MOSAIC feature ramblings - part 7

Part 7 - The Cameras Setup tab:

The "Cameras Setup" tab allow you to set various properties of the camera for export. This tab will only work with Blender camera objects and will not be available for lights or objects set as active cameras, anything other than a camera as active camera is considered a specialty render pass and is setup in the "Scenes Setup" tab. The exporter automatically uses these camera controls under the Blender camera object "editing" tab:

• Lens/Scale - Uses both the lens size and degrees as well as scale (for ortho).


• Orthographic - Uses both standard and orthographic perspectives.


• Dof Dist - Dof distance is used for the focal point if DOF is enabled in MOSAIC.


• Dof Ob - Works by default from Blender.


• Start - Just like Blender this sets the cameras near clipping.


• End - Just like Blender this sets the cameras far clipping.

Something else to note is some RenderMan renderers can use something called a imager shader that can process both the background and entire render buffer. MOSAIC by default uses the built-in imager shader that simulates Blender's World background settings, although currently it only uses the HorRGB color to fill the background. After this blog series is complete I intend on rewriting the built-in shaders to fully simulate Blender's background settings (if possible). The imager shader can be applied to the camera (meaning different cameras could use different imager effects), and the the render pass scene setup tab so environment maps can match active camera.

The cameras tab is fairly straight forward so let's go ahead and list its groups and controls:

Navigation and RIBset management:
This group of controls is at the top of the tab and allows you to select available cameras, updating all controls and Blender selections accordingly. It also has controls for creating, deleting and selecting RIBsets for this tab.

Here's a breakdown of the controls in this group:

• Select Camera -This will show a list of available cameras for selection, once selected it will update Blender's current selection and all controls in this tab.


• Select RIBset -This will show a list of available RIBsets for selection, once selected it will update all controls in this tab.


• Create New RIBset -This will create a new RIBset from the current RIBset control settings and select it.


• Delete This RIBset - This will delete the currently selected RIBset and select the DEFAULT RIBset.

Code management:
This group of controls is for attaching user created code fragments (text file with the "cf_" prefix in their names) to the beginning and end of different RIB blocks. As the previous group, this group of settings is available in various configurations for all the remaining tabs.

Here's a breakdown of the controls in this group:

• Camera Archive -This menu allows you to specify whether the exported RIB code for cameras is exported into separate RIB archives or inlined into the scene RIB.


• Camera Begin Code - This allows the insertion of custom code fragments into the beginning of the camera block before anything MOSAIC exports.


• Camera End Code - This allows the insertion of custom code fragments into the end of the camera block after anything MOSAIC exports.

Shader management:
This group of settings is available in various configurations for all the remaining tabs and is for selecting shaders for the selection.

Here's a breakdown of the controls in this group:

• Image Shader - As mentioned previously this selects the desired imager shader for this camera.


• Notes - This will display a popup of any notes attached to shader fragment by the author (usually containing information about which Blender controls are used by this shader).
  

Options and attributes:
This group of controls is for setting camera related options and attributes for this camera.

Here's a breakdown of the controls in this group:

• Camera MBlur - This enables camera motion blur.
  


• frames - This specifies the number of frames to blur across.
  
  Note : MOSAIC begins the blur by this number before the current frame so blur leads to current frame.
  


• Use DOF - This enables the depth of field effect (uses the Blender's camera Dof Dist control for focal point).


• fstop - This sets the RiDepthOfFeild "fstop" parameter (see your renderers docs or the RiSpec for more details).


• focalL - This sets the RiDepthOfFeild "focal length" parameter (see your renderer's docs or the RiSpec for more details).


• Shutter min - This sets the RiShutter "min" parameter (see your renderer's docs or the RiSpec for more details).
  
  Note : if set to 0 RiShutter will not be exported.
  


• Shutter max - This sets the RiShutter "min" parameter (see your renderer's docs or the RiSpec for more details).
  
  Note : if set to 0 RiShutter will not be exported.

Well, that's it for the cameras tab... next up the "Groups Setup" tab :)

Thanks for reading, WHiTeRaBBiT