Best way to get Lens Distortion?

[jayroth]

Curious is there is a way to get lens distortion out of Octane using Cinema. Hoping for a simple, non-post solution...

[jayroth]

Cinema 4D has a great lens distortion tool which allows you to create a profile of a distortion, and then apply it to a render via a post effect. Sadly, this is not yet supported by Octane, though I do not know if this is a limitation in the plug in or the Octane Standalone.

[jayroth]

I have been informed that there is a lens distortion option in the Octane Camera tag; that does indeed distort the image, however, it is limited to positive numbers only. This will prevent the type of distortion that I am trying to match from being achieved (panavision anamorphic). Is there any way to allow for negative numbers in future versions of this feature?

[Terryvfx]

Sorry Jayroth but as of right now there is no way to get the sort of distortion that you want in Octane just use a post process solution for this. Analyze the distortion of the footage and then apply that distortion to the undistorted render from Octane in compositing, you will probably benefit for the subtle loss of sharpness anyway.

[jayroth]

I actually just built a facsimile of an anamorphic lens out of planes and deformers (so that I could adjust as needed to lock in the look) and that has ended up getting pretty close. The results I am getting from Octane are very clean, and there doesn't seem to be any render penalty for doing so. The biggest issue is that I cannot see the same result in the Cinema veiwports, and this scene is getting a little heavy for true realtime interaction in Live View. It does work, though (as much as my understanding of the way anamorphic lenses work will allow...)

[Terryvfx]

Honestly there is no gain for baking the distortion in the render as far as I can see it's always better to do it in post. I'm sorry but I don't see the point in been able to preview the distortion in the viewport, why is this an issue?

[aoktar]

I stay away from the topic because there's not any way to implement to renderer at the moment. I talk about 3d way not as post effects.

[jayroth]

Honestly there is no gain for baking the distortion in the render as far as I can see it's always better to do it in post. I'm sorry but I don't see the point in been able to preview the distortion in the viewport, why is this an issue?

This is for an experimental project I am working on. I am matching pre-existing footage, but I do not have access to the original source. Instead, I am matching to a cropped release print version of an older film. That film was shot 35mm anamorphic. Take these factors together, and it makes matching the shot difficult. I have undistorted the shot, but due to the cropping of the original, the perspective match/focal length solve differs from the the original to the point that it bugs me. And Cinema locks the solve, so it does not allow me to mess with the focal length, etc.

Plan B was to recreate an anamorphic lens, and see how close I could get. That meant I needed to learn enough about anamorphic lenses to ballpark it. Fortunately, I have worked with anamorphic lenses on a few films, so while I may not have dialed it in exactly, I am happy with the results I have managed to get, as it captures the flavor of the original material well enough for me. If I were to do this exclusively as a post effect, matching object positions, etc. would have been far more challenging, as my initial tests in doing so indicated.

[Terryvfx]

I see, that cropped factor definitely makes it more difficult. What software are you using to do the compositing?

[jayroth]

I see, that cropped factor definitely makes it more difficult. What software are you using to do the compositing?

AE, though I am getting some great results with my Plan B setup, and I think that I will only use AE for color correction and some sweetening. We'll see how it turns out. I'll post here when done.