Depth of Field

Note: This Depth of Field parameter applies for the Standard Renderer only, and is considered a post effect. If you are using the Physical Renderer, its own Depth of Field settings will apply: see Depth Of Field.

Depth of field is the region of a rendered image in which objects will appear blurred because their distance from the camera (either far or near) causes them to be out of focus.

A large depth of field is when a large region in the distance is displayed, whereas a small depth of field is when a relatively small region is displayed in focus.

Here, the depth of field values decrease, from right to left:

DepthFieldSample.png 

Use the Depth of Field (DOF) value to define which part of an image should be in focus and which out of focus. Either the rear region (DOF rear) or the front region (DOF front) can be blurred. You can also focus on the center region of a scene. In this case both the foreground and the background will be blurred. If neither of the options is enabled, the camera will behave as before: all objects will be in focus.

DOFBlur.png 

General

Define the type and strength of Blur you want to add.

Blur Strength: This parameter defines the general strength of blurring. Other parameters modify this strength such as Distance Blur and Radial Blur. Note that if you set Blur Strength to 0% there will be no blurring at all, even when the other blur parameters are set to high values.

Use Distance Blur: The Distance Blur value refines the strength of blurring. For example, if you set Blur Strength to 80% and Distance Blur to 50%, the strength of full blurring will be 40% (50% of 80%).

Use Radial Blur: Radial blur gets stronger from the picture’s center outwards.

Use Autofocus: This option can be enabled to simulate the Autofocus feature of a real camera. The object in the center of the view will become the focal point, i.e. the object in the center will be perfectly sharp.

Autofocus: So that the object does not have to be exactly in the center, you can enter an Autofocus tolerance value. The maximum value of 100% allows the object to be anywhere in the view. With lower values, the object must be closer to the view’s center to trigger the autofocus.

Front Blur/Rear Blur: In the gradients, black represents full sharpness, white represents full blur (i.e. the Distance Blur value) and grey is for intermediate blur strength (the brighter the grey, the stronger the blur).

Lens Details

Using the settings on the Lens Details page, you can simulate the popular movie effect where objects that are brightly lit in places slip out of focus. Artifacts will appear in the bright areas. Use the Lens Details to adjust these artifacts.

Lens Sharpness: The sharpness of the lens artifacts.

Lens Intensity: The brightness of the lens artifacts.

Lens Shape: Choose the shape of the lens: Circle, triangle, rhombus, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon or nonagon.

Lens Rotate: Controls the orientation of the lens artifacts.

Tint

Using these parameters, you can add tints that take the scene’s depth into account. For example, you can add a blue tint to your renders that gets stronger towards the horizon (aerial perspective); simulate the orange tint of the horizon on the sunset; or recreate the deep, dark cold blue of a moonlit scene. You can also simulate the orange tint of daylight film used to photograph interiors and the blue tint of interior film when it is used to photograph exteriors.

Use Tint

Front Color

Rear Color

Use Ranges/Use Camera Ranges

There are three possible states. The camera’s focus is always taken into account.

Use Ranges disabled. Creates a tint that is close to reality.

Use Ranges enabled, Use Camera Ranges enabled. This works in the same way as described for Distance Blur. Use a camera to help define the tint ranges.

UseRanges1.png 

Use Ranges enabled, Use Camera Ranges disabled.

UseRanges2.png 

Front Start/Front End

End Start/End End

The tint range is defined by the values Front Start, Front End, End Start and End End (not the camera parameters) based on the camera’s focus. This enables you to define the tint independently of the Depth of Field settings.

Depth of field limitations

Problems may occur in places where blurred objects are seen in reflections or behind transparencies.

If glow is calculated after depth of field, inaccuracies may arise.

If glow is calculated before depth of field, the depth of field will overwrite the glow.

The Specular post effect does not work in conjunction with depth of field.

DO NOT activate depth of field if Alpha Channel is activated in the image output settings. Otherwise the alpha channel will not be rendered correctly.