HD Instance and Depth of Field Artifacts

[yaschan]

I'm not getting success with "Depth of Field Blur" and HD Instance instances.

I send examples.

No matter how high I set up antialias, the edges of the instanced objects get this weird effect.

Would anyone suggest a way how to create depth of field effect in Lightwave with HD Instance objects? The camera DOF setting ends up always grainy for me.

[adk]

All my DOF with HDI has been in post with a separate depth buffer, which worked fine. I seem to recall that MB also worked for me with HDI. Never tried them together however.

Could it be an issue with trying to use MB & DOF together ? Hard to guess without actually knowing what you're doing in this scene yaschan.

[yaschan]

I'm not using motion blur in the scene.

By the way, could someone give me directions how to do DOF in post using Lightwave and After Effects?

[lardbros]

Which DOF effect are you using? It looks like you are using the post processing filter or something? Or is it just the camera's photoreal DOF?

[yaschan]

I was using the "Depth of Field Blur" in image processing window

[nickdigital]

I'm not using motion blur in the scene.

By the way, could someone give me directions how to do DOF in post using Lightwave and After Effects?

An old trick was to render your objects as black in a scene with white fog that gets denser the further out from the camera. Then use that as a luma pass on a blur layer in comp.

However, you should be able to render out just a depth pass now.

[Sensei]

I was using the "Depth of Field Blur" in image processing window

Then you're using POST process effect.. None plug-in could even detect it..

Try Camera Properties > Stereo & DOF > Depth of field instead..

[Elmar Moelzer]

The problem is that LW- for some reason- does not create a propper z- Buffer for volumetrics such as HDinstance and even our VoluMedic, unless there is at least a one point polygon, or any polygon in the frame (or I think it being in the scene is sufficient). Seeing your scene only consists of HD instanced objects, maybe that is the problem. Add some polygons and then there will be a proper Z- Buffer so that the post process DOF will work.
It works with VoluMedic that way, at least.
Of course you can always use LWs raytraced DOF as well, which gives better results, though does cost rendertime (if you want to get rid of all the noise).
You could also mix the two or use a DOF in an external app. LWs DOF- Blur unfortunately creates a nasty seam at the transition from sharp to blurred. So a 3rd part app might yield better results. LWs DOF (in the camera settings) does create awesome results though.

Edit: Oops sorry, reread your post. Yeah, just use the "normal" DOF in LW. It gives the best results. Dont even bother with "digital confusion", it is horribly slow, way slower than using the native DOF with a decent AA (which will also help with Motionblur).

[yaschan]

Thanks. I really appreciate your advice.