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I don't have P5, but with a real camera, you get D.O.F. blur FX when the lens diaphragm is wide open (f 1.2 - 2.8) and you're focussed on something close to the camera, depending on focal length. The focal distance is something you'd have to measure from your camera lens focal plane to the only object you want to be in focus. So you'd set the camera at 8.602 units from the figure.

Attached Link: http://www2.hdm-stuttgart.de/~sw19/files/dop.png

Excellent. Thank you both mateo_sancarlos and stewer.

I don't know about you Momcat, but I'm going to give this a try tonight afterwork:)

Thanks again!

amon_g

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quesswho, I had a tough time figuring out the focal distance too. I never really got it working right, but I did find a couple of web sites that have a Depth of Field Calculator, you can find that at:
www.shuttercity.com
It seems that the film format has a lot to do with calculating DOF, and it does change quiet a bit depending on the film type you put in the calculator.
But I think the biggest thing is matching the camera's Focal Length with the F-Stop, Focal Distance (I think) is going to be the distance from the camera to the main object. The only problem with that is coming up with an accurate way to measure the distance.
Hmm... I think it might be time to take another look at Dr. Geep's measuring tutorial:)

Well, I'll keep you all updated on the progress of things:)
Oh, and quesswho that's a good looking image!

amon_g

I was able to achieve the effect I wanted, which was having the foreground and background objects out of focus while having the center object sharp. As you can see, I did it:)

The blue stick man is at the default 0,0,0 position, red is +10 (and a little positive on the X tran) and yellow is -10 (and negative on the X tran). My camera is +10 on the DollyZ and set to a focal length of 75.

In the render options I bumped the pixel samples to 7 (a 600MHz machine just really doesn't handle this stuff very well:)) and left the F-Stop at its default 2.8. Now here's where the theory comes in to play...

Last night I was always able to get the foreground object in focus, and that was by using the distance of the camera to the object I wanted to focus on, which in this case is 10 feet (using feet as the UOM, and the camera is +10 on the DollyZ, so I am assuming that is 10 feet from the subject). So I set the focal distance to 10. With that setting, DOF never really seemed to work the way I expected it.

I went to the DOF calculator, and tried using the Hyperfocal distance, which ended up being 219 feet (this was at the 35mm setting on film type). Well that didn't work either. Nothing was in focus. So I ended up doubling the focal distance - setting it to 20 - and then tried rendering again. And, like in Gold Fish, I got what I wanted.

Oh... as I was posting this message, I think I figured out the DOF Calculator.

Set your film format to 8x10. Set your focal length, in this case 75mm. Set your f-stop (2.8) and then the distance to the object (10 feet). Hit the compute button. Take a look at the Hyperfocal Distance. 21 feet and 11 inches. Now that's really close to the settings I ended up with in this render. So, I think the Hyper Focal Distance is what we're looking for for Poser's Focal Distance.

Ok, if none of this has made any sense, I'm sorry. It's still too early in the morning and I haven't had enough coffee:) I'll do some more experimenting tonight and let y'all (yes I'm from Texas:)) now the results. And, if you'd like, give it a try also and see what you come up with.

Thanks for reading my long winded post:)

• amon_g

I will try it out later this afternoon or tonight( I have been up for about an hour and haven't had my Coca cola yet. Marge I have been trying to figure this out for a while and I think you have finally helped . Thanks

Good discussion, very helpful. However, the Main Camera's DollyZ 0.0 position is not the 0,0 of the studio. It's hard to tell by just moving it around, but the camera is at the 0,0 origin of the studio when you move it to DollyZ -1.00. I think the focal distance in the Render Options is measured from the studio center, however, rather than the distance from the figure to the camera. Real focal distance is measured in distance from camera, of course. I've tried to test this by shooting renders along a prone figure, but so far all I have is pixel hash and an occasional braindead computer. Mick

Aw, crap! Hmm...and there I thought I figured something out:) Back to the drawing boards. Thanks for telling me about the camera Mick. I didn't know that. So, do you think the other cameras work the same way as the Main Camera (as far as the coordinates go)? One of the reasons Geep's 9 foot ruler is in the is because I was trying to measure the distance from the main camera to the subject, but, low and behold, I could never find the main camera. But there are "figures" of some of the Aux cameras. Hmm... maybe I should try using one of those. Thanks again Mick for the imput! - Brent

You can see the Main Camera if you select it for one of your four viewpanes while the Auz Camera is another. Ther is some question in my mind as to whether the camera image actually represents the location of the camera in real space, but it seems to. This is an odd change from the P4 situation, by the way. In P4 Pro Pack, if you set the Main Camera at Dolly 0,0,0, it would appear at the origin point of the scene, between the default figure's feet. I'm guessing that your formula works, but it is off by one "Poser Unit." This would be a hard error to identify in a typical render. Mick

Those D.O.F. images are highly pixellated. P4 had a kind of depth effect that was based on the nearest and farthest thing from the camera. The image it produced was lousy, but it also produced a D.O.F. alpha channel (mask), so you could do a regular render, then apply filters through the D.O.F. alpha channel render in Photoshop to get good effects. So why not see if P5 produces a similar D.O.F. alpha channel? Then you can do it right in Photoshop.

Can you be more specific? I'm not familiar with a P4 DOF trick.

I think I remember seeing something in the "old" tutorials here on R'osity about using depth cueing and photoshop, but I just when to check and it's not there. So, I'm not going to be much help. I'll check around and see if I can find it.

The only thing I know with Poser4 is depth cue, but then againthough I use it all the time I haven't ch3ecked more than what I normally do in it. Where do you get Dr. Geeps 9 foot ruler? Marge

Depth cuing only effects the work area, though one could capture the depth cued image and manipulate that as a layer to provide DOF "haze"....

... and I think that's the tutorial that I saw. For some reason I think it was done by WHWhitney from Poser Style. Marge, I don't have the URL to Geep's 9 foot ruler, but I got it from free stuff by doing a search for Geep.

Try 1.5625 times of your Dolly Z. Of course if dolly X is not 0 you must do trig. a2+b2=c2 or dollyZdollyZ+dollyXdollyX then do the square root.

As soon as I get out of the office tonight, I'm going to give these a try. Are you changing the Focal Length at all, or are you leaving it at the default? Thanks for joining the fun known as P5 Depth of Field! :) - Brent

Scratch that 1.5625 number.

I have been playing around and found this, with DollyX set to 0 and....

DollyZ...Focal Dist
4..........13.5
9..........18
16........25
25........35
36........47

I can't figure out the fourmula just yet but these numbers seem to work

The focal length changes the DOF not the focus distance. My settings were 77mm for the focal length of the main Camera, and F-stop of 1.5 to give a narrow DOF. Changing the focal lenght of the camera to a lower number will give you a greater DOF ( more infocus) and a higher number will reduce your DOF (less in focus)

Got it. Load your favorite person DollyZ the camera till it 'hits' her, the camera should be at DollyZ -9 {mabey 8} (feet) or -1 Poser unit. Add this value to the focal distance and bingo! 4....+9.....=13 9....+9.....=18 16...+9.....=25 25...+9.....=34 36...+9.....=47

Excellent! So that pretty much explains why my initial test worked. I added 10, but 9 is close enough;) I tried kicking off a render last night before I went to bed, and woke up this morning to find that Poser had just decided it was finished rendering my image at 2/3 through it.... but that's a story for another forum:) Time to render:) - Brent

Thanks everyone for helping me figure this bad boy out!

• Brent