Blender Question: Camera Distance Limit?

[FalTorPan]

I'm a pre-beginner user of Blender, so pardon me if this issue is a no-brainer.

On the "Modeling Realistically" page of the Blender 3D: Noob to Pro Wikibook, the following statements are made...

# Choose a base scale that will let you work comfortably within a 500x500x500 unit volume.
# Blender limits cameras to 1000 unit distances, for better numerical accuracy.

Do these statements mean that a Blender scene cannot be larger than a cube measuring 500 units on an edge, and that a camera cannot "see" beyond 1000 units? If so, then these seem like silly restrictions.

Dazed and confused,

Greg

 

[Waugh]

Hence why if you are a serious modeler, you have 3DSMax, Maya, or one of a couple others. =)

 

[Four Mad Men]

I'll let Waugh's response stand on it's own obvious merit but I will add the following:

In any one axis Blender's coordinate system ranges from -10,000.000 to +10,000.000. So along any one axis an object can be located in any one of 20,000,001 locations. It's not infinite but it does seem to be reasonably dense.

And secondly the camera is not limited to 1000 units. Unless, of course, you want it to be the max visual range, because you can set a start and stop clipping value on it.

 

[FalTorPan]

Four Mad Men said:
In any one axis Blender's coordinate system ranges from -10,000.000 to +10,000.000. So along any one axis an object can be located in any one of 20,000,001 locations. It's not infinite but it does seem to be reasonably dense.

That sucks. I assume Blender stores its coordinates as integers, and just divides by 1000 for display purposes. In 2007 one would think that floating-point numbers would be acceptable. D'oh.

 

[Waugh]

Actually, all modeling programs have similar limits, just perhaps larger and/or more customizable.

In Max, for example, you define (if desired) with a slider the "density" of available coordinates. So, if you are going to model very large objects... like say a city, you would use a setting that expands the world, but with less precision. And, you can also model smaller objects at much greater precision.

In practice, I have never had to move the slider and I have modeled things from the size of aircraft carriers down to objects in your house.

 

[Four Mad Men]

Yeah, nothing is going to infinite. There will always be some sort of limitation.

FalTorPan,

No they are floating-point numbers, it's just the UI only exposes the first few positions after the decimal (and as such can only be manually positioned within what the UI exposes). However tweening calculations for position (and rotation for that matter but anyway) are floating-point.

However you feel about this is up to you I was just responding to the question of "500x500x500?".