Toolkit 2 - Maya: Depth of Field

  

Aliens Models

DoF applied

  Depth of Field is the amount of blurring seen in the foreground and background if a scene, helping to drawing eye to the central object/character. The amount of blurring is based on the focal distance from the camera, but the DoF in the camera maya tabs is no of any use. For rendering in Arnold, DoF should be done via the camera's Arnold tab.

   There are a few settings in the arnold tab to know first:

      Camera types: Enables a left and right view to bring a 3D aspect to the scene (VR).

         - Orthographic: Flattens the camera lens to give a flat image.

               - Fish-Eye: Makes a 180 degree arc is all directions

         -  Cylindrical:  A flater 180 degree view

                -Spherical: Creates a spherical view.  

  Other Options: 

  Exposure: The amount of light being let into the camera.

  Filter Maps: Plugs a in a image to change the tone of a scene. (done via hypershade)

  Rolling shutters: The way the shutters moves across the scene whilst scanning the image.

  Depth of Field: (enable by box at top) uses the below settings to create DoF.

       - Aperture: Creates a softer blur, the higher the number the more blurred. (lower is sharper)

      - Focus distance: This sharpens at a set distance from the camera.

   (To find out where the object is in a scene, click on it and go to Display, Heads up display and object details. It will then tell you the required information).

Added Ramp

Finding Out Distance

  Once rendered, there may be some noise in the background that will need reducing. Blur that creates distinctive shapes and colours is called BOKA. To create this, change settings in the cameras Arnold tab, under the enable DOF box.

  - Aperture Blades: Creates a shape by how many blades there are over the camera lens (3= Triangle etc).

  - Aperture Curvature: Curves from one point of the blade to another (the higher the curves, the more curved)

  - Aperture Rotation: Changes the position of the blades by 360 degrees.

  - Aperture Aspect Ratio:  Changes the ratio of the shape due to the ratio of the camera.

                   * Using the above setting will create a distinctive BOKA blur*

  Depth of field is destructive! Before applying it, its best to create a cleaner version and then  render out one with the applied Depth of field. Also, DoF takes a long time to render, so sometimes using other software packages can be more beneficial.