I'm looking for a relatively easy to understand tutorial for depth of field using Vue 6I.  There is one tutorial here for depth of field in a portrait in Vue and, it honestly confused me.  I'm not DUMB but I sure felt dumb after reading it, LOL.  If anybody can help me out, that would be awesome.  I've got DoF figured out in Poser finally but I really don't like the way it renders :(

Thanks in advance!

To achieve depth of field, you first need to choose a target object from the drop down list; this done in the object properties panel when the camera is selected. once this is done, click the caùera icon to go back to the camera settings.Check your views, you'll see there is a checkbox at the end of the camera's filed of view ( focus), change thisvalue until the checkbox reaches your trget object. Next, add some blur to your camera,  the more blur you add the more blur around your target object. You will see 2 vertical lines inside the camera's field of view. What is inside the 2 bars is in focus, by bumping up the blur %, you shrink the focus zone around you target object.

I've never managed to get DOF to look ok in Vue either so I'll give it another go.  What's the best way to make sure the two bars are around your subject ? move the camera way back and increase the focal length ?

Increase the focal lentgh, Frank, you will notice the 2 bars coming closer to the target.

I would like to use DOF inside Vue but I find the render time/effect ratio isn't worth it. Post working will do the same job & is much quicker.

Take a look at 3 example screenshots from my Vue 6 Infinite settings and the resulting 4-view windows working with depth of field:

outpostkilanor.blogspot.com/

But like stormchaser suggests to use a postwork effect like in Photoshop or PSPro, it's often much quicker than rendering with a few passes for a long render time.
It's up to the artist to decide, what's necessary - to do it by render or postwork will do ...

In Photoshop you can use a Guassain Blur in very small increments .02 in conjunction with a Fadeout or Grandient fade so that the Blur is central to the object and diminishes as it radially moves to the edge of the canvas.  

As mentioned, the Vue Blur addes significantly to the render time, but not the Post processing as you can create an Photoshop Action and reuse it for later work.

Thanks guys!  I've been able to fake DoF reasonably well in PsP but not knowing HOW to do it in Vue was bugging the snot out of me.  I'm sure you guys understand. 

I've a tute on adding DOF in Photoshop using the LensBlur filter which comes with Photoshop.

Thanks for that Tut Chipp - Hopefully I'll have more success with the lens blur now I know how to do it :biggrin:

I would like to add my two cents to Chipp's very good tut.

I found that saving the z file directly from Vue in PSD format and choosing 16 bits, is more efficient than saving it in BMP. By using 16 bits in the z file, the transitions between shades of gray are softer and the lens blur effect in PS has a higher quality.

Sometimes, it's also necessary to smooth out the z file by applying a slight blur, before applying the lens blur to the main image. Otherwise, PS can create some artifacts in some transitions.

But Artur, is it possible to add a 16bit alpha channel to an 8bit  image? Or do you render all your passes in 16bit psd files?

In PS, I change the mode to 16 bit and add the PSD z image. I apply the lens blur and then switch back to 8 bit (otherwise I couldn't save in JPG format). Maybe I'm doing something stupid, I'm just a newbie in PS but I find the results are better this way. :-)

Here are the steps in Photoshop to convert from 8-bit to 16-bit:

Open your 8-bit grayscale image Photoshop (either from an open command or New--> Paste from altTerrainBuilder)

Convert the Mode (Under Image menu) to Grayscale and 16 bits/channel

Resize the image 400%: Image menu->Image Size Make sure you check "Resample Image: Bicubic"
Gaussian Blur the image with a value of 20 (larger or smaller depending on image size)
Resize the image back to original size: 25%

This will create the 'in-between' values which can be used better for DOF.

Wow, thanks Chipp!
Since we are at it, I thought to make this question that has been puzzling me for a while:
Is it only me or has anyone else noticed that the z image is slightly disaligned from the color image? When I put both in PS, I always have to correct the z image by a pixel or two.

Haven't used the z image in a while, but will have a look.

DOF effect for Backdrops:
I've also found that DOF in Vue isn't worthwhile, when Photoshop gives good results much more efficiently.

Kind of hesitant to post, since I have not put much time or research into DOF (or checked out Chipp's tutorial yet) but:...
 
Rather than using the Z image, I put my backdrops into a separate Vue layer and do a multi-pass render to .PSD to get a Photoshop layer just for the backdrop, then do a "channel as selection" and erase the backdrop areas out of the foreground image layer. Then I Gaussian blur the backdrop layer.
 
With the backdrop in its own Vue layer, you can also hide it from renders and turn it off in your 3D viewports, which helps mightily to de-confuse your scene when your backdrop is a complex object.

Maybe not the best possible method, but it works well for me, so far.

that's another good way to do it - I'm currently doing the "save the Z buffer" I only just realised you can get a Z buffer without having to do the whole render as separate passes thing :)

All methods are good so long as they work and fit your workflow