OTOY Forums

Hi,
starting from this discussion, and from this other Lua script by roeland, I have prepared an Xpresso setup for automatically adapting an image assigned to a Visible Environment node to be displayed like a Background image.
Let’s take this example scene:

If the Background c4d node is used, it is necessary to enable the Alpha channel option in the Kernel settings, but the Background image is not taken into consideration in reflections and refractions:

With the VisibleBackground Xpresso setup, you need to assign a reference camera, and the image to be displayed as RGB Image texture node. In this way, the projection and uv transform node of the image will be adapted to perfectly feat to the frame buffer, taking count of the camera FOV and Shift value:

It is possible to enable/disable backplate, reflection, refractions:

And change the border mode, in order to have different reflections/refractions based on the color repeted in all directions in the Visible Environment node:

Merge this .c4d file in your scene:

At the following link you can find the corresponding Lua scripted graph version for Standalone:
viewtopic.php?f=73&t=63807
Happy Rendering,
ciao beppe

*it is necessary to correct the aspect ratio in Render Settings, to match the aspect ratio of the background image. If the "Synchronization on geo. update" option is disabled in Settings/Other, it is necessary to press the "Refresh Live View" button, to see the changes applied in LV.

p.s. thanks to Luca-GIOLET for supporting and example scenes.

hi Bepeg !

It looks really useful!
I will test it as soon as possible

thank you very much for sharing.

ciao

Awesome ! Thanks.

I'm a bit confused by this, I seem to have lost my reflections.
I did two set ups, one with just a hdri and the other with hdri and back plate using script but have lost my reflections... see attached

Apologies if this is a bit noob

Hi Burgess AK,
difficult to say from your screenshots, do you mind to share with me an example scene, even via PM?
ciao beppe

Hi Burgess AK,
thanks for the scene.
You need to have your Camera, and assign it to the proper slot in the Xpresso attribute tab:

Then you need to assign the proper backplate image, but do not need to change the nodes inside the VisibleBackground group.
ciao beppe

Thanks so Much, Beppe!
This is the most useful item I got in past months!
I was scared to not be able to use frontal mapping for photo inserting, and this one solved all of my issues!
It's great, easy to use and simply awesome!
Thanks again!!!!

I have to say it too Beppe, thank you for this! This setup is amazing and it saved my back in a recent project. This NEEDS to be integrated in the plugin as a default solution or a new BG object maybe?

And the 'Refresh Live View' button is using the most optimized code that I have ever seen in any app in my entire life. Ever.

Regards
Milan

@shine71:
glad to hear that you like it and find it useful

@Milan:
you made my day
since I prefer to work on Mac, we need to disable the Synchronized with geo update option, so the super-coded button “Refresh LV" is necessary to see any change applied
Thanks man, very appreciated your comment

Happy GPU Rendering,
ciao beppe

Hello,
Will this setup fix the edges of models when using the c4d background object? I can see my background object perfectly but the model edges are all totally not usable when I tick the Kernel Alpha Channel option. Edges were perfect before doing that however.

Thoughts?

Rick