I tried to render w/ DOF before but I could only get the background elements to blur. I decided to take another try at it last night and was finally successful at rendering both background and foreground elements blured.
Re: DOF - Successful test
Nice shot. Sometimes its a little harder to get the right focal distance (and therefore the right blur from foreground to background), but that seams to be it. DOF is one of my favorite effects and adds to the realism of an image.
Re: DOF - Successful test
Hi Damien,
It sure is tricky to set up the DOF without a camera target. I tried a while ago, but could only get the background to blur, so I wasn’t sure how well it was working. After a few more tries I finally managed to get it right.
I agree, if done well, it definitely adds to the realism of an image.
Jorge
Re: DOF - Successful test
Nice !!!
Could please post your settings and the distance in between the chairs, that would help a lot.
Thanks !!!
Re: DOF - Successful test
Well, I finally found some time to explain what I did. I encourage everyone to try different camera settings than the ones I have here to get different DOF result. Hopefully this helps to explain how to set up DOF to work with VfSU.
Just a few notes:
-The Focal Distance in VfSU is measured in inches. In my example, the focal distance is 800 inches = 66.7 ft which is what I typed in the DOF calculator.
-The DOF calculator is a very handy tool to help you set up your scene and helps you understand what results to expect.
-I used the Note Camera Point script from smustard.com to locate my exact camera location. The script cost $2.00 and it’s well worth it.
-I color coded the numbers that relate between DOF calculator and VfSU Camera Settings to make things clear.
The scene is available by clicking this link as well for people to try it themselves.
http://www.jbdigitalstudio.com/DOF_VfSU.zip
Re: DOF - Successful test
Thanks for taking the time to prepare that - I’m sure a lot of our users will make good use of it 
Re: DOF - Successful test
Thanks !!! Very helpfull !!! ;D
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Working with Maxwell before I found this one to be useful too :
Re: DOF - Successful test
Re: DOF - Successful test
sorry if this is a noob question but does your Field of view control the “area of acceptable sharpness”? if not what does, i can control the focal point but i cant seem to get it to be bigger where the “area of acceptable sharpness” is far too small… how do i get the blurring to happen just a little in front and back
Re: DOF - Successful test
I’m not 100% sure exactly what you’re asking, but it sounds like you need to adjust the aperature value. The amount of DOF is controlled by aperture and the focal point (the place that’s sharp) will be controlled by the focal distance. The other player in the game, and a minor one at that, is focal length or indirectly the Field (or better yet Angle) of View. The narrower that is, the quicker things will become blurred, but thats it. Try the aperture value and if that doesn’t get you where you want to go, we can go from there.
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thanx Damien, when i change the aperture that seems to increase how blurry the blurry bits get (please excuse super layman lingo) ,and when i change the focal distance that decides where the focused area is, i was wondering what control or combo of controls will decide how big the area of focus will be?
Re: DOF - Successful test
That’s still going to be controlled by aperture. The lower the aperture, the more depth you’ll have in terms of the focus of the image. Technically, other than the points in the scene that are exactly the focal distance away from the camera, everything is, to some degree, out of focus. Its just a matter of how far away from that focal point will be considered visually in focus. Since a lower aperture will blur more gradually, you’ll get much more are that is visually in focus.
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thanx that makes sense ;D :-[
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Does anyone have any idea of what values to use with DOF when using meters? i downloaded this file and got a successful test but just as soon as i change it to meters to try it myself on another file i just can´t get it to work, any ideas? i bought the note camera but dont know what to do with the values 
thanks if someone knows what to do!
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i can’t set the aperture size for the depth of field in vray.. the option is grayed.. how can i do??
tried many times.. but nothing changed.. i can get the dof work!!!
i don’t understand what i wrong..
anyone that wanna help me??
thanks my friends
Re: DOF - Successful test
Turn of the physical camera to enable using aperture or else control DOF by F-Number in physical camera.
Re: DOF - Successful test
hi nektares.
it doesn’t matter if you use sketchup in meters, vray still works with inches.
for focal distances i think this way: first change meters to cms, and then divide / 2.54
for example, if you have 18 meters, you have 1800 cms, and /2.54 = 708.66
if you have 3.48 meters, you have 348 cms, /2.54 = 137…
it’s actually pretty simple 
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The problem is.. that if i use the GI.. need to turn on the physical camera.. and with the Physical camera on.. can’t change the aperture size for the DOF…
instead.. if change the F-number in the physical camera.. only change the light in the scene..
but the DOF.. only work correctly in the close render??
thanks a lot
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so, you mean there’s something wrong with your vray?, because you should be able to change the aperture with or without phisical camera.
there’s also another way. if you use phisical camera, you first set the focal distance, reduce f number to something like 7.5, and increase film width to something like 5000.
i do not understand why, but the bigger the film width value, the bigger doff effect. i usually work it that way, because reducing f number also makes your sceene brigther.
hope this help.
just be sure you’re using the right focal distance.