3DS MAX Switching from VRay Physical Camera to standard Tutorial

ypically in most scenes created by using V-Ray renderer, many visualizers use specialized camera called VRayPhysicalCamera. It has many settings that simulate similar real camera settings and therefore it is easy to use in it's own way.

However, it is not always possible and convenient  to use the camera of this type in practice. For example in the case when it is necessary to perform an orthogonal visualization from the camera, or to create interactive virtual panorama or use any special plug-in/script. In these cases, more preferable and sometimes the only possible is an use of standard 3ds Max camera.

It is important to know how you can go to a standard camera therefore, even if the scene was originally set up to work with V-Ray Camera. This wouldn't take much efforts.

At first the standard camera must be created. It can be done from Create in the Command Panel, in a group Cameras, as well as in the perspective view with hotkey combination Ctrl+C.

In consequence of a significant difference in a controls of the standard 3ds Max camera and a VRayPhysicalCamera, the visualization of the scene from VRayPhysicalCamera will vary in brightness from rendering the same scene from the standard 3ds Max camera.

VRayPhysicalCamera simulates aperture parameter f-number, shutter speed setting and film speed (ISO), which directly affect the brightness of the resulting picture.

There are no similar settings in the standard 3ds Max camera and the brightness of images obtained from it does not depend from camera's settings. Brightness is determined only by settings of the scene, such as lighting conditions, the brightness of light sources, render settings, etc.

There can be assumed that while not being able to adjust the brightness through the camera, it can be carried out through direct changes in the brightness of the light sources.

However, this shouldn't be done because of complexity and irrationality of this approach. It is much easier and more convenient to adjust brightness using a single parameter Multiplier, located in V-Ray tab in the dialog box Render Scene (F10) in the V-Ray: color mapping rollout.

This value is equal to one by default. To alter the brightness, the value of Multiplier should be increased or decreased. This will correspondingly increase or decrease the brightness of the final rendering.

Often you not only need to visualize scenes from the standard 3ds Max cameras, but to replace the VRayPhysicalCamera by the standard for obtaining a similar image of the same angle that was picked up in VRayPhysicalCamera.

Of course you can create a standard 3ds Max camera in the scene and manually pick the same angle, for example through using auto-alignment instrument Align (Alt+A). That is done by aligning a container of standard 3ds Max camera to the VRayPhysicalCamera's container and aligning a Target point of standard camera to the V-Ray's camera point of targeting, adjusting the Lens focal length or FOV angle values of standard 3ds Max camera. By that way you can achieve good similarities of the angles.

However, the substitution of cameras, as well as adjusting the brightness of the scene, should be done in a  more rational way.

To do this you first need to switch the view to the V-Ray camera that needs to be replaced in a viewport. After that, being in the view of VRayPhysicalCamera, switch to a Perspective view by pressing P on the keyboard. Thus, the perspective view will match the current camera view.

Now the latest thing to do is use the automatic camera creation based on the perspective view. To do this, press the key combination Ctrl+C and 3ds Max will create a standard 3ds Max camera, automatically picking up the camera position, target and values of Lens / FOV settings.

After those actions, the view from the newly established standard 3ds Max camera will fully match to substituted VRayPhysicalCamera.

As you can see, everything is simple and quite fast ;)

Source :-http://renderstuff.com/