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STEP 15
Here you can see how the camMask fills the bottom half of each of the views shown (F,L,R.) Steps 16 and 17 show how to make it flat black, to cut down on render time.
(Note: only use this mask if you will not need to change the tilt of the dome master, as mentioned in the "What is a Dome Master?" tutorial. If you will be using stitching software which allows you to change the tilt, so as to accomodate both horizontal domes like the Hayden and tilted domes like LodeStar, then you will need to render the whole frame. This only applies if your image needs to appear horizontal, such as an ocean horizon. It doesn't really make much difference for roller coaster rides or kaleidoscopes!)
STEP 16
In order to create a flat black mask, we need to create a special shader for the mask.
Go to Window>Rendering Editors>HyperShade
Open"Create Materials" in the left hand column, and select"Lambert." This will create Lambert2. Do NOT use Lambert1 for this purpose!!!
STEP 17
Select Lambert2 and hit ctrl-a to open it in the attribute editor. Set the sliders as shown, paying special attention to Color, Ambient Color and Diffuse. This creates a pure black surface which disregards any light in the scene. When applied to the camMask cube, it causes the bottom half of the F,L,R and B views to quickly render a flat black area. This can literally save you weeks of rendering on a dome piece!!
STEP 18
To prevent the camera rig from becoming misaligned, it is a good idea to lock the tranforms on the cameras and the parts of the cube. To do this, select a camera. Then, in the channel box, select all of the translate, rotate and scale attributes as shown. Be sure you select the title words(not the values), they will appear white on black as in the image. Right click and select"Lock Selected." All transforms will go grey.
Do the same steps for each of the cameras, each side of the mask cube (and the group node of the mask as well.) All nodes should be locked except for the top"camRig" node.
Check to make sure all settings except the proper camera rotates are still set to zero. If a camera is accidentally moved out of alignment, the stitcher will leave seams in your dome master!
Note: the rig shown in this image is rotated -20 degrees on the x axis using the camRig node to create a level horizon in a 20 degree tilted dome. See the next step.
STEP 19
Now if you want to move or rotate your camera rig, just go to the hypergraph and select the camRig node. You can use this node to fly your rig around, to move it along a motion path, to give it the proper tilt for your dome, or anything else which requires moving your camera.
© Copyright 2008 ARTS Lab / University of New Mexico