Perspective Distorts characters size too much, what is the alternative?

Serene Night

I like the perspective feature in the camera option But I find that it makes one character, usually the closer one look too huge. It makes scenes where closeups are used look odd.  Shouldn't it make a character look closer, but not well,distort the character quite so large?

I'm not a photographer, so not sure how to overcome the distortion caused by perspective by adjusting the camera. Everytime I try, it makes the closeup look more distorted.

If for example I want two characters to sit together at a table. I still want to retain the idea these characters are the same height even though one is on the other side of the table.

I can change the perspective to off, but then I can't seem to move the camera after. 

Richard Haseltine

Perspective should be the normal mode - it sounds as if your focal length is too low, which can produce a fish-eye effect - though it can be necessary to get a wide-angle view of an interior. Higher focal lengths are like the zoom lens on a camera, reducing the effect of perspective but at the expense of narrowing the field of view.

glaseye

I guess it is, excuse the word pun, all in each others individual perspective. For me, the perspective in DS pretty much looks like that of a 35mm film (anyone remember that - 36x24mm negative size).

Remember that how things look depends on a lot of camera settings. The x,y,z position AND rotation of the camera for instance in relation the object, the focal lenght, the film size (frame width in DS). For what I remember, in those 'old' 135 film cameras, a focal length of about 45mm gives the field of view for the average human eye.

glaseye

Just an image to clarify my above remark, 2 genesisses(!) at a table (sort off ) , frame width 36mm, focal lenght 45mm

image 1:  camera height 170cm, angle 20 degree down

image 2:  same height + angle, new position

image 3: camera height 90cm, angle 5 degree down

 

Tobor

Richard is correct: your camera is physically too close to the subject, and you are compensating by "zooming out" to a wider field. This causes distortion in perspective. Merely move your camera back, and zoom out. D|S supports both. You can control these with the magnifying glass icon. If I'm remembering correctly, using just the mouse zooms, holding down the Ctrl (or is it Shift?) dollies the camera.

(But note that if you're too far zoomed in, the camera will then collapse the perspective, and in a large scene, objects will look squished together. So you want to choose a good middle ground.)

For this sort of thing, a basic understanding of photographic practice is handy. You can absorb most of this in 30 minutes on most any introductory Web site on photography. 

Tobor

glaseye said:

in those 'old' 135 film cameras, a focal length of about 45mm gives the field of view for the average human eye.

It depended on the lens, but the span of "standard" lenses was from 45mm to about 58mm. I recall Minolta, Nikon, and others had 45mm lenses, though it was considered a little wider than human eye perspective. Its main benefit was that it was a little more compact than a "full" lens, and easier to tuck away on a trip. (The competition were the Leica's of the age, which were essentially "pocket" cameras with extremely nice compact optics. If you had a Leica M3, you were somebody!) 50-50mm was more common as the standard lens.

I'm not sure how closely D|S tracks these sizes. The 36mm frame width setting does matche that of the longitudinal dimension of 35mm film, but as other aspects of the D|S camera are not based on real-world lenses, it's best to eyeball it for the desired look.

Serene Night

Thanks folks! This has been very useful info. I think my camera was too close. It looks better when not so close. =-)

Tobor

Correcting myself, it's right-click-drag on the magnifying class to zoom only. Left-click-drag does a dolly. I don't think the Ctrl/Shift keys do anything.

I didn't read it through, but this page seems to address your issue:

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/tutorials/dazstudio/studio-camera01