Hello,

i just wanted to render a simple test scene in Poser 9 to learn someting about depth of field.

You can see it here:

http://www.abload.de/img/scene1wz9m.jpg

With a python script i calculated the focus distance to the Andy figure in the middle of the scene. It was around 39.

But if i tick the "Depth of field" option in manual render settings, it doesn´t start to render. The render status doesn´t increase...

Rendersettings:

A couple of points:

1. Use the Display>Guides>Focal distance to find distance from your camera to the object

2. DOF depends on FStop  as well as the switch in the render settings

3. DOF can increase Render times.

Bill

Thank you!

With Display>Guides>Focal distance i found out the right focus distance. Now it works and looks good. But the right distance was 13800 and not 39 like the built in python script calculates...

I have never used the python script, but the distance units are/should be the units set in your preferences.

Glad it is working for you now.

Bill

For these type of scenes to render correctly, you will need pixel sampling of 10 or more.  That generally drives the render time up considerably.

As for DoF, I use the DoF guide and crosshairs.

Attached Link: DOF

Quote - I was having problems with DOF in PP2012 too. The attached image is the result of using the DoF guide and the information from hborre about the pixel sampling. When I changed the sampling from 6 to 12 it made a huge difference. Yes, it took more time but was well worth it.

What does change if you increase the pixel sampling?

Here you can see my first render with DOF (Focus on the robot behind).

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2305443

I think next time i will change the fStop value in the camera settings so that the objects in the foreground will be a little bit more out of focus.

What do you think?

Increasing the pixel sampling number smooths out the blurr for me. When I had it set to 6 there were black spots and the blurr had too many sharp edges. When I set it to 12 the blurr smoothed out.

I think my fstop was set to 2.8, but the scene was really deep and I think that is what gave all the blurring in the background. I am not enough of a photographer to understand the fstop too well, but I think it changes the depth of focus. In other words, there will be more blurring in the image. I know I have shot some pictures with an infinate focus, no blurring in the image at all. But, I do not remember if increasing or decreasing the fstop will increase the blurring in the background of the image.

Your image is great. Are you wanting the backgound robot more out of focus?

No i want the red robot more out of focus. Because the focus is directly on the orange robot, because of this it is nicely sharp.

I think the effect would be much better if the red robot gets a little bit more unsharp than it already is.

I will try this in my next renders.

I googled fstop and did some reading. The smaller the number the less DOF there is. The larger the number (up to 22) the greater it is. To focus more on the orange robot and less on the red robot use the DoF guide (crosshairs). Put them on the orange robot and use a smaller fstop setting (1 to 3). This will focus the camera on the orange robot and blurr the red one.

Quote - I googled fstop and did some reading. The smaller the number the less DOF there is. The larger the number (up to 22) the greater it is. To focus more on the orange robot and less on the red robot use the DoF guide (crosshairs). Put them on the orange robot and use a smaller fstop setting (1 to 3). This will focus the camera on the orange robot and blurr the red one.

Thanks for the info! :)

Yeah that´s what i want.

It get´s better :-) fStop value was 1,8

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2306158&section_id=&genre_id=&np

this is a very interesting topic and i would like you guys , when time permits , to expand on this and post more of your findings, i have read and have a basic understanding of the technical jargin, but i find i learn more from the real world examples the community exibit in these threads, especially interested in the explinations posted by willyb and bhorde as they have a unique ability to express in laymans terms what is difficult to grasp from the technical manuels available.... thanks guys...

:O)

Here is a little tutorial created by Dr. Geep.  Towards the end, Dr. Geep covers depth of field or focus and how to implement in Poser.  This method has not changed over all the Poser iterations and is guaranteed to work.

http://www.drgeep.com/p6/guides/guides.htm

The script works well, you just have to remeber it gives you a value in feet. So if you poser units are not feet, remember to convert.

I also use post filter sinc at 2.