far clip plane vs look at distance

[VClaiborne]

who can explain the purposes and differences between Look at Distance and Far Clip Plane distance, and then give an example as to why i would ever need to change either of these?  

[Kevin Allen]

excellent question.

[bbudzon]

We've worked really hard on getting the help documentation up to date. Here is an excerpt:

 

Quote

 

Push Looked At Distance - Adjusts the distance of the Looked At point from the camera. Larger values are best when viewing entire scenes, while smaller values optimize close-up views.

 

Far Clip Plane Distance - Sets the distance to the far vertical planar boundary of the Scene window, beyond which objects are not visible. Lower values correspond with higher shadow quality.

 

 

So to summarize:

- Push Looked At Distance is a way to make the camera tools interact the way you want them to. Small numbers mean you can get closer to objects, but this can make large motions take longer. Larger values mean you can't get as close to objects, but large motions will be faster. We decided on 90 as a default. I often use 300 unless I'm trying to get close to a fixture or scene object.

- Far Clip Distance should always be set as small as it can be as this improves shadow quality, even if only slightly. I recommend zooming out as far as you would ever want to (given your current scene) and lowering the far clip plane until it starts to "cut out" geometry. Bump it back up a little bit so it's no longer clipping. That's the sweet spot, which is contextual to every document you create.

 

Generally speaking, unless you find a need to adjust either of these, there isn't a need to adjust it! I know that sounds oxymoronic but some of these settings were created for the edge case where a customer really does need a radically different value than the default.

[VClaiborne]

@bbudzon thanks Brandon.. these are the types of settings that I think could use a better name and  examples of how to use them in the documentation.  also, i think they should be placed into an "advanced tab" in the preferences window.. do these settings persist when you start a new esc file?  if so, that is problematic.  i havent tested.

[bbudzon]

All settings in Application Settings stick from document to document.

All document settings are reset to defaults on new documents.

 

I am getting ready to make a post in the general vision section about what presets users would like to see and what they are finding useful. Please make sure to contribute to that thread as hopefully it will spark discussion.

 

I can talk with Tech Pubs about updating the help with better examples 😉

[VClaiborne]

"Push Looked At Distance is a way to make the camera tools interact the way you want them to. Small numbers mean you can get closer to objects, but this can make large motions take longer. Larger values mean you can't get as close to objects, but large motions will be faster. We decided on 90 as a default. I often use 300 unless I'm trying to get close to a fixture or scene object."

 

Brandon, I'm inside an esc that has a object, the 100x100x60 room with ceiling and walls.  If I'm understanding looked at distance based on the description above, adjusting the looked at distance, should I see something happen on my screen if I'm currently inside the walls of the room, correct? is this like a wider camera viewing angle?  I don't see anything happening at all on the screen even if I set the number to 1 or 1000. 

[bbudzon]

@VClaiborne Not quite but you're getting warmer. This is an extreme example to prove a point, but set your Push Looked At Distance to 1.0 (I believe it will go this low). Now, try to use your mouse wheel to get across the room. It will be very VERY difficult. Now, try the same thing with Push Looked At Distance set to 1000.0. You will notice the mouse wheel now moves the camera much more quickly.

 

Edit: I wasn't done with my post but the enter key wasn't working and somehow posted this!

 

Edit 2: The last thing I wanted to point out was that we picked a default value of 90.0 because it seemed the most reasonable and worked in almost all cases. Unless you are having problems with not being able to get close enough to something (ie; you should lower the Push Looked At Distance) or unless you are having problems with navigating too slowly (ie; you should increase the Push Looked At Distance) then you likely won't benefit from changing this from the default value of 90.0.

[VClaiborne]

i am not seeing any difference in the reaction time while using the flyover tool, is that what I'm looking for?

[bbudzon]

It does effect flyover but very little. Pan is somewhat effected (def more so than flyover).

 

The one you want to be playing with is zoom (ie; mouse wheel).

[VClaiborne]

still not seeing any difference with the mouse scroll wheel, zoom seems the same to me... same with Pan as well. 

[bbudzon]

I think this furthers the point that most users won't need these settings. I really like the idea of having presets ship with Vision, and furthering that - fostering a community for Vision in which people share their presets with each other.

 

 

Spoilers Below:

Something we did in the code that probably slipped through the cracks is portability of presets.

 

Every time you save a v3s, we store off the document settings. Every time you open a v3s we restore those document settings. Simply open a friends document, go into the document preset dialog, and save off their document settings for later use 👍

 

Here's where it gets a little more interesting... we also store off the application settings in the v3s despite the fact that they are ignored when opening the file. We did this, for one, because it helps us with debugging customer issues. But, we also did it so that you can easily share your application presets with a friend! Simply copy their v3s into your Application Presets folder (you can rename it to something more appropriate/contextual) and it will now appear in your Application Presets drop down. Arguably, this is less helpful as the point of Application Presets is to be more specific to the power of the computer. But, this allows individuals with similar machines to share application presets which is a powerful thing for end users. I literally suggested that we write the code this way to encourage community and sharing 🙂 I will say this portion of the code probably has gone slight more untested, so consider it an easter egg feature 😛

 

(On OSX the path to the preset dir should be: ~/Library/Application Support/Vision/2019/AppPresets)

(On PC the path to the preset dir should be: C:/Users/<USER>/AppData/Roaming/Vision/2019/AppPresets)