What makes this scene obviously miniatures?
grand marshal polycounter
One look at this scene and you can tell it is miniatures. No question. But why is that? The lighting and texturing is quite realistic. Is it something to do with the scale? Or camera? Or simply the unrealistic cleanliness of the road and other surfaces?
Replies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk9EBOOAYiU
process in the video description
The blur extends from a horizontal or vertical line or area and get stronger with distance.
You don't need an orthographic camera for the full effect, high focal length maybe, but that's up to your taste.
The above image shows a tilt/shift lens with both tilt (rotation, the guide lines on the right) and shift (the guide lines on the left) engaged.
What you're talking about in this thread is tilt. The lens is tilted off axis from the camera, which throws the plane of focus off axis. This allows you to do things like blur near and distant objects much more than you could with a traditional lens. You can also do the reverse and use it to focus on two objects which are not on the same plane, a technique commonly used in macro and product photography. Tilt doesn't alter the perspective of the image though.
Perspective is controlled by the distance to the subject, and to a lesser extent the focal length or angle of view of the lens. The closer you are to an object, the more exaggerated the perspective gets, the further away, the more compressed. Think of a mountain ridge miles away, as you move around it doesn't change much. Now, go and look at yourself very close in a mirror, and notice how distorted you look from a few inches away. Then back out a few feet and pay attention to the change. Our eyes and cameras / lenses work the same.
A camera's focal length (or FOV / angle of view) determines how wide the shot is. The wider the shot is, the more you can fit in the frame. The wider the shot, the closer you have to get to your subject to fill the frame. So, while it is really the distance to subject that controls perspective, the angle of view determines how close you need to be to frame the subject. In practice this means that for a given framing (let's say a headshot), the lens determines how close you need to stand, which determines perspective. So generally speaking, a photographer would choose a specific lens type if he wants to produce a specific style of perspective.
For a good visual representation of how perspective can be altered, watch the following video on dolly zoom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5JBlwlnJX0
A dolly zoom is essentially a camera trick where you move the camera backward while zooming (changing the focal length) to keep the subject framed while compressing the perspective, or vice versa.
Now, the second component of a tilt/shift lens is the shift part. This allows the lens to be moved on-axis in relation to the camera. This is commonly referred to as a "perspective control" lens, and is used primarily to control converging lines. The idea that this function controls the perspective itself (how exaggerated or compressed the perspective is) is a misnomer - again that's down to the distance to subject / focal length (Tilt-Shift lenses come in wide angle to telephoto focal lengths). Now, what this function does allow you to do is keep your camera level and parallel to your subject. For instance, if you were taking a photo of a large environment or building, and you're standing on the ground, you would generally need to point the camera upwards. Pointing up creates converging lines. Shifting on the other hand, mimics raising the camera to a higher vantage point, which allows you to get more of the shot in the frame without converging lines.
These concepts are illustrated in this quick video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RGFz0tZFCc
and more on shift:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV7YWn1_TZQ
Generally speaking, there isn't a need to mimic shift lenses with 3D rendering, because you're not bound to physical spaces and can place your camera anywhere you want to.