Vray Camera Setting for Macro DOF Zpass

[gfmarsh]

Hello. I am trying to get more range in my Depth of Field (DOF), as what seems to work well with DOF turned on in the VRay Physical Camera attributes only give me a pretty much flat tonal range in DOF Zpass (barely any tonal different in the area of blur - we go from near black to slightly lighter black - see picture). How can I optimize the Camera and Zpass to get a truly macro effect without have to render DOF in the Beauty Pass? This has been causing me a lot of grief on multiple projects.

Thanks very much in advance...
Greg

[gfmarsh]

I have tried adjusting the range of Vray Black and White, but still no luck in getting some better tonal depth ranges. Does this Vray Zpass only work on wide shots where you have object far into the distance? How do I make it work on Macro type applications?

[yolov]

You can try lowering the far range until you get the values you need. For example, keep black at 0, but lower the white depth value and see if this helps.

[gfmarsh]

Thanks Alex. I setup a different scene to test out the values and I got it to work, but my original Xgen scene seems to not follow the same logic and doesn't cooperate in the same way.

[yolov]

Do you still have the xgen scene and still have problems with it? If you could share it, I could take a look and see what's going on.

[SonyBoy]

You might find it helpful to create a camera with a distance tool connected to the focal point -- this gives you a locator that you can move around your scene interactively to place where you want your focal plane to be, removing some of the guesswork. However, if you want extreme DOF, you are more than likely going to get better results if you render in-camera.