Physical Camera

The Physical Camera integrates framing the scene with exposure control and other effects.

Physical Camera is the best camera type to use for photorealistic, physically-based rendering.

A physical camera icon in left and perspective viewports

The level of support for Physical Camera features depends on the renderer you are using.

Default Scanline Renderer
Supports Physical Camera settings except for the following:
  • Distortion
  • Depth of field
  • Motion blur

Perspective control is supported but some settings might not respond to certain scenes.

mental ray Renderer
Supports all Physical Camera settings.
iray Renderer
Supports Physical Camera settings except the following:
  • Distortion
  • Depth of field
  • Perspective control Tilt correction

    The iray renderer does support Perspective control Shift

  • Near/far clip planes
  • Environment ranges
Quicksilver Hardware Renderer
Supports Physical Camera settings except for the following:
  • Distortion
  • Motion blur
  • Bokeh Aperture Shape

    The Quicksilver renderer always uses the Circular aperture for bokeh areas of the scene.

Perspective control is supported but some settings might not respond to certain scenes.

Third-Party Renderers
The V-Ray ® renderer from Chaos Group supports all Physical Camera settings.

Other third-party renderers have the same limitations as the default scanline renderer, unless they have been explicitly coded to support Physical Cameras.

Viewport support
  • Distortion: Not represented correctly in viewports, but cubic distortion generates a viewport grid that hints at the final result.
  • Depth of Field: Viewports don't show the bokeh shape.
  • Motion Blur: Viewports don't show motion blur.
  • Perspective Correction: Viewports show only an approximation of perspective correction: The rendered result might differ.