I am working on a pic and am trying to use depth of foeld for the first time. I have turned on the cross hair guides, but moving them (in Poser 6) seems to make no sense. I caan not tell where they move (if at all) and I can not tell how to use the guides. I think the trick is the docus distance ( I have moved the fStop around). Does anyone know of any tutorials on this? The manula is of no use. . . thanks!

It's painstaking work to get that focus guide exact on where you want it; it's not like you can switch cameras to see it from another angle. I've read one tutorial on it, but it doesn't solve that problem.

Try using a flattened cube primitive and setting it close to where you want your focus, and then tweak the focus distance until the crosshair appears just in front of it.

And you're right, f-stop doesn't change that distance, it only changes how far things blur out of focus from that distance. Lower numbers will give you more blur, higher numbers will keep things in focus further before and after that point.

Didn't someone write a Python Script(or maybe a helper prop) , that does something similar to what Dok described?

 

I could have sworn someone made something like that a while back.

Maybe check in Free Stuff.

 

Tom

The script comes with Poser: Render IO/Calc DoF Focal Distance.

Thanks to all for your thoughts. THe pic I am working on it attached. The problem I have is that the crosshairs for the guides end up right in his body when they are visible and are not of much use. I get them to move a bit, but it makes no sense. . . and I can not raise them to center them on his face.  The attachment is a render - you can see the foot is out of focus and that pleases me . . . but I want to blur the back ground a bit more. What would you do to improve this render? Thanks for discussing this with me and providng hints as I learn . . .

the stance reminds me a bit of Pele in his glory days.
DPH

The focus guide goes exactly where you're focused, so you'd have to have the camera centered on his head.  If that's the composition you want, then the most precise way to do that is to select the camera, and from the 'Object' menu, 'Point At' and select his head from the list. Imo it's looking pretty good already, and you may just want to use the shoulder or ear for the guide.

If you want more blur, you can lower the focal length or the f-stop or some combination. That will also make the foreground blurrier. Or you can move background itself further back, or the subjects and camera backward, and that'll leave that degree of blur on his foot.

"THe pic I am working on it attached. The problem I have is that the crosshairs for the guides end up right in his body when they are visible and are not of much use."

if I'm right (not tried this yet) switch from the default camera to the Dolly camera. (the default is fixed looking at world center. the Dolly Cam acts like a real camera and can be pointed anywhere and is IMHO the far better camera to use)

Attached Link: Example

My method is to use a cube, turned 45 degrees on the y axis. I then move the cube back and forth on the x & z axis and up and down on the y-axis until the front edge of the cube just intersects the point I want to focus on.

After that I move the cube only on the x and y axis to center it on the diagonal cross hairs. It's very important not move it forward and back on the z axis at this point - only left/right on the x axis and up/down on the y axis - and then use the cross hairs to get to correct focus distance by placing them on the edge of the cube (of course you should delete the cube or make it invisible before rendering...

Does that make sense - see the attached example - link above