Question to XSI users

(and I know there are some around...)

I got a nifty problem. Basically I want to render sprites in XSI and use them as 2D-Sprites. Say I got a ball to render:
I setup renderoptions to render a 64x64 pixel frame. No prob, works well! But how can I position the camera, so that my ball fills the entire 64x64 pixels, and not 60x60 or 62x62.

I thought of a "fixed stage setup" but then I have to keep the size of my objects within a certain range, also this won't work with different frame-sizes.

Any tricks how to do this?

i think you'll have variations and not be able to always fill 64x64 (if it's a human figure, limbs spread out differently everytime). In any case, if you want a fixed size, you can place a polygon mesh at the back of your model (from camera view) and then rendermap it's texture to 64 x 64. There was a video somewhere (can-t remember if xsi site or dvds that came with softimage), where you just adjusted maximun distance from camera. Hope this helps.

Hi Pax,

the objects don't need to fill the quad the whole time (that would unwantedly scale the 2D-Sprite). It should only fit in it's maximum extend (can fit this manually).

What I'm after is more like the "F"-Key. "F" zooms the camera to display an object entirely in a viewport. If I render this it's near to the effect I want, but it leaves a seam (object will be inside viewport, but not exactly at it's visual borders).

Your attempt sounds clever, but I don't understand it. Maybe you can you explain it a bit more?!

Thanks
Jake

hi, you just need to have an object in spot. Put a polygon mesh behind it, make it constant with your keying color and assign a uv map + a rendermap property. In the rendermap ppg setup for the created uv, and increase the maximun distance:

Property - rendermap - advanced - distance from surface.

In theory, that wold give you a frame of the sprite.

Hope this helps.

Ah, now I understand. Will try it soon.

Edit:
After reading some docs (even found the example you mentioned) I arranged the setting as you suggested. Works so far, but the rendered image looks flat and blocky - e.g. a smooth button would look like a pyramide.

So I stick with fiddling the rendercam to fill the viewport exactly. But by your ideas (and reading the docs again) I learned some tricks that could be handy in the future ;)

Jake