Okay fairly fast processor with lots of ram (1.2 and 512) I am working on a fairly big image .. and it has to be rendered to disk so I can out put at poster size .. just for kicks I set up a depth of field test render .. very small 432x291, and I took out the whole far back area of the image to cut the file size .. so I only have my foreground and the middle... let it render over night ..10 hours later still not done but from what I can see I would LOVE the effect sob .. BUT as it stands this is just not an option .. I mean it would take a month or so to render LOL.. my question is has anyone played with the settings and found a way to render a "depth Of Field" in a decent amount of time?

I use the Depth of Field feature all the time. These are the settings I usually use. Depending on the complexity of the scene (reflections, transparency, etc...) a 960x720 render with D.O.F. and Premium Render on takes anywhere from a few hours to overnight. That's on a Mac G4 450Mhz with 896MB RAM (600MB to Bryce5). Surprisingly, the "soft shadows" option adds more to the render time than the depth of field does. Try the settings exactly as I have them here and let me know how long your render takes. Don't give up on it, it's a great effect. I have lots of work in my gallery with this effect. Good luck.

THANK YOU! g .. I will try this and post .. I do have a tree in the image with a lot of leaves .. but only one tree , that may be the hold up though .. at any rate I will try these settings and let you know, thanks again because I agree the end results are wonderful!

Ah! The tree! hehe. Seriously though, trees will dramatically increase your render time. Even adding one or two of those cool Bryce5 trees can add several hours to your render time. You might try the render without the tree first and see how much difference there is in render time.

well... okay with out the tree an hour for a 800x600 render .. with the tree no end in sight( I have a gazebo in the foreground .. statues in the middle just in front of a tree , the render that took an hour only had the floor of the gazebo and the statues) .. not good because the tree was what I wanted to be in the distance LOL.. oh well .. But thank you for your help Alleycat!

Maybe somebody could make some money by starting a rendering service bureau. A half-joking, half-serious idea.

If you have lights beside daylight in your scene, then enenabling soft shadows or edge softness enabled in light lab, it will bump up your render time like the premium fx soft shadow settings. Also, in many images your can get away with a lot less than 64 rays per pixel.

hmm .. I think I will try with less than 64 rays/pixel and see what happens .. I do not have soft shadows or edge softness on the lights I have in the scene .. although there are 10 radials so I am sure that is also adding to the time .. anywho like i said I will try decreasing the rays .. thanks!

You could cut down on rendering time by doing the DOF in post. Do your normal render (no DOF) and then do a distance render. In your paint prog, use the distance render as a mask when applying some Gaussian blur to the original pic. Steve Sanvito

photo shop alpha channel layers can be set up to get any effect you want, so sensitive there are almost too many. :) good luck Rod

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=156903

there are only 4 layers here with gaussian blur