POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.animations : How do you stage a scene? Server Time
2 May 2024 12:31:01 EDT (-0400)
  How do you stage a scene? (Message 1 to 5 of 5)  
From: Greg M  Johnson
Subject: How do you stage a scene?
Date: 10 Aug 2007 08:33:14
Message: <46bc5b0a@news.povray.org>
I imagine if you were drawing for "the Simpsons" and wanted to align
your "camera" such that you could see a tableful of characters in the
foreground with a new one bursting in from an open door in the background,
it would be easy-- just draw them where  you want them and draw and outline
around the one that's supposed to be in a doorway: call the line your door.

In setting up scenes in povray, sometimes I find myself spending a whole
hobby-session on idiotic questions like that above-- tweak, tweak, tweak a
scene for hours, then quit and go to bed.

Does anyone have any mathematical tricks for how they stage their scenes?


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From: Mike the Elder
Subject: Re: How do you stage a scene?
Date: 10 Aug 2007 11:15:00
Message: <web.46bc7cd419c8eeafb41efe760@news.povray.org>
> Does anyone have any mathematical tricks for how they stage their scenes?

It's not much of a trick, but I have found it useful to use a "checkerboard"
floor in place of the one to be used in the final version so that I can just
count the squares for how far I want to move something.  Also, it's really
helpful to fix a specific scale in your mind before you start,  For
example, "1" = one meter or "1" =  one foot.  When I'm not sure what I want
to do, I often fiddle around with simple shapes in a basic freeeware drawing
or modling program to work out a composition.

The good news is that after a while, you just start to think in coordinate
vectors and placement becomes semi-intuitive.

"Do you remember where we parked the car?"
"Sure, we left it at <-1572,0,834>."  ;-)


Regrads,
Mike C.


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From: Jeff Houck
Subject: Re: How do you stage a scene?
Date: 10 Aug 2007 11:54:08
Message: <46bc8a20$1@news.povray.org>
Greg M. Johnson wrote:
> I imagine if you were drawing for "the Simpsons" and wanted to align
> your "camera" such that you could see a tableful of characters in the
> foreground with a new one bursting in from an open door in the background,
> it would be easy-- just draw them where  you want them and draw and outline
> around the one that's supposed to be in a doorway: call the line your door.
> 
> In setting up scenes in povray, sometimes I find myself spending a whole
> hobby-session on idiotic questions like that above-- tweak, tweak, tweak a
> scene for hours, then quit and go to bed.
> 
> Does anyone have any mathematical tricks for how they stage their scenes?  

No mathematical tricks though, in the past, I temporarily added a 
brightly colored sphere object to the scene and set my cameras Look_At 
parameter to the sphere. Then I just moved the sphere around until I got 
the "view" I wanted... When I'm ready to render, just remove the 
sphere... YMMV... :)


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: How do you stage a scene?
Date: 10 Aug 2007 12:43:23
Message: <46bc95ab@news.povray.org>
"Greg M. Johnson" <pte### [at] thecommononethatstartswithYcom> wrote in 
message news:46bc5b0a@news.povray.org...
>I imagine if you were drawing for "the Simpsons" and wanted to align
> your "camera" such that you could see a tableful of characters in the
> foreground with a new one bursting in from an open door in the background,
> it would be easy-- just draw them where  you want them and draw and 
> outline
> around the one that's supposed to be in a doorway: call the line your 
> door.
>
> In setting up scenes in povray, sometimes I find myself spending a whole
> hobby-session on idiotic questions like that above-- tweak, tweak, tweak a
> scene for hours, then quit and go to bed.
>
> Does anyone have any mathematical tricks for how they stage their scenes?

Hi Greg,

Once again no mathematical tricks, but much like Mike and Jeff, I add things 
to a scene to help keep track of where things are, how they line up and 
where I'm looking at them from. Mostly I use little spheres or thin 
cylinders of different colours to show points and lines of reference.
I also try to stick to a consistent scale. Whenever I depart from 1m=1 
POV-Ray unit I end up confusing myself.

Sometimes I use three cylinders at right angles to show the axes. This could 
be x=0, y=0, z=0 or somewhere else.
While animating a finger I placed an axes at the rotational centres of each 
joint and added tiny spheres at each of the vertices of the mesh object so I 
could visualize which bits of the movement and the skin deformation resulted 
from which finger segment.

You can also use a cylinder to 'project' an edge out to where something else 
should line up with it.
Adding short cylinders at right angles, or spheres that are slightly bigger 
than the cylinder (and of a different colour) can make it into something 
like a measuring stick.

With all of these things I usually use a pure colour and turn ambient up to 
a ridiculously high value so that I don't lose my extra bits in shadowy 
areas.

Regards,
Chris B.


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From: Slime
Subject: Re: How do you stage a scene?
Date: 11 Aug 2007 02:34:11
Message: <46bd5863$1@news.povray.org>
Try different camera positions. Trying to tweak a scene from the final
camera position takes longer than trying some other, simpler angles, like a
straight down view or location <-1,1,-1>*100 look_at 0.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]


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