Point clouds show Near Camera Clipping in 3ds Max

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023

Products and versions covered

Issue:

When rendering point clouds in 3ds Max, foreground points seem to disappear as an animated camera approaches them or flies over them.

Environment:

  • 3ds Max
  • Arnold renderer

Causes:

Causes may include, but are not limited to:
  • Point Display has been set to Pixel instead of Real-World Scale
  • Camera clipping settings have been set incorrectly or left at default.

Solution:

If animating a camera flythrough or flyover of a point cloud, and foreground points seem to disappear or fade out as the camera approaches them, do the following:

Use Real-World Scale

  1. With the point cloud selected, in the Command Panel > Modify tab, set the Point Display to Real-World Scale instead of Pixel.
  2. Then, render test frames to adjust the size of the points.

Adjust Camera Clipping

Make sure to set the Camera Near and Far Clipping settings to encompass the entire geometry. For example, if the furthest point on the cloud is 2000 units away from the Camera's starting position:

  1. Under the Physical Camera > Misc > Clipping Planes section, check Enable.
  2. Set the Near Clip to 0, and the Far Clip to 2500 or so (as shown in the following example) to make sure all points are rendered.

Camera Clipping Plane.jpg

Note: the preceding camera information should apply to any render engine in 3ds Max that can render point clouds. For information on how to render point clouds specifically with Arnold, see How to render Point Clouds with Arnold in 3ds Max.

Products:

3ds Max; Arnold;

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