best way to avoid keyshot's poor choice in rounding?

[andy.engelkemier]

16:9 format. You might choose 1920x1080 template. You might choose 16:9 format, and it will just make it as big as it can go within the existing viewport, right?
Well, the problem there is....it doesn't Save the fact that you want 1920x1080 as your output.
Open up your file on another computer? Now your render output is 1920x1081. WTF?

There are quite a few cases where you can enter in the aspect ratio you want, and your render setting doesn't round correctly because it's basing the render size on the size of the viewport. If it has to round the viewport, then when you enter the number in the render setting, it's not correct.

The only Decent way to combat this I have found is to add a custom size in the image tab to be Exactly the resolution you need. Be sure that is selected First, then enter the same size in the render output. But you have to select that Every time you open the file. There are a handful of things that don't stay when you open the file again, like custom object pivot points for instance. It saves the object the entire time your working, but you'll have to set it again if you close and open again. There are several, but I don't remember them all.

So keyshot is basing your render resolution on the viewport size, so you have to make sure and force it to an aspect that works if you want a specific render resolution. This setup definitely needs to be rebuilt, but it is what it is for now. Really, there should be render size settings several places, and they all talk to eachother. If I'm using CameraA I might need my saved ResolutionA. If I'm using CameraB I might need resolutionB. If I create a backplate, it could create a ResolutionBackplateX template that I could then choose for a specific camera.
The render output would show the current resolution, then you could change it via a multiplier, or specific amount.
The image tab should show a couple things. One is a button to match render resolution. One could show a Frame around the render resolution and show you More information. If you're using free camera, there's not a Big reason to be constrained to a wide format, other than speed. But if you're zooming in to check out something, then you probably want more real-estate.
And one of the biggest benefits of setting render resolution while your working is the ability for keyshot to add a feature allowing you to "zoom" to actual size! Yes, this turned into a wishlist item, sorry. If you're rendering at 5000x3500, which obviously can't fit on your screen, you might want to see how that subtle bump map is working out with your camera at full scale. But the best you can do right now is estimate that by figuring out the percentage of the camera is shown, then zooming in. And honestly, that works Pretty good. But it would be Killer if there was a button for that. Did Bunkspeed have something similar? Yes, yes it did. 

[smalldogstudio]

Aw man this really bugs me too - I had a job from a year ago I had to update and this issue messed up the camera view/resolution for me. I had to very carefully do some file archaeology to get it back.

I do the same with specific custom pixel resolutions for this reason

I totally agree with having some way of locking different cameras to exact resolution and orientation settings, also how the viewport size behaves totally perplexes me (maybe I'm just stupid or don't get it). I also think it should be possible to lock X Y Z and rotation of the camera individually, so that you can keep the camera aligned to the centre plane but adjust the angle interactively (how about a padlock button next to XYZ fields for all of these?), my customer is very particular about the camera angles and renders matching between different jobs. I personally would like to see an extra border around the camera to help with framing up shots - like the safe area when doing video work.

just my 2p worth!

bw  David

[mafrieger]

yesss that's really ...
looks like a perfekt item for the wishlist:
https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?board=8.0

[andy.engelkemier]

What do you think I should put on the wishlist? Please use math that makes sense?

I'm just asking to see if anyone has other tricks for avoiding the issue.