Orthographic and perspective

Support Basics & Interface
#1

I’ve been trying to model a face for a while now. Something that I’ve noticed is that using my background image as reference in orthographic view means that when I render in perspective my face comes out looking thin. Is there something that I could do to combat this? Should I just stretch my model out laterally after I’ve finished and all ready to render?

BTW: I’ve been playing with Blender for a while now (3 months maybe) but I still think of myself as a “n00b” when it comes down to it. Key strokes and button toggles with advice on what to do would be awesome.

#2

It sounds like the perspective is making your render look crappy. Thats what happens when you do a closeup with a wide angle lens. The default camera lens in Blender is 35 [mm]. Either bring the camera back, or make it telephoto (something in the order of 150 or 200 mm). You can access those settings with the camera selected in the edit buttons (F9).

Hope that helps.

-Laurifer

#3

If you model a building by tracing architectural plans which are a true ortho view and then render in perspective mode your model will look correct. If you model by tracing a photograph ( a perspective view) while in the 3d views ortho mode and then render in perspective view your model will look distorted because the perspective has been applied twice – once in the photograph and again in blender when converting from an ortho tracing of a perspective view to a perspective view (I hope that made sense).

When modelling from a reference photo I only use ortho view while tracing and then switch to perspective view (Numpad 5) to adjust my model. This functionality is often required and there is a special setting available in the User Preferences Window --> View & Controls under View Rotation: Auto Perspective. This setting goes automagically into perspective mode after leaving one of the ortho views (Numpad 1, 3, 7).

Hope this helps,
GreyBeard

#4

GreyBeard, you and only a few people here realize this Ortho/Perspective problem.

I keep telling people to get photographs that are “long shots” or use a telephoto lens (or ZOOM) lens to make custom photos of people.

I have found that when modeling from a photograph that is already “perspective”, you HAVE to compensate it by tweaking it by hand until it looks correct when rendered. I usually adjust the camera too, up to 200mm and keep the head as the main subject, because other meshes may look bad with a 200mm lens.

Here’s an animated transition from ORTHO to Perspective.
Click here to watch Facial-Perspective