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View Full Version : DOF unit conversion maya -> afterEffects?

lowkey
03-14-2003, 11:00 AM
hello,

i'm trying to recreate maya's DOF setting in afterEffects.

i read that maya's units in cm have to be divided by 0,0352 (1 pica) to get the exact pixel value in afterEffects.

but when i divide i.e. 3500 (distance object to camera in cm) by 0,0352 i get 99432 (rounded), which is an incredibly high value.

values above 255 can't be entered into lenscare or any other DOF plugin, so how do i get the exact focalDistance from maya to afterEffects, without using the depthChannel?

will i have to calculate float to integer, or what?! any ideas?! :shrug:
AroundTheFur
03-15-2003, 12:53 AM
i remember fooling around with the dof in after effects. firstly yea the numbers end up being really small. i was really confused at first because ae defaults to values of like -10000 when you should be using numbers between .5 and .2 and stuff like that(im no help with the conversions i jsut guess). but my end result was very ugly. the dof was blocky, almost mosaic like, so im not sure. if there would be a way to convert the depth map into a blur layer, then youre in business. oh and i was using the depth layer so, hehe im no help. =T
lowkey
03-15-2003, 08:06 PM
hehe im no help

well, what a pity! :thumbsdow
anyways: :beer:
magilla
03-17-2003, 11:49 PM
I only got the dof working using RLA's and yes, I guessed as well...

however, I also found that once i had tediously found the right values the end result from the dof filter was crap anyway - and I couldn't figure out how to animate a pull focus.

Now I render in layers - bg, mid, fg and comp using standard techniques.

--magilla
lowkey
03-17-2003, 11:59 PM
Now I render in layers - bg, mid, fg and comp using standard techniques.

yeah, that's the only way i achieved some semi-realistic results yet, but the transitions between fore- and background are not as smooth as they could be with real DOF!

hmmm...there must be a way to get it to work right. :hmm:

the guy who created 'Lots Of Robots' has a nice tutorial on the DVD, using AFX and lensCare.

unfortunately it doesn't work for me either! :thumbsdow
magilla
03-18-2003, 12:19 AM
have you used dof in Maya?

I'm just now looking into the dof mel from here

http://www.lightstorm3d.com/tools/freetools/html/free_tools.html

my initial dof efforts were very dodgy - hoping this helps me out so I can avoid the painful split render/filter process.


--magilla
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