DOF

[enricocerica]

Don't know where to post this, it may be nice to have a tips and tricks space.

Someone else may already use that but I thought this could be a very useful information to avoid long calculation times. Using the Z-depth layer in the exporter to have a Z-depth map, you could get a very nice and controled DOF using the Blender compositor without having to calculate it during rendering process. I'll post some results later on.

Here is a screen shot :



Hope this can help.

[BBB3]

Re: DOF

Enrico, how do you tell the compositor where the camera is focusing?

[bdancer]

Re: DOF

BbB
By Z-depth map.

[enricocerica]

Re: DOF

Well, this may be usefull for basic DOF where focus point is on foreground or on background (with inverted z-depth map), but if you need a half way focus point this is not the best solution, you'll probably need to create a z-depth map by mixing the original one with the inverted one, but it may require more tweaking.

[BBB3]

Re: DOF

That's what I meant.
The Z-depth map gives only depth information - not focus distance information.
For post-prod DOF (in Photoshop for instance) using a Z-Depth map, you need to input the focus distance by hand for the DOF effect to actually happen. Somehow Blender keeps the camera distance info when using a BI depth map in the compositor, but my experience is that this info gets lost if you use a third-party (i.e. Vray) depth map as input. You might be better off using the Vray render output combined with a BI Zdepth output calculated separately.

[Ivan01]

Re: DOF

very cool, thanks, I support the idea that there should be an are of tricks and tips.