dof with after effects problem

[re:FORM]

Hi there,
Has anyone found a way to get rid of the halo that appears when you use the 'depth of field' effect in after effects? (especially if you use a max radius larger than 1)

or is there a better way to do dof in post?

[instinct]

DOF Pro by Richard Rosenman seems to be pretty good

http://www.dofpro.com/

Thorsten

[studioDIM]

agreed!
i think AE uses a box filter to DoF, which looks, ugh!

Richard Rosenmann's one seems astonishing, on the other hand...

Lele

[re:FORM]

Yep it looks good, but I was hoping I could do this without buying new software (although it is pretty cheap!)

I just came across a thread in cgtalk which showed how good photoshop was at doing dof using a z-channel. The only problem I have is working out how to make an action that:-

opens z channel
opens diffuse channel
moves z-channel image into the diffuse image
creates a mask from the z-channel
saves the z-channel
applies the lens blur effect using the z-channel mask

PS appears to stop at the first 'move' command I used to transfer the z-buffer image into the diffuse image.
Is there another way to create this action that will allow me to batch process the images?

If I can't get that to work I might well invest in dofpro.

[studioDIM]

read through the DofPro gallery, and it'll explain to you why you'd need that instad of doing it by hand.
Bokeh effects, edges correction, and complex structures are BIG pluses.
Make the difference between a blurred image, and a DoFed one, imo

Lele

P.S.: i had some success Jscripting photoshop 7.01, if it was a pain. You might look into whatever version you have for similar capabilities...

Lele

[re:FORM]

www.reformstudios.com/10-tests/z-test.mov
Here's an example of how the lens blur looks in AE. Notice that it looks great to begin with, but as I slide the point of focus away from the camera, the blur turns into a smudge. I dont really understand why it works great for the bg and crap for the fg. It makes me think there's something wrong with the type of z-buffer I am using. Maybe I need the z-buffer to go from white to black to white, with black being the point in focus.

Any suggestions?

[andrewjohn81]

AE7 now has the lens blur filter built in.

If you haven't used it then try it out in Photoshop.

Yes, you need a greyscale zdepth image.

[val2]

have you tried blenders new node editor?

it also needs a grey scale zdepth image

[re:FORM]

Thanks, I'll check that out.

I went ahead and bought dofpro in the end. Very nice results, but pretty slow. The workflow is a bit of a pain too, as you have to work in BMP files.