Framing the physical camera in tight interior spaces can be a real challenge. That is mainly due to actual limitations of DSLR cameras. In order to cover the entire field of view of a small space, a wide angle lens is required. And with that comes the problem of lens distortion.

But the great thing about working with 3ds Max and VRay is that we don’t always have to conform to reality. For such a camera composition to work, we need to bend the physical laws a bit.

In this example here, we have a render of a small bathroom space. If we tried placing the camera at the edge of the bathroom near the wall, we wouldn’t be able to capture the complete scene. And if we set a low focal length for the camera, then we’ll get considerable distortion.

We can avoid a distorted image and still get a complete view by using this little trick.

Visible To Camera Trick

To get started, you’ll need to set the camera composition for the scene the way you want to view it artistically. This means our camera will fall outside and get blocked by the walls.

In order to make our camera see through the wall, we can go into the Object Properties of the blocking wall and turn off ‘Visible to Camera‘ setting. This ensures that the VRayPhysicalCamera can see through those walls, but the scene renders the same.

The wall will continue to be used in GI, Reflections and all other calculations. The VrayPhysicalCamera is essentially only looking through the wall and everything else remains unaffected.

Even though this trick uses an unrealistic technique, the final image is rendered without looking odd to the viewer. In the end, the artistic composition always trumps the technical part of creating a visualization.

Hope you found this tip helpful. Please remember to share this tip and add your comment. Stay tuned for more tutorials and tricks. See you later.