The REAL Reason Unreal Engine VFX Looks FAKE

The Unreal Engine 5 cinema camera makes everything look fake. In this video I take a look at what we can do to get more photorealistic renders from Unreal Engine.
Download Virtual Lenses:
www.joshuamkerr.com/virtualglass

[@TristanG10.000]

This reminds me so much of the guy who made a working camera in blender, I love the solution "build it as real life" and bam, you get realistic result, what a surprise :D

[@user-is8nn1sb1n]

isn`t it just putting a post effect just right before camera, making basically re-inventing bicycle?

[@gottesman007]

@@user-is8nn1sb1n Nope, because you simulate the bending of light rays as they do in real life, and that affects how the elements are perceived by the camera, not just the colors, but the different "layers" like background, midground and foreground, plus you get accurate light effects when hitting a lense. All of that are impossible to get on post (for a video at least)

[@PaulTaylorWapsiSquare]

Oh cool. I only saw this after I asked if this would be possible in Blender. Is this camera build something that can be purchased as an add-on or something?

[@vilzio89]

That was so cool!

[@Rasteriser]

Sirrrandalot I think

[@xpeng121]

Render Time x1000

[@cjjuszczak]

"Hey look i made a system to get lense aberrations!" "but we already have that, that's what all the options and sliders, etc are for ??" "yes but i made "virtual lens" system that has the same effects, with more steps, and it renders slower too!" "this is beneficial to me HOW exactly ??"

[@dzxtricks]

Exactly, scale this up to render entire animation frames and we're looking at slightly blurrier result in... Several months instead of a day or so

[@samot1808]

@@cjjuszczak such backwards thinking. This will probably be the norm in the near future.

[@pieppy6058]

1000x render time is like 15 seconds. Per frame. That’s like, incredibly fast

[@cjjuszczak]

@@pieppy6058 "incredibly fast". ... so just to get a standard 24fps video, it takes 360 seconds, that's 6 MINUTES, per second of 24fps video. 360 minutes (6 hours) to render 1 minute lol. a 10 minute video would take 60 hours, that's two and a half days ... "incredibly fast" 🤣🤣🤣

[@olivetree9920]

I did the same in blender years ago. It really makes a difference even though it added tons of render time back then

[@parkersedberry7233]

Wow I would love to see a tutorial for that

[@eladbari]

Many comment say there's a same tool for blender. Zero links or name mentions for such tool, though.... :\

[@ferretart]

@@eladbari damn if only we were on something almost like a search engine where you type into a search bar.. such a shame.. But because you can't do this yourself apparently "Make Your Renders Unnecessarily Complicated" & "Achieving True Photorealism With Lens Simulation" are the two videos I ASSUME people are referring to p.s copy and paste those titles into the magical search bar

[@David-Ace-olotl]

​@@eladbariKZbin removes comments with links, but the name of the channel is "sirrandalot". Hope it helps!

[@LuLeBe]

​@@eladbariit's just a KZbin video. They've seen it years ago and would have to search for it as well, just like you. It's not an addon because it's completely impractical. Fun experiment, yes, but the added render time is enough to learn all about lenses and then about post processing and then create a realistic result that way and still have time left.

[@DanielLionArts]

Anamorphic lenses YES PLEASE!!👍🏼👍🏼 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Bravo Joshua!!

[@fretstain]

literally came here for this comment

[@vjcodec]

Thinking Selling my collection of Anamorphic adapters and lenses I collected over the last 15 years. Any interest in them still?

[@jacktoth4475]

Theres already Jackimorphics for blender they do exactly this

[@enilenis]

Just scale the lens 2:1 on the horizontal axis and then change pixel aspect ratio to match and done. Don't need to make any special systems.

[@fretstain]

@@enilenis that does nothing for the accurate depth of field, no?

[@rizzo-films]

As a filmmaker / cinematographer, this is BRILLIANT. Such a smart, creative solution. If we're making virtual worlds, why not use a virtual camera with a truly virtual lens? Love it.

[@cgartperson]

This could work for a still image, but the excessive bouncing light rays will spike your render time and heavy noise especially for animations. These tasks are usually handled in post-production for a reason. Unreal Engine's advantage is real-time rendering, but this will make it slower than traditional software and compositing.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

It is an increase in render time for sure but still very possible to render animations. The big leap that will make this approach more viable is the introduction of a good denoiser, which I believe is coming in 5.5. I'm putting this together with the future in mind, not the present.

[@cgartperson]

​@@JoshuaMKerr It's possible, but refractive materials significantly increase render time, especially if they cover the entire camera view instead of just a part of the frame. Even small speckles in reflective objects can cause this issue. Adding a refractive object over a virtual camera will make rendering animations very challenging. It's a cool idea and technique, though!

[@NOMONEYTV]

@@cgartperson plot viability over time and eventually this approach will cross the line of trade-offs. I think what's important is that this is the correct approach for realism (simulation). All it needs now is optimization and/or time.

[@cgartperson]

​@@NOMONEYTV Once we have realtime raytracers with hundreds of bounces, glossy reflections, refraction calculations, etc. By the time we have that technology to do this instantly, these type of rendering systems will be outdated and probably replaced by neural rendering that fakes all of this. A denoiser isn't going to fix this approach. These pathtracing engines have existed for many years, do you think none of the PHDs who developed these programs never thought to put a virtual glass in front of a camera? There's so many reasons why it's not done this way, doubling down on the argument and saying 'this is the future of vfx' is spreading ignorance.

[@sentinelav]

​@@cgartperson If you have a given frame budget, with a focus on a natural looking render, and this fits within that, why not use it? It might cause a 10x slowdown, but that could still be viable if you want the upsides. Getting good distorted bokeh is virtually impossible with post-processing, and the process of ensuring consistency with application of lens effects in post can be a nightmare. This guarantees that when modelling a lens, you're going to get consistent distortion, vignetting, bloom and other optical effects. Full lens modelling IS the future, the process just isn't optimised yet. It's like when people were shunting raytracing in video games just because the first few RTX implementations were slow, and now Lumen is used everywhere.

[@smepable]

This is AWESOME! I will defintiely buy those, thanks for making one free to test. Anamorphic definitely wanted as well. What is your Graphics card and does it slow down your render time?

[@liamarter8232]

This is awesome. Was curious if you were gonna make any anamorphics right before you said it. Super excited to try these out.

[@RwanLink]

I tried it but sadly it doesn't work with the HDRI Backdrop in pathtracing.

[@Sajith050683]

Probably cos any backdrop doesn't have actual depth?

[@JosephWraith]

Excellent work, I thought about that myself every time I try and render a cinematic out of unreal. Glad you found the answer!! Definitely going to purchase this.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Awesome, thank you!

[@NiallWoods347]

This is beautiful and so creative! Nicely done Joshua, I look forward to getting stuck into these. Ill be sure to recommend this moving forward!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hey man! That's awesome. How are you these days?

[@NiallWoods347]

​@@JoshuaMKerr Keeping well Joshua thank you for asking. Been loving your virtual production stuff lately.

[@FrankJonen]

That is so cool. When I did that in Modo about 10 years ago it took forever to render and I didn't even have the lens dirt and grit. It wasn't manageable for anything but still shots.

[@tabletoparcade4203]

Why do people want lens glare? Surely the end goal is to make everything look as it would with your naked eyes, right?

[@PlasticButtons]

Unless you want to make something look like it was filmed with a camera

[@musguelha14]

We don't shoot movies with our eyes.

[@R2Bl3nd]

It's what we're used to seeing in photos and films, and also, this effect actually does happen with our vision. It's called glare.

[@Isotopique]

Chromatic aberration and lens dirt effects are the first things I always remove in games settings. My eyes don't have those things. But it is surely possible to recreate eye lens effects no? Some fatigue, dryness, floating dirt in the eyes or on the surface, astigmatism..! Now that would be real 😉 Still amazing virtual camera lens you have there to transform light paths! Crazy tools for ultimate cinematics!

[@postprocessed]

Joshua, I admire your approach and result looks phenomenal. I have few questions as "conservative CGI artist" who used to DaVinci and Fusion and all that "2d" filter stuff. Why not Post Processing Material? It might be less performance hungry and can do the same effects. Yes it is much harder to make proper and need to know blueprinting or sometimes even C++. How much samples would you need for this to render without fireflies? So it all boils down to: how much performance is affected with this approach? Keep doing great stuff man!

[@richardmason3]

The way he smiled when he revealed the models of the lenses ... tells me he just wanted to do it that way.

[@activemotionpictures]

I'm also on the same question square with Postprocessed: Why not Post processing Material?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

The point of the lenses is to simulate their effects with physical accuracy.

[@cshainer1]

@@JoshuaMKerr, I wish you had compared it to an image that included the post-processing that can be added within UE5. You can approximate much of what you are doing with pretty minimal overhead. Of course, the through-the-lens shot will look more real than the unfiltered 'perfect' Cinema camera. That's why the other stuff exists.

[@yallknow112]

I've been patiently waiting on this and I am still so blown away!! Buying this tonight, and I'm so excited to see it in my projects!

[@Reelworthy]

I remember when film people talked like this about digital. They were wrong. Digital wasn’t boring or ugly; they were nostalgic. The goal of the camera was to provide to your eyeballs something real, not something messed up

[@8O0Aa.1q3S0.]

That's all great, but it just doesn't make sense. Using stouch glass won't help to calculate a scene in real-time in Unreal Engine, and since UE is only used for backdrops in movies, it doesn't really make sense either. In Blender, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, and others, there's a function to adjust the lens, as if the image passes through glass. It's not a post-effect; it's simply the lens emulation, and it works without an add-on. Another issue is whether you want to simulate a specific lens or glass with unique characteristics, but in that case, you can't be sure that your material settings in a 3D program will correspond to the physical properties of the real object 100%. So, again, the idea doesn't lead anywhere. What would really be useful and worth doing would be to create LUTs for old films, which could, if possible, not just reduce colors to the final result but also emulate chemical reactions in film, producing the "real color".

[@darrennew8211]

What always amuses me is how hard we strive to make the thing you're looking at look like it's shot through a lens even when it isn't. Like, games where when you're in the rain the drops are running down your eyeballs, or you get lens flairs, even when the character isn't wearing glasses.

[@thomasriess9208]

@@darrennew8211 I hate all such photorealistic effects in games. They are just immersion breaking

[@gavinhalm3016]

Agreed: In all seriousness, the amount of science that goes into making high end glass for cine is far beyond looking up a couple "simple" lens configs on the web or in a book for this or that focal length, creating a glass like virtual material (which is an entire OTHER ball of scientific wax), and slapping them in front of the virtual cam...Optical Engineers most of us are not...I'll take my chances using VFX programs and compositing things together for filmic pieces; and, anyway, gaming doesn't "need" such photorealistic effects, which would likely take away from the feeling of "presence" that is unique to that medium.

[@timbabb2508]

Looks cool, but it's going to be hell for sampling! You'll get a much grainier image, or spend much more time rendering. The best place to do this stuff is in a projection shader (or whatever name unreal uses for that step), so the bokeh and lens roughness can be importance sampled. Also if the engine treats camera rays as special (many do), it would preserve that classification.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thats probably true. Im more interested in the possibilities across the next two version of unreal. adaptive sampling in 5.4 and an excellent new denoiser in 5.5 is coming.

[@madht5472]

Thank you!!! I will test these with my virtual production short film

[@Atsolok]

Really nice work Joshua!! You're such an inspiration! Keep it up brother 🔥🔥🔥

[@dubtube6691]

How much does it affect render times?

[@jeffsaffron5647]

You don't want to know.

[@koktszfung]

You can see there are a lot more noise that takes much longer to go away when using the lens, but I am sure denoising will be strong enough to remove them in the future

[@hideodaikoku]

i wonder how far you could control for this with just a post-process material and render targets. like others have said, it looks like this will affect render times by a lot and create a much grainier image

[@derAtze]

You can't really fake bokeh in post processing

[@RickSjoerds]

Awesome, just came across this vid. Dude, this is great! I’ll be following you!

[@TheStoriesWeTell]

really cool stuff. I really have to learn this. Is it suitable to do this on your own for productions?

[@TheStoriesWeTell]

I guess my question is, where to start?

[@sikliztailbunch]

Octane Render has all the things you have reated just built in from custom aperture shape, bokeh bias, all sorts of lens distortions, exponential glow, spectral dispersion glare, chromatic abberation, ACES tonemapping etc. I have never tested Octane in UE but since it´s free, it´s likely having less features, But if those feature are existent in Unreal, you will find them at octane camera settings and octane render post settings. Render settings is global. Camera setting override global individually But anyway, creating all of this from scratch is crazy awesome. Kudos!

[@StainlessPot]

The things you listed are also in the Unreal cine camera. They're probably just tweaked wrong by default.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@StainlessPot The effects I'm making are physically based, thats the point of them. Not to say people can't use postprocess filters.

[@rizzo-films]

What he's doing is a little on the nerdy cinematographer side, so i can see how some would say its not needed considering UE already has camera effects. What's cool about it is that it opens the door for a similar process that cinematographers use which is choosing vintage, flawed or just hyper-specfic glass to achieve a certain look. And it's not just increased chromatic aberration or a certain boke shape, it's usually a mix of things that create a "secret sauce", a complex mix of variables (not just specs) that shape a unique look. What you get, and what cinematographers tend to look for, are those unexpected effects that are natural artifacts of the lens. Someone can engineer these types of lenses for other users to download. Like a Helios 44-2 Russian lens or Ultra Panavision 70 anamorphic from the 1970's.

[@RichardServello]

Can you output some denoised images tho, it's really hard to tell being so noisy.

[@RehanaLatif]

so exciting . will try defiantly. Thank you.

[@davidnappyhoose204]

Amazing! So simple an idea but it took a brilliant mind to come up with it. Great job! Can't wait to play around with the 85mm and then I'm sure I'll spring for the others.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hey man, you're too kind. Enjoy the 85mm, it's one of my faves. Let me know how you find it.

[@jakecarvey]

Love - we've done this in the past in Lightwave, Blender Cycles, etc. So cool that Unreal can do it as well - and love the range of effects you're getting. Cant wait to have a look!

[@povertymidas]

This is lovely work and a clever solution!

[@bduder]

Intersting. Very interesting. I'm curious what render time comparisons are with/without.

[@russellebenton]

Randomly ran into this and know it's far beyond my knowledge. And I hope my amazement at what you as a single persin has done here is warranted. Amazing.

[@LuccDev]

I like how artificial imperfections seems more "natural" to us when consuming entertainment. Just like 60 FPS movies aren't a thing because we are too used to the lower FPS formats, and the higher FPS ones feel like a bad TV show. There are a ton of examples like this, like lenses flares added to game/movies artificially, even if it's something that appears on a camera and doesn't happen on an eye. So bascially "realism" is just recreating something that we are used to, not really getting close to the ground truth when it comes to light.

[@johnathanskinner9263]

Lens flares are a real part of every day life for anyone who wears glasses 🤓

[@kokojack]

I hate camera effects in games and I love my videos with high FPS/interpolated frames lol. It looks more real to me

[@tuenguyen5553]

this is gonna be the next step of virtual film making, good work Joshua !

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks so much man, It's been a long road i'm actually shaking with nerves putting this video out.

[@bottledwaterprod]

Yes to anamorphic! I'm saving up for some Blazar Remus glass atm, and when I get there I'm gonna want a way to match that look in the sfx process.

[@enilenis]

Rendering through a plane with fine bump map would at least take care of the bloom effect, that's probably the coolest to have. Of course, accurate refractions are more important and there is probably a benefit to having exact lens replicas, but I could also just do 2 flat planes of virtual glass with artificially set refraction indexes that add up to 1. Wouldn't be scientifically accurate, but I wouldn't have to do the complex math either. Wouldn't have to worry about the lens breathing. There are ways of doing quick patch solutions to get 99% there with minimal effort. 6 minutes to wire the shaders instead of 6 months. Will go try it in Maya and Blender. Cool tricks still. Cinema buffs would probably want that.

[@azca.]

I'm already 20 seconds in and I'm already asking: "how much is this gonna cost me".

[@bricaaron3978]

All of these things you describe as being (potentially) great are fine, as long as you are making Interactive Movies/Stories. They are in fact garbage if you are trying to make Video Games or Simulations, in which the player/user is _not_ looking through a camera, but only out of his own eyeballs.

[@Sajith050683]

not everyone's vision is crystal clear 20/20. We have floaters, focus issues, near sightedness, far sightedness, uneven strength in each eyeball, so next would be to model a pair of eyeballs to look through

[@bricaaron3978]

@@Sajith050683 With respect, I honestly can't tell whether or not you're serious.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Actually, it's quite a good idea for a horror game where the main character has poor sight. Damn I need to get into game dev now haha

[@ChimpFlipperJr]

Actually, a lot of new games that people think look very realistic are achieving that effect in part by employing visual artifacts associated with cameras and imperfect lenses. Look at a game like Unrecord for example.

[@bricaaron3978]

@@JoshuaMKerr My apologies... I didn't realize that you weren't speaking with respect to video game development. P.S. I had been watching videos on video game development and commented too hastily.

[@stormwave]

This is awesome! Purchased the collection. Gonna have fun with these! Well done, sir!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks so much, don't forget to join the discord and post some images. Would love to see what you make

[@DavidBoura]

Making "ies" spotlights like in real life, before the option exists in your renderer was a fun and epic game in the past. Well done man!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thank you, I never thought of that as an equivalent.

[@DavidBoura]

@@JoshuaMKerr Basically, reproducing light behavior under certain beloved conditions with modeling or shaders etc tricks 😉

[@artemmentiy7107]

You really should have mentioned the guy who made a working camera in blender. AND he gives away his camera for free!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

There are about three people (that I know of) who are doing awesome things like this but their work wasn't part of my process of learning and building this, and I'm creating for different software.

[@StanleyKubick1]

@@JoshuaMKerr you still got the idea from

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Actually, that's not the case.

[@WimPrest]

Good for him. Maybe this guy's not in a position to give this away for free. Either way, it was a ton of work, and looks like it has real value. If you don't want to buy it, that's fine. But don't complain that it's not free. Go make your own

[@CosmicGalaxyMC]

It's not his job to market the others guys stuff. He made his own thing with hours and hours of work. He's not entitled to do anything. Actually that's more on the consumer to do their own research and find free alternatives if anything.

[@marcopozzi522]

You saw a video of a random guy on KZbin that explained how to create lens, and you thought: "why not?"

[@Phonognomiks]

😂👍🏻

[@ethanwasme4307]

the cycle continues

[@Rivenworld]

Great video, when Cyan created their masterpiece 'Riven' they used real-world textures to map onto their geometry, they are currently remaking this in Unreal and the textures don't look anywhere as realistic as the original. Great advice here, love it.

[@micaiahdavis5636]

This was already fascinating, but seeing your excitement when you started talking about the lenses made me smile the most. Bravo, sir! 👏🏾👏🏾😊

[@paulfedor9828]

Also in VFX we delens plates in Nuke.....often in CG we dont render with lens distortion and apply the lens distortion in Nuke. Also in VFX we do NOT use Bloom. You might want to try manual focus in your camera settings. Your Bloom looks horrific...and comp sup in VFX would slay you. Your example of Bloom looks like someone licked the lens LOL. You might want to rent an Arri, Sony or Red camera.

[@LFPAnimations]

Hate to break this to you, but all these effects can be achieved a lot more efficiently in compositing. What would be really cool would be to figure out how to achieve them with a post process material that runs in realtime.

[@TomLee-lv8ql]

Can you change bokeh shape in post? If you pull this out your work will change the industry 😂

[@AnthonyDeCroce]

@@TomLee-lv8ql you can change the bokeh in engine. With a PPM

[@TomLee-lv8ql]

@@AnthonyDeCrocethank you but this was not my question. Can you change the bokeh in post.

[@AnthonyDeCroce]

@@TomLee-lv8ql true.

[@TomLee-lv8ql]

@@AnthonyDeCroce 🤗

[@AndDoubleWHY]

Its amazing how innovation seems so obvious once its accomplished. Good work man, this is some really cool stuff!!!

[@TheMediaMachine]

Yes, I like to hear more about other lenses. This is going to help big time with what I want to do in future. I'm just worried about rendering time. So saving up to get this sorted out to take advantage of this. More on lenses, and other lenses in fact. Cheers!

[@HJ-gg6ju]

I don't understand? Why use a realtime rendering system just to make it no longer real time? Why not use a traditional renderer and get better results? This makes no sense

[@codybythrow]

Content

[@sephreed1938]

He had an idea and pursued it.

[@pyit.876]

Well you pretty much can't do stuffs like spherical bokas in post processing

[@ethanwasme4307]

you do realise unreal engine is an offline render engine as well right... and good luck moving around a 3d scene in blender at 200fps 😂😂

[@SynergyCreatives]

It is called unreal for a reason😂

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Haha, I originally wanted to call the video Unreal...istic

[@JasonKey3D]

wow, never would have thought that would work. props to the one(s) who wrote the UE path tracer.

[@alkevinzmedia]

This is so amazing! I have been trying to recreate a lense on Adobe Substance to some degree i made it work but it was not perfect. This takes it to another level. It's so bizarre and unbelievable to know that a lens has been virtually created and has working functions just like in real life. Awesome job!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Really glad you enjoyed the video and the results. It's been a long time coming and it's only the beginning.

[@heavycrown005]

phD in unreal engine for sure

[@JoshuaMKerr]

too kind ;)

[@chelo111]

bro show us a clip were you use the lenses in a video please, your selling something but you are not showing us a final result 🤕

[@y0blue]

Did you even watch the video LMAO

[@chelo111]

@@y0blue yes I did those samples were in the editor not a real render sample

[@y0blue]

@@chelo111 whether it is in editor or rendered is irrelevant - it's cinematic preview, if anything it's just a lower quality preview of the final render.

[@y0blue]

@@chelo111 also wtf do you think 2:20 is

[@chelo111]

@@y0blue thank you bro, i like that, i just wanna see in a real render, i wanna see the asset in action if you know what i mean....that's all. josh a real one we all know that

[@keithlynch9846]

absolute genius! just bought the set, can't wait to test them out. I feel like this is a product you might have some success with in applying for a Megagrant.

[@Niotex]

Big yes for anamorphic! I'm using lens distortion and other lensing effects in UE atm, so having those all be in the actual "glass" would be awesome. It's a shame these only work in PT, but it makes sense. Really just means that for hero shots I'd use "glass" PT'd shots and others I'd use the rasterized stuff with the in-camera add-ons.

[@paulfedor9828]

As a VFx artist we use cameras that the production shot with. You can get camera data out of Nuke.... There are also cameras you can get cinematographers guild with exact camera specs with lens packages from the academy... No offense your home made cameras are trash.

[@Neptoid]

Is this stolen content from “I made a real camera inside of Blender [or Unreal engine]”?

[@user-mn8lz7gf6d]

definitely not stolen content

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@user-mn8lz7gf6d Definitely not

[@DigitalCasm]

I love this. It may not be efficient for workflow, but it takes the finickyness and mysticism out of how to get from point a to point b When you're searching for a look and you don't know how to get there, and you don't have real life vintage camera's and lenses to use for reference. You also get an incredible result in a way that moves several layers of abstraction. This is such a great tool, even if it's just used for learning, or a keyframe diagnostic/reference when you send renders down the pipeline.

[@PeterRobieArt]

Beautiful collection. It would be really interesting to see a Petzval-lens option as well but overall I grabbed the 85mm to test out. Great work!

[@VeveYT]

Do you have more rendered examples? Like a car, nature, etc? Thank you!

[@olekstarasov]

MAN , just stunning work ! Is it work only for Path Tracing ?

[@Siirxe]

Yes

[@AllThingsFilm1]

What a treat. To have access to tools that bring realism to UE. Currently, my iMac Pro isn't powerful enough to run UE without waiting eons for it to even open. Someday, I hope to get a faster computer to start working with UE. I would really like to use it for my narrative projects. Thanks for the demonstration.

[@notthetruedm]

This is INCREDIBLE!!! I really love seening the push in technology to go beyond the old limits of 3d work. Going from trying desperately to get a human looking shape on screen to being able to virtually replicate how a modern camera lens affects small details which drastically change the image.

[@LuisFernandoPuente]

Can you model specific classic lenses, like Cooke Panchros, Zeiss super speeds, Super Baltars, and since you mentioned anamorphic, are you going with the panavisions?

[@DataMakesItWork]

Honestly, I don’t see why the lens manufacturers themselves don’t provide digital maps for their lenses that allow for this. It would greatly help in the virtual production process.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

The difficulty is getting access to the lens design, the curvature of each lens element, how many groups and air gaps. These all need to be modeled and without the info you just have to make it up.

[@artoodiitoo]

Kinda reminds me of how soft-body physics in BeamNG make it unnecessary to simulate or animate different types of car suspension or metal deformation, instead of simulating them you just build them like they work in real life. I hope we can have more "real life based" solutions like these in the future with more computing performance

[@waynepadre9849]

Interesting idea. Not sure about the render times but this is something to consider. Thanks for sharing! 👍

[@plotcoalition]

Love it! Will you be putting these on the Epic Marketplace??

[@JoshuaMKerr]

That's the plan!

[@JonJagsNee]

Very interesting! I have one of my favorite lenses sitting on my desk (the Helios 44-2 58mm f/2.0) Might that be one of your reference lenses for the swirly bokeh? :D

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hey Jon, I love your channel! Yes I have that exact lens sitting on my desk right now allongside the 44-M, i'm very heavily inspired by those lenses. In fact I'm trying to make a virtual copy of the 44-2 right now.

[@itsnotbrooks]

I adore finding people who do things that not only do i need actively, but to see them solve it in a way i'm far too stupid to do myself.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Too much time on my hands probably

[@candlestorms]

50 seconds in, "This feels like an ad." Checks description. "Ah..."

[@JoshuaMKerr]

I have to fund the channel somehow, and I'd rather do it by building tools for people than accepting skillshare ads.

[@iancamarillo]

This is something I’ve always wanted to do. Making 3D models to replicate real world scenarios. I’m so jelly.

[@The3Dsmash]

The extra bloom look reminds me of an old Black Pro-Mist filter on vintage glass. This is very impressive, Joshua! My main question is how this would or would not work with the Octane renderer in Unreal. You, more than anyone has championed and pioneered Octane with Unreal, and I really hope your new lenses can work with it. Or does Octane have enough customization in the attributes to replicate the amazing camera lens look your virtual lenses achieve? Would love to hear your thoughts!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Octane will work but I need to make new materials, it looks garbage by default in octane. The dispersion is especially heavy.

[@marcfruchtman9473]

BTW, I forgot to comment on how excellent your included video tutorial was. (I don't normally do any kind of path tracing, so just going thru the motions with your tutorial was very helpful). (And of course, I cut back on the roughness, and dirt a bit hehe)

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks so much, Im keeping it updated as I discover more.

[@monoculosofficial9934]

In game development you'd usually achieve this using shaders. Either by adjusting/rewriting the standard surface shaders or adding different shaders for certain objects. The standard surface shader in unreal does have a cartoon look to it.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thats fair. This is a filmmaking and virtual production channel though. I use Unreal as a renderer quite a lot.

[@BeckOfficial]

I work as a videographer, and this was the fist thing that I wanted when I started using blender. It annoyed me so much that the lens wasn't simulated by default. Still hasn't found a solution for blender, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a plugin somewhere I just havn't found. But this makes me want to start on UE again. I've tried UE several times but never really got the hang of it. Probably because I got used to blender and just defaulted back to that.

[@ollllj]

when ever you make an environment-map for basic+cheap reflections, do not forget to include the fully modeled camera man into that environment map for realism!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Great idea

[@dpredie]

what "lens" settings did you put on the UE base CineCamera behind the Ground glass blueprint?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

The focal length needs to match the blueprint. focus and aperture is still largely controlled by the cine camera too.

[@dpredie]

@@JoshuaMKerr technically moving focus elements are possible right. Esp eith old zeiss “planar” type constructions

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Yes its possible for sure because its all physically based. But as it worked with cine camera focus I decided it wasn't worth the extra work. How are you these days mate?

[@misterVladis]

Nice work! I've seen this method used in blender, man used real lenses patents to make such lenses. Is there any way to achieve something similar using Lumen?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

I am curious about this.

[@laurensdesmet70]

The entire time I was thinking there should be anamorphic versions as well, so when you mentioned them, I knew I had to comment to back up that idea. Looking forward to them!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Yeah man, im excited about that

[@laurensdesmet70]

​@@JoshuaMKerr Any specific lenses you're aiming to recreate? If you're still choosing which ones to go for, my suggestion would be to look into Ultra Panavision 70. The aspect ratio created with the 65mm film and the 1.25x compression of the lenses was 2.76:1 (when a 70mm projection print was used). Having dedicated lenses to mimic this cinematic footage would be amazing and maybe even help with a virtual rivival of this highly praised, yet underused ultrawide aspect ratio!

[@michaeldonaghy3997]

This is exactly what I've been looking for, to be able to get realistic lens rendering in Unreal! Although I was looking for anamorphic specifically, so if you're able to do those I'd definitely buy them!

[@ModelWhatYouSee]

This is terrific. I mostly deal with long env shots for anamorphic would be amazing. How does this effect longer and wider shots. One thing I struggle with is how cinecamera makes things look miniature or shot with that weird effect that makes everything look miniature. Great vid and thanks!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Glad you like the idea, I think the easiest thing would be for you to test the 85 and see how it handles. I think if depth of field is too shallow you can definitely get a bit of that miniature effect. But I haven't seen that with these yet.

[@ModelWhatYouSee]

@@JoshuaMKerr awesome can't wait to try them out!

[@simonsarmg]

This is really amazing stuff! Congrats Joshua!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hey thanks man, hope you enjoy it.

[@BlauwFilms]

Very cool!! Thanks for your hard work and contribution!!

[@swk5147]

Super cool. Have been thinking of building something similar myself for years, so hyped to try this out!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

You should! It's fascinating

[@user-ex9ti7ds3m]

I just bought the pack! What setting in the blueprints or component of the lenses make them specifically compatible with 16:9? Can we adjust something to our liking so they work with other filmbacks?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

They were modlled to cover a 16:9 Digital Film sensor. They don't automatically scale fro different filmbacks at the moment. Deffinitely something I'd like to implement.

[@oliverpavicevic5387]

From my own experience, if we speak about realism in animation, a main problem for Unreal and any other realtime rendering (and even for most software renderers) is a lack of good antialiasing and motion blur. Blooming can be simulated mostly in screen space. Lense flares also, with some tricks like rendering a second pass with a larger FOV. What cant be done efficiently is good antialiasing and motion blur. This type of physical lenses can be simulated accurately without a need of using raytrace. It's enough to use multistep rendering.

[@ethanwasme4307]

no you can't get this with traditional screen space effects, this is physically accurate LOL

[@AllanGildea]

Nice work, Joshua!

[@SpirusFilms]

def into an anamorphic kit! great work

[@ThePavilionWeb]

Very interesting, well done, I have no idea what an anomorphic lens is but sounds like fun.

[@ruaangrobler3035]

This is impressive. Well bloody done! I don't have a use for them yet, but if I ever do, I'll be supporting you. And I'll be telling everyone about this.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks so much! Glad you like the idea.

[@tiedtkeio]

Joshua, this is so cool! As you may or may not know I made a video a while back about real life anamorphic lenses in Unreal Engine 5, but this is just taking that to next level creativity - I love it. Also as mentioned, it reminds me of the camera video from Blender haha. Shame it's not for Lumen which is what I use 99% of the time. 🤔

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hi, I don't think i've seen that video, could you pop me a link here. Would love a look.

[@tiedtkeio]

@@JoshuaMKerr Sure, it's this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZ-QnXWYlKl2opYsi=SEc9C9OQTYQUwCz5 😄

[@ericveschi4904]

The issue in this process you must be sure to do the correct setup. The normal process and who will give you the possibility to change a lot of stuff in your image is the post-processing process. So virtual lens is a very interesting intellectual process. But I'm not sure if it's the best way to produce animation. But I can be wrong ^^

[@robertdellarossa4584]

Is the differnace between the lens the shape of the glass models or the distance between the model of glass?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

every lens model is created from scratch with different shapes and distances

[@EternalArchetypeMusic]

Lenses? Lol not gonna lie, I looked up the date to make sure it wasn't April Fools! It's not, so you're a genius, sir!!

[@Zach_Films]

Really nice work but you have to give some credit to the sirandalot video. That thing is a stone cold classic and a clear inspiration!

[@Witeye]

We absolutely need anamorphic lenses. 🔥🔥 Beautiful work!

[@DirectorAve]

Incredible work! 😊

[@caseycbenn]

Now I want to create a Hasselblad 503 medium format camera for Unreal 5. ;) Great idea and I hope this catches on in the vfx industry in general.

[@mcpictures3051]

It's amazing idea. I'm about to use it on feature film or mini series length of feature film and later on anything else. It's great approach. It looks good and even rendering time is good in my case. So even if I will make more versions due to seeing screenplay, revision after render and rerender, I'm sure that is the actual way to go.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

That's awesome! Great to hear they're going to be used in production!