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[skullkrusher101]

Im starting to get ready to make my scenes and I want to know what scale is.

I know you can re-scale objects inside scene mode and ill be doing that for some objects, but I want my building interiors to be correct that way I have a reference to scale other objects to.

I noticed you can use the scale tool on the camera but it doesnt seem to do anything accept alter the size of the icon. The green lines that show you the field of view never change size so that leads me to belieove that there is a default fixed scale for the world in scene mode. Now you can alter the FOV angle but thats not the same thing as resizing the box itself.

Ive been experimenting trying to figure out what it is. I made a 10' X 10' room using a 1 unit  = 1 inch in onject mode but that seems too small.

Does anyone know what it is?

[skullkrusher101]

To illustrate my point I attached 2 files. The first shows 1 object, a room,, and 2 figures at a reasonable size and it shows where the camera is, the second is all 3 objects scaled up to a very large size and again showing the camera in its position

You can see how small that camera is now and how much more distance there is between it and the characters.

So how big is that camera, what ratio should i use to build my scenes to get an accurate representation?

What do you guys use?

[Kubajzz]

If I understand well, you need to know what should be the size of the camera compared to other objecs... I think the size of camera doesn't matter at all. You should scale your objects so it's easy for you to work with them, but scaling the camera doesn't do anything....

[Tanzim]

I'm half asleep, so I think your question is what the scale or whatever in Anim8or is.
I think it's 1 Anim8or Unit=1cm (e.g.for a 10mx10m room, it would have to be 1000AUx1000AU).

[Kubajzz]

1 Anim8or Unit=1cm

I think there is no relation between Anim8or units and centimeters... If you make a 10mx10m room, you can scale it down so it will be as small as one Anim8or unit (and then you'll have to place the camera very close to the room) or you can scale it up so it will be huge (and you have to place the camera far away...). The resulting image will be the same...

[skullkrusher101]

actualy I ran a 3rd test after those first 2. I added another figure into the large set but did not scale iut up, i placed it directly in front of the camera and it looked normal size, but when i dragged it in position with the larger objects got increasingly smaller. I then selected all 4 objects now, the room, the 2 large objects and the nomal sized objects, and I scaled everything back down to a somewhat normal size, again re-aligned everything, this time the new object looked tiny no matter where i placed it because it was tiny in relation to the camera. Also using the giant sized scale allows you to place the camera in positions and angles you could never get in a normal scale, so there is a difference. I just wanted to know what the normal scale was for a starting point.

So the camera size does matter. I will try out your ratio there Tanzim. Thanks for the help.

[Kubajzz]

No, I don't agree.

3D virtual reality is a vector world, everything is relative! There's not anything like "1 inch" or "1 kilometer"...

In this world camera is not a real object, it's only a dummy model that indicates the position and orientation of your viewpoint; the viewpoint only changes if you move or rotate the camera (or if you change the Z-limits), it doesn't change at all if you scale it. Try to render a scene, then scale the camera up or down and render it again. You'll get exactly the same result.

I don't understand what experiments you did to find out that the size of the camera matters... But it has no effect, believe me.

The only thing that comes to my mind are the Z-limits. If you scale the camera, the Z-limits don't change so you may have to change them manually to get the same result.

[rellik420]

if u dont want 2 keep rescaling ur objects in scene mode. scale it in object mode. it might take a few times 2 get it right but once u do ur golden.

[skullkrusher101]

Kubajzz :  re read the first post for the list of experiments I did, I already mentioned that I figured out that resizing the camera doesnt matter because the green lines that represent the viewport and the angle its casting never change when you resize the camera.

However when you resize everything the size does change relative to everything else and that does have an impact on the image that is rendered. That is what I meant by camera size.

rellik420: being that im lazy I decided to use the same skeleton for all of my models, with slight alterations. That way I can reuse sequences or at least not have to make too many changes to them.

Because of that Ill be resizing my characters in scene mode no matter what.

[ENSONIQ5]

I really don't think the camera size has any effect whatsoever.  Scaling everything up does make the camera field seem smaller, but this can be countered by adjusting the Z depth limits in scene mode.  So, if you scale EVERYTHING up, including the Z-near setting and distance between camera and elements, the final render will be identical.

In a side note, be careful when scaling in scene mode.  If you have an animated element acting as a parent of another element, and you rescale the parent element and it's motion path, the position controller for the child element(s) do NOT scale, but remain the same.  This can have some very weird effects.  For example, lets say you have a car with emissive headlights, and you place a pair of spot light in front of each headlight.  Since you want the car to move around the scene, you make the car element the parent of the lights in the position and orientation fields.  If you resize the car element in scene mode, the lights will move as if the car and its position path have not changed, and will not track with the car correctly.

Wherever possible, I strongly recommend getting your sizes correct (relatively speaking) in object and figure mode.  If you want to use objects and figures at different sizes in scene mode, remember that you can import objects and figures from the current project, and Anim8or gives you the opportunity to give the imported copies new names.

[Kubajzz]

Ok, skullkrusher101, check out my experiment. I re-read your first post, but I just don't understand what you did... Anyway, I made a simple model, put it in scene mode, scaled it up and rendered an image (the left 2 images). Then I scaled it down, moved the camera closer and rendered image again (on the right). The two rendered images are exactly the same, while the camera size compared to the models is very different.

Why? Because the only important thing is the relationship between size of the object and distance from the camera. If size of an object is "A" and distance from the camera is "B", you will always get the same result if "A/B" is the same, that's all...

[Tanzim]

What you did created the same image, yes, but it was very basic.
Could you re-create the images in a much more complex scene, say several animated characters, inside a building, with objects such as trees, cars etc outside, with the characters moving in and out of the building?

What I said when I was half as-sleep is accurate if the z-limits are left at their default settings.
This is also accurate when rendering raytraced, light sources shoot out the same amount of light regardless of the sixe of other objects, if the scene is large, the light source has to be stronger and travel further, meaning more processing.

[Kubajzz]

I used a very simple scene because I don't really plan to spend several hours working on it... But it doesn't matter at all how complex the scene is. You only have to keep all the proportions, if you scale everything down, you must make all the distances shorter, that's all.

If you scale something up or down too much, you may run out of the Z-limits, but once you fix the Z-limits, you'll get the same result.

What you call "accurate" is a complete nonsense. If I made a model of 10mx10m room and I also made the whole house and the whole city around, I would scale it down so 1 Anim8or unit would be 5 meters... If I had the same room and I wanted to make an animation of ants running on the floor, I'd scale it all up.

I'll say once more what I have said before: there's no relationship between Anim8or units and real distances. You have to scale it the way you like it so it's easy for you to work with the scene.

[skullkrusher101]

Kubajzz: You pretty much recreated what I did and got the same results, however the final step which was what made a difference was in the larger scale mode add a duplicate of one of those objects at normal scale and place it directly in front of the camera so it appears large. then select all objects and rescale them all back down at the same time. Now that object will appear very tiny no matter where you place it. This may just be due to the increased range in the field of view  for wher you can place objects. Maybe I was just able to bring it closer to the camera. But that itself is a difference. then again who knows, maybe it was just a fluke. It also might have to do with what ensoniqe said about altering hte znear. I never did that.

ENSONIQ5 : If I scale my object first, then place child objects such as the vehicles light beams as child objects will it work then?

[ENSONIQ5]

ENSONIQ5 : If I scale my object first, then place child objects such as the vehicles light beams as child objects will it work then?

I am not sure.  This seems to be a minor bug in the software, and warrants a bit of experimentation.  I would advise against using the scene mode scaling option wherever possible and scale in object mode instead.  Figures can certainly be a pain to scale, so I guess the answer here is to try to build everything to some sort of relative scale in the first place.  For example, for a town scene, you could model a simple door frame, and use this as a control object for all other models, in terms of scale.