render/zoom

[dr0591]

I agree -- a total pain now in X2. After I've zoomed around, the only way to get back the view I want is to shut down the camera and start over again.

[Doug Park]

We added an additional way to zoom in X2 render views. It's kind of subtle so I understand why people don't notice the difference.

There are several ways of making things bigger with a camera.

1) Move the camera closer. This works pretty well until you bump up against something.

2) Change your field of view. This is like putting a wide angle lens on a camera or using a zoom lens on a camera. The wider it is the more you can see, but the more distorted it is.

3) Magnify the image. This is similar to what you do after a picture is taken with a digital camera and you want to zoom in on a portion of the picture. There is not additional distortion added to the picture so it is real nice for zooming in on a small portion of the scene without changing what it looks like. This also allows you to pan around the image without moving the camera.

The third form of zooming is what we added in X2. It is in fact the way zooming worked in the Vector View in older products. The second form is what we were doing in X1 in the render view. This led to inconsistent and confusing results when switching between views. They are now consistent.

You can choose 2 or 3 as your primary method of zooming in preferences.

POV supports the first 2 forms but not the third. Unfortunately we have not found a way of working around this limitation. The message is there to let you know that this is going on.

[Pat1217]

Doug,
Thanks for the explanation but I never found a problem using the camera in X1. I thought it worked fairly well.

It can get extremely annoying in X2 when a camera view is placed exactly where I want it, I've edited the camera as I want and I inadvertently move the camera and have to reposition a new camera, change the settings again, etc.