"Near Depth of field"
Hera
Posts: 1,957
in The Commons
How do you get "Near depth of field" to work these days? So that objects in the foreground is a bit blurred but objects behind stay sharp.
Earlier, you set depth of field to ON in the camera and then you moved the F/stop and Focal distance so you got a "near depth of field" plan behind the objects you wanted to blur, while keeping the 'far depht of field" behind what you wanted in sharp focus.
This does not seem to work anymore, so I wonder if it's another way to do it or if that function is broken.
(Sorry if this has been asked and answered before but since there's no working search function in the forum, I have no way to look for it)
Comments
It should always work... just tweak those two properties as you said. I'm using 4.22.0.16 GR / 4.23.0.3 PB ~
Sorry, I don't know what GR and PB does.
These are my settings - and the front parts are still sharp:
DOF overlay opacity: 59%
Near DOF visibility ON
Far DOF plane visibility ON
Perspective ON
Frame with 36
Focal lenght 65
Focal distance 168
F/Stop 247
I'm on DAZ 4.21 (upgraded to 22 but returned to 21 because of the bugs in 22)
Okay, you don't need to turn on Near / Far DOF plane as the moment Depth of Field is turned on, two planes are just shown. Then pls check the attached screenshot.
(DS GR is Daz Studio General Release, aka official stable version, DS PB is DS Public Build aka Beta version )
Change your F/Stop to like 10, or so, then adjust to a higher number if you want less blur. It's ALL in the F/Stop! Larger F/Stop will give you a larger area IN FOCUS, lower number = more blurry. Your number 247 is pretty high, essentially saying you don't want anything but the farthest things on the horizon to be a little blurry, if really at all. I typically use F/Stop 10 when I want A LOT of blur (sometiems even as low as 5!), like for a portrait of a person from the shoulders up. A good Focal Length for that portrait is around 70, then adjust from there. You'll see a green cross at some point - that's is your focus point. Focal Distance will adjust what thin plane is in focus as indicated by the green cross. If DoF is ON there should be a red square with a green cross in the middle. Think of the green cross as showing where the primary focus area is and depending on your F/Stop it gets blurrier and blurrier in front and in back of that green cross. Making a higher F/Stop number will make that area in focus bigger and bigger front and back. Focal Distance moves that green cross forward and back changing what is in focus in your scene. (In my portrait shots I make the green cross even with the eyes of the subject).
Not to get too complicated, but Focal Length 65 is ROUGHLY equivalent to a 65mm camera lens. You get great bokeh and blurs the higher that number is (150, 200, 300, etc.) - but work on that after you figure out the basics with F/Stop - it can get complicated until you are very familiar with it all. 65 is a good starting point.
Not sure if I can post this link it can be deleted if not aloud, This is a wonderful tutorial for DOF
Setting values in F/Stop, Focal Dist. needs to be according to the position of the key objects in foreground and background as well as to what extent one needs them to be blurry or sharp... rather than mechanically put some values there into the property slots as per exp. Even add or reduce 10 in the properties, one can notice the blurry effect changes on "each layer" of object ......
@Hera
The example scene I made is a pretty typical case as per what your want to make as per your OP. I changed the objects into all G9 Base figures and attached the scene down below. You can tweak the value in both F/Stop and Focal Dist. to compare the effects. BTW, the HDRI in the scene comes from the new product that Daz pushed to all members' DIM : HDRI Starter Pack. The one I used is Streets of the Med. You can firstly download and install the package.