Would it be feasible to create a videogame that uses these techniques or would it be too slow to render?
The Virtual Blender Camera
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#12Since modern 3D renderers are already designed to render in a photorealistic way using fundamental principles of light transport, what does this technique actually offer that the renderer itself does not offer? Path tracing follows the basic laws of global illumination, after all, and the path tracing algorithm offers simulation of all different kinds of lens types, etc.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#13Very cool, now I just need to learn blender.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#14Since modern 3D renderers are already designed to render in a photorealistic way using fundamental principles of light transport, what does this technique actually offer that the renderer itself does not offer? Path tracing follows the basic laws of global illumination, after all, and the path tracing algorithm offers simulation of all different kinds of lens types, etc.
My understanding is that modern renderers render in a "physically accurate" way. However, cameras throughout history has never captured images in a "physically accurate" way but rather through a set of imperfect techniques (lenses, film etc) which produces a certain look. When rendering, it's hard to make things seem realistic as they often look too perfect but something like this gets closer to how a photo would look.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#15[deleted]
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#16Since modern 3D renderers are already designed to render in a photorealistic way using fundamental principles of light transport, what does this technique actually offer that the renderer itself does not offer? Path tracing follows the basic laws of global illumination, after all, and the path tracing algorithm offers simulation of all different kinds of lens types, etc.
My understanding is that modern renderers render in a "physically accurate" way. However, cameras throughout history has never captured images in a "physically accurate" way but rather through a set of imperfect techniques (lenses, film etc) which produces a certain look. When rendering, it's hard to make things seem realistic as they often look too perfect but something like this gets closer to how a photo would loo…
Path tracing isn’t really physically accurate, as it also models how cameras work. Path tracing is considered “photorealistic “. I’ll have to dig into this project more, but all pathtracing algorithms start with the fundamental principles of optics in the lens, and changing the field of view of that lens affects the image and the perspective distortion, and you also have effects like the depth of field, and other aspects we associate with cameras. Depth of field, after all, is not a physically accurate phenomenon but rather based on how cameras work, and yet that is also how 3D renderers interpret the environment.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that modern renderers render in a "physically accurate" way. However, cameras throughout history has never captured images in a "physically accurate" way but rather through a set of imperfect techniques (lenses, film etc) which produces a certain look. When rendering, it's hard to make things seem realistic as they often look too perfect but something like this gets closer to how a photo would loo…
Path tracing isn’t really physically accurate, as it also models how cameras work. Path tracing is considered “photorealistic “. I’ll have to dig into this project more, but all pathtracing algorithms start with the fundamental principles of optics in the lens, and changing the field of view of that lens affects the image and the perspective distortion, and you also have effects like the depth of field, and other asp…
But those algorithms generally implement only the most basic aspects of a lens.
No one normally implements a model of a cheap lens that has severe chromatic aberration due to poor focusing of different wavelengths in its poorly designed glass stack.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#18Phenomenal work It makes me wonder though: what's missing here that still puts it in the uncanny valley? Do you need to deliberately deform these stock 3D models with small defects/"entropy"? Or is it simply not enough detail for the base models?
I am foemer VFX freelancer who worked for cinema production and was specialized on "invisible" VFX.
Making things non-uncanny is usually about two things:
1. The amount of work/time you can put into a single thing
2. Your ability to see
The latter is basically the same reason why people are unable to draw things realistically, that they see on a daily basis. Your brain is very good at giving tou just a conceptual picture of a much more complex reality. Artists for whom realism is important have to have the ability to look at things as they hit the retina and not get blinded by that abstraction in the head.
This is the foundation of achieving any kind of realism (and there is more than one realism, you can also take photographs that look uncanny).
In this case I think it is about materiality. This is typically about a lack of imperfections or a lack of taking the way things are manufactured in the physical world into account: The motar in a brick wall isn't made up of perfect uniform lines, concrete is casted, walls painted in certain ways, outside objects are exposed to the weather, but not uniformally so, etc. This is very often about very small things like subtle variation in the albedo/roughness etc.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#19Since modern 3D renderers are already designed to render in a photorealistic way using fundamental principles of light transport, what does this technique actually offer that the renderer itself does not offer? Path tracing follows the basic laws of global illumination, after all, and the path tracing algorithm offers simulation of all different kinds of lens types, etc.
Partly this is a fun exploration of creating art in an unusual medium, much like a photographer might experiment with antique lenses, unusual film formats and suchlike.
But also, although a lot of modern 3D renders are highly realistic there are certain levels of realism they don't bother to pursue, for both computational efficiency reasons and the fact a lot of users don't want them.
This chap had to simulate a lot of light rays, because only a small fraction of them ended up on the imaging plane. You can achieve effects like bokeh adequately with much less render time by using a conventional blender camera and a blur proportional to the Z buffer.
Meanwhile things like film grain, the corners of the image being darker, spherical aberration, chromatic aberration, parts of the image out of focus, lens flares etc aren't what everyone wants for their image.
Re: The Virtual Blender Camera
#20Since modern 3D renderers are already designed to render in a photorealistic way using fundamental principles of light transport, what does this technique actually offer that the renderer itself does not offer? Path tracing follows the basic laws of global illumination, after all, and the path tracing algorithm offers simulation of all different kinds of lens types, etc.
This is an art project. A breathtakingly technical art project.
Did you expect this to be practical? It's a fantastic hack.