CGTalk - Depth of Field

MrPunkin

01-14-2003, 08:08 AM

I cant get it figured out. Sorry if this is retarded or anything. Im just using max's scanline renderer and just want to add depth of field to my render at a certain point and whatever. If anyone could point me in the right direction, even a tutorial or something, that would be great.

magicm

01-14-2003, 08:58 AM

You could try the 'Depth of Field' effect which comes with max. it's under: Rendering -> Effects ... -> then click 'Add...'

It uses the z-buffer to produce depth of field and therefore doesn't work well in all circumstances (z-buffer doesn't have antialiasing like (for example) the alpha-channel).
Just play with it and see if it works for you..

other ways:
- render different layers (eg. foreground, middle, background) and composite them using gaussiun blur on fore/background

- multi-pass effect. Select a camera and go to the modify panel -> 'Multi-Pass Effect'.. this uses multiple renderings to simulate dof. Hit 'Preview' to see what it does...

- XDof is a plugin that produces really nice dof-effects.. it's not a free plugin though. read more here (http://newsletters.digimation.com/Apr03-02/FeaturedProduct2.asp)

good luck!

MrPunkin

01-15-2003, 12:15 AM

Thank you much!. I have tried the multipass before but each render takes about an hour, and rendering multiple images seems VERY time consuming, not to mention before it just looked like a psychadelic trip when it was done. I havent played much with the DOF effect, I guess ill try it out. Well have to see.

What about brazil's DOF?

chudofsinister

01-15-2003, 03:59 AM

I posted a similiar query awhile back and got a number of responses. What I found to be the best solution for me was to render out my scene then use the BLUR scripts, there is one in there that makes your entire scenes materials masks and then adds a white fog so you end up with an image that is black and white and attenuated. I render this out as an image sequence and take the whole thing into aftereffects where I use the black and white layer as a mask for a blur over the original render. It works but is not accurate as far as if you wanted to replicate true f-stop depth of field. I too am interested in any other solutions you might run into.

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