[rc3] vrayZDepth alias

[mike.edel]

for somethng thats not requiered but suggested it doesnt sound too automatic to me otherwise they would have stated plainly "subpixel and coverage channels are used automatically when using files that store those channels"

you seem to forget that it is discreet documentation you are talking about

in my eyes they sometimes aren't too gifted when it comes to docs (the mental ray docs come to my mind... *shudder*)

alas: i did a quick test:
simple scene, consisting of a checkerboard ground and *tada* teapots
image 1 with zdepth, color, real color, coverage and subpixel weight (which seems to be empty but that might be my mistake)
image 2 just with zdepth, color and real color

both got a 3D Depth of Field Operator with identical Settings on top (used 15 gaussian blur to emphasize the difference)

as it seems, the gaussian blur doesnt work at all without the additional channels - there was no difference to the original image
box blur worked, but looked really ugly (on both inputs)

will eventually upload the images tomorrow - now i'm off to bed

mike

[mdi]

btw: does post DOF still look good at 5k? i'd rather stick to distributed rendering with real dof (esp. since good depth blurs a'la lenscare tend to be slow, too)

it worked ok and it was quick (about 2-3 mins), I was up against it with a deadline, which was the main reson for doing it in post..


vlado, cheers for the post..I wil try that next time

[Da_elf]

im an AE user who is always curious about combustion and the need to upgrade. lenscare does good DOF but it doesnt use the coverage channel. im just curious if lenscare using an AA filtered z-depth image for DOF is as good as combustions standard DOF utility using the coverage channel.

[trixian]

Lenscare is miles ahead of the rpf focus blur in combustion. You should render your zbuffer out in 2x rez like mentioned earlier in this thread (and then scale the layer down to fit the comp rez if you wish). This way it calculates the depth of the original res, and resamples it to fit in the comp. Twice as slow but very good quality. The layer with the zdepth footage can then be turned off if you are not going to use it in your comp for anything else.

[Fabrice]

I'm using VRay 1.47.03 + combustion 4 but it always been a problem to have any real info about coverage and sub-pix weight/mask in order to use it with combustion's Motion blur or Z-Depth...

Actually I have 2 main problems :
- the Z Depth channel of the rpf file rendered by VRay is allways white.
- the ID Material selection made in combustion are really "dirty", unprecises and unpredictables. Especially when a lot of objects are in front of the other in the scene.

If someone can help me...

[Da_elf]

dont bother asking about anything to do with combustion and coverage. it seems no ones up for explaining how to set it up

[LarsSonparsson]

I don't know what there is to explain.

Few days ago I made simple test. I rendered some teapots to rpf
including all channels needed.
(Note: In Box Blur mode, the 3D Depth of Field effect uses only the Z (Z Depth) channel.In Gaussian Blur mode,
you must also use either the Non-Clamped Color or Color channel. The Coverage, Transparency, and Sub-Pixel
Weight channels, though not required in Gaussian mode, are suggested. )

I imported that to Combustion. Added dof in gaussian mode and
everything looks good.

Have you tested it or do you just wanna know how it works?


-LarsSon

[Fabrice]

I tested it for a long time.
I use to activate Z + ID mat (if needed) + coverage + subpix weight + subpix mask.
...and it works good using combustion's motion-blur or box/gaussian blur.

But now I deal with objetcs that appear and disappear using opacity,
and it seems to cause weird channel render...
because visibles objects behind the "invisibles" objets (VRay mat opacity=0) are not blurred properly.
_____________________________

(but, yes Da-Elf, maybe coverage explaination is like graal's quest...)

[Fabrice]

I solved the problem :
I scale the particules to 0.1 % instead of using an opacity=0.
(There are not visible instead of unvisible)

So now the RPF channels are ok.