes so far. How about throwing in a andquot;Resize Monitor Physicallyandquot; operation too? Ideally I’d want it to be like the Scale operation, except using a combobox with entries for 13andquot;, 15andquot;, 17andquot;, and for Pro users, 21andquot; and 25andquot;. Whaddyasay? ::nudge nudge::

Heheheheh

-Mel Ebbles