Vue xStream 8.5: Hide from Camera?

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

I'm back in 'Vue xStream land' for our current job at R+H, and I have a ton of shots to plow through for compositing.

Does anybody know if there is the equivalent for Unseen by Camera in Vue? I don't mean Hide from Render, which completely disables an object from rendering (like the check box in LightWave's Scene Editor,) but like the option in LightWave's Object properties where the selected object still casts shadows and can be reflected in other objects, but isn't itself rendered in a scene.

If not, do you know of any easy and reliable workarounds for this?

G.

[dballesg]

Hi,

I just tried and you can at least hide the object from the render and get it's shadows, but the object itself will not be reflected. I checked with a Sphere and a reflective Cube.

To do that look on the Material Editor of the object for the Only Shadows icon. I attached a screen-shot from 8.4. So I'm almost sure it's on the same place on 8.5


David

[Greenlaw]

David,

Awesome!

Thanks for responding so quickly. I'll let some of the other guys here know...they'll be thrilled to learn this too.

G.

Edit: Yes, it works perfectly in 8.5. (except, as you noted, for the reflection part, but that's okay...for now.) :)

[dballesg]

Hi,

Glad it worked for you! :)

Time to do a feature request to e-on! :)

David

[Greenlaw]

Yes. I played with some of the other options there and I was hoping that clicking on all the middle options would give me the equivalent of a black matte object, but it's actually more like setting your surface to 0% Diffuse and 100% Luminous. I'm sure I can strip the textures/procedurals and set the color to solid black, and then save out a matte object surface to reuse later, but I wish enabling matte objects in a Vue scene was as easy as it is in LightWave.

(Actually, I'm not sure I can disable the alpha this way like I can with LightWave's Matte Object options. I'll have to test this later.)

[dballesg]

Hi,

With Vue a good trick it's not to think that it does anything like any other program :D

If you need an Object Pass, you can Right Click on the render options, to open the Render Options Dialog. Select a Preset render Quality over Preview, Like Final, change the Render Destionation to Render to screen, and activate the Enable MultiPass, on the Render What? section.

Click the Edit button there, on the G-Buffer / Multi-Pass Options you have a section for Object Masks, you can select the ones you want.

You can do a test with a very simple scene, like adding a cube, when you activate that option, you can browse the generated masks on Vue Render Display (the button with a G).

In the G-Buffer / Multi-Pass Options on the Extra components, you can generate an Object ID pass, and in that same panel you have the option to save everything like a Multi-layer PSD, or separate files.

I hope that helps.

David

[Greenlaw]

That's clever! We're using the G-Buffer as a separate pass for doing all kinds of post effects in Fusion that I didn't think was possible (in fact, Ken Wilder here was wondering if we shouldn't run a LightWave scene through it just to get special data channels like Z-Coverage,) but I didn't think about using it to isolate elements before rendering. (I guess this is what you're describing, right?) I'll give it a try today.

Thanks again! :)

G.

Edit: I think we're using the G-Buffer's Object ID to pull mattes in Fusion, like isolating foreground objects to 'sandwich' a character layer for example, and then using Z-Coverage to resolve anti-aliasing issues. This is new to me so I'm not 100% sure how this works, but I watched my boss do it yesterday and it's really cool. Anyway, I think this might mean I won't need to render individual object passes like we typically do. I'll be compositing this weekend so I'll know more about it then.

[dballesg]

That is great! :) Please post any tips that you discover about it and how you did the process if your boss allows it.

I think it's an area where there is not too much information about Vue + LW.

David

[Greenlaw]

Quick question: Do you know if there is a way to render the sky black without affecting lighting? I think the answer is no (at least that's what I gather from searching the official Vue forums,) but I wondered about this over a year ago (the last time I used Vue on a job, which was version 7.5 I think,) and I was hoping things have changed since.

There's the option in one of the xStream panels to disable the sky, but I think it does affect lighting. Besides, I'm wondering about how to do this from inside Vue as a standalone. (I don't have xStream at home, just Infinite, so I'm personally interested in standalone options.)

Thanks in advance.

Edit: In LightWave, I would typically put an inverted black sphere in the scene that's not unaffected by rays and doesn't cast shadows. I suppose something like this could work in Vue? (I don't feel comfortable making any normal assumptions with Vue anymore because I'm almost always wrong.) :)

[Greenlaw]

Did a quick test. It appears that switching off the Sky in xStream (LW version) gives me the black sky without affecting lighting, but just for kicks I left it on and put a black sphere in the scene. This sort of works but the alpha for the sphere will overide the alpha for Vue objects, regardless of the alpha value set in LightWave. (I'm guessing you can't fully trick Vue about the presence of this object.)

Will have to test the inverted black sphere trick from within Vue later. It's not necessary with xStream at work, but I'll need to do this for a project with Infinite at home.

G.

[dballesg]

I was about to tell you about the Sky Rendering option on xStream but you discovered it.

The sphere trick I think is a problem because xStream is a Volumetric plugin. And I'm not sure how it mix it's alpha with other LW objects Alphas.

Inside Vue, there is a Black Black Atmosphere under the Effects Others. I tried with a cube, and you will get a Black Background for the Sky, and a simple Box was illuminated by the Sun. But it's a Standard atmosphere, if you change it to Spectral Mode it will become a normal Sky again.

David

[Greenlaw]

Boy do I feel stupid. (Not the first time today.) Ken just showed me how to do this in Vue: Open the Advanced Camera Options (double-click the camera,) enable Backdrop but leave it empty. Sky is still active for lighting but renders black. Duh.

This seems to work fine with Spectral Model just fine, by the way, and doesn't affect lighting. Yay!

One more question: Can you override the alpha in a Vue material to '0', independent of the actual transparency settings like you can in LightWave? I could probably find this with a little poking around later but I wondered if you already knew the answer.

Edit: Brought the 'Black Camera Background' version of my Vue scene into LightWave through xStream, and now I can enable Sky while still rendering black. When I get the chance, I'll have to see if it's reflecting on water though. (Unless I'm mistaken, I think the Sky option in xStream's Render Options prevents sky reflections on water; if so, hopefully this is a solution.)

[dballesg]

Boy do I feel stupid. (Not the first time today.) Ken just showed me how to do this in Vue: Open the Advanced Camera Options (double-click the camera,) enable Backdrop but leave it empty. Sky is still active for lighting but renders black. Duh.

This seems to work fine with Spectral Model just fine, by the way, and doesn't affect lighting. Yay!

Ah thanks for the tip! :)

One more question: Can you override the alpha in a Vue material to '0', independent of the actual transparency settings like you can in LightWave? I could probably find this with a little poking around later but I wondered if you already knew the answer.

I'm do not know how to do that in Vue, but I will investigate it, and come back if I found a solution.

David