his_dudeness
05-12-2005, 11:35 AM
Hey guys,
This is a really simple question, so it shouldnt take long to answer. This is practically the first time i've ever even opened After Effects. I realise i should be doing tutorials, etc instead of posting questions here but its for part of a university project which is due scarily soon so i dont really have time :(
Ok, i have two 3D Max renders - one animation, and a grey-scale render of its Z-depth animation. I'm basically trying to 'cheat' to create depth of field, both the scanline and mentalray renderer's are taking far too long to calculate it. I was planning on opening the animation in After Effects, then using the Z-depth render as a mask to apply a blur which wil hopefully simulate DoF. Thing is, once i opened up AE i couldnt figure out how to do this. I was assuming it'd be similar to photoshop where you would paste the greyscale image into a new channel, then use it as a selection to apply the blur on the normal image.
Could someone please take me through the process, step by step?
Thanks for your time!
PS - in the z-depth grey-scale render the foreground is white (which is to stay in focus) fading out to black with distance. Will i need to invert it?
This is a really simple question, so it shouldnt take long to answer. This is practically the first time i've ever even opened After Effects. I realise i should be doing tutorials, etc instead of posting questions here but its for part of a university project which is due scarily soon so i dont really have time :(
Ok, i have two 3D Max renders - one animation, and a grey-scale render of its Z-depth animation. I'm basically trying to 'cheat' to create depth of field, both the scanline and mentalray renderer's are taking far too long to calculate it. I was planning on opening the animation in After Effects, then using the Z-depth render as a mask to apply a blur which wil hopefully simulate DoF. Thing is, once i opened up AE i couldnt figure out how to do this. I was assuming it'd be similar to photoshop where you would paste the greyscale image into a new channel, then use it as a selection to apply the blur on the normal image.
Could someone please take me through the process, step by step?
Thanks for your time!
PS - in the z-depth grey-scale render the foreground is white (which is to stay in focus) fading out to black with distance. Will i need to invert it?