I very rarely use the camera DOF in Carrara 8 because I find it only works about 10% of the time.

I tick the camera DOF block, I set the focal point and the amount of blur I desire, then I tick the box in the render room for DOF but nothing happens.

I would love to use it more if it worked.  Am I doing something wrong?  Is it a giltch?

Perhaps it has something to do with the camera being wide angle or zoomed in... I just don't get it.

Any help would be wonderful.

Gib

AKA bigdadgib

I don't know if has changed in version 8 but I use carrara7pro and the DOF is something that is added at the end of the full render. Are you waiting for the piece to fully render ?

Yes... when it works, it will render the DOF after the main render, just not always.  I was hoping that others had the same problem too.

Well this is sort of strange that you're having this problem.  I'm not having this issue at all.

There are a few things that I don't fully understand.

1.)  To my knowledge, there is no option for DOF in the render room.

2.)  If you want to turn on DOF, you need to first select the camera that you're going to be rendering the final image with and select it's DOF properties in the  assembly room under the effects tab.

3.)  You can turn on DOF by checking the Enable box in the DOF selection area or you can open up the settings when you choose the edit button and turn it on in there.  It sounds like you're doing that since you can see how to set the focal length.

4.)  If you select the Raytraced DOF option, DOF will be realized during the render.   If you do not select this option, DOF is computed as a post render effect.

5.)  In my experience, this effect can sometimes be impacted by the render size.  You may need to jack up the intensity depending on the image size that you're rendering.

I've never had a problem with this.  If you're turning it on in the edit menu and then turning it back off in the main effects area, that could be part of the problem but you're a more knowledgeable user than that.

Let us know more.

thanks again but there is a check box for DOF in the render room in Carrara8 Pro.  With it checked and with the camera DOF enabled, I do not always get the DOF effect in the final render, full retraced or not.

At best, I get a 50/50 chance of the DOF rendering, thus, I just do not try to use it and if it is nessasary, I do it in postwork like I did HERE

I was just wondering if anyone else had seen this problem.  It is very posible it is just my machine or my program.

Thanks, Gib 

Can you post an image of the menu in the render room that has that option?  I'm having a small stupid attack and can't find it to try and figure this out (and I DO want to see if I can figure this out).  I am running C8Pro.

The only place I know to fuss with it is in the assembly room.

Thanks

Thank you very much for showing me that (sorry that I missed it).  I've never ever seen it nor tried to use it.

Here are my  thoughts on the issue.

1.)  Weirdness in rendering can happen if you need to clean out the DAZ temporary directory.  I doubt that's an issue but maybe it is and since we're shooting in the dark, I just thought I'd bring it up.

2.)  Just to make 100% sure, you're turning on the DOF on the camera that you're actually doing the final render with?  If you have more than one camera in your scene, try deleting all of them but the one you're doing the final render with and see if that fixes it.  Just another idea trying to resolve it.

3.)  Is this a file that you started in an older version of C?  For example, I have my own personal default file which I open to start new scenes.  I noticed several versions ago that opening an old file with a new version can sometimes lead to weirdness.  Let us know if this is a possibility.

Keep talking to us about it.  If things are still whacky, send me a site mail and we can figure out a way for you to send me a file where this is a problem and we'll see if I can see a weird thing in an actual file.  Don't take my inability to find one radio box in the render room as a limitation.  Free help is a good thing.

If the issue still does not present itself at that point, then I would wager you have something unique going on in your system.  I don't think we're quite there yet though.

You "should" see the result str8 in the camera effects tab/room/preview when you set the DOF options... Use auto-update, and full render... Then increase blur intensity as needed after selecting the target... If you don't see the results in there 1st that's cause for worry, but you may just need to increase the value.

Do some tests w/ varying values to compare results, see if it really is or isn't working...

Just to double check, you are targeting your focal point right?

Hey Gib,

I'm a little bit late, but perhaps it's still useful.

Sometimes I have the same problem, especially with close-up portraits like this, but the blur is always there, except that I had to increase the amount of blur extremely. Then something showed up at the end of the render. It's like in the example MatCreator pointed out.

Did you find a solution? I'm curious, as always :biggrin:

~Sassy~