Cycles: Node editor for cameras
It would be awesome to have a simple node editor with access to standard texture nodes and some features like lens distortion, chromatic aberration, flares, and custom bokeh. Maybe implemented as a node-based, easy frontend for OSL camera scripting?
I imagine there being maybe these specific nodes:
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Lens distortion (adds physical lens distortion with curvature, IOR, etc. inputs, + chromatic aberration controls) (could be stacked for multiple lens systems)
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Vignette
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Bokeh shape (maybe an output instead of a node?) (this could be made using a default bokeh shape generator and layering on images and procedural textures for gritty bokeh)
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Petzval Distortion
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Lens dirt
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Flares (would be based on the bokeh shape and lenses to create physical flares)
All this would just make realistic camera effects much easier to implement in Blender, balancing the realism of OSL and the ease of the compositor.
3 Comments
Ok but why would you need a node system? Wouldn't it be enough to add some new settings to the camera? And which render engine does even calculate lens flares physically except maybe luxcore which is a rather experimental render engine?
Looking at the features of e.g. the Octane universal camera there are definitely some things that would be nice to have in Cycles but most of that can be done in comp and is also way faster there. Especially for vignetting, lens distion and, lens dirt. And Bokeh defocus is even in Hollywood productions often done via comp since the defocus makes heavy comp a lot harder, takes longer to render, and is less easy to art direct...
Aren't all of these effects done in the compositor already? What do you mean by having those "for cameras"? What are the benefits or advantages of the current system, and which couldn't just be met by enhancing the existing system instead of making a new one for cameras?
A lot of these features are in the compositor, you're right. However, there are huge limitations. For example, lens distortion in the compositor only affects pre-rendered pixels so it cannot account for multi-component lenses, and is unable to physically model the way light bends through a camera. Custom bokeh is only supported by using the bokeh blur node, which means depth of field is post-render, hard to control, and not visible in the viewport (you can add a plane with a bokeh image in front of the camera, but it is hacky and takes a while to set up). Lens dirt is kind of doable, but it requires once again using a bokeh blur node if you want it to look right and you can't easily match the bokeh image if you are making it procedurally. Flares that look like real, multi-lens flares are all but impossible in the compositor, and brutally slow. So it depends on what you want to do: if you are just after simple bloom/chromatic aberration, the compositor works. Otherwise not. There are awesome addons like Lens Sim, but they are expensive and not as customizable as a node-based editor. It would be great to have free capability built-in to blender.