EDIT 10/01/06 - DOF PRO v3.0 has now been released with full keyframing capabilitites. Animating the focal point is now done entirely within DOF PRO and requires less than 2 minutes' setup time.

-Richard

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Until DOF PRO v2.5 is released later this year which will support full controller keyframing, focal point animation can still be produced through the use of animated depth maps.

In the Batch / Animation Gallery Page there is an example of this using the "Chess" scene, in which a sweep focus is performed.

The procedure is quite simple and involves animating the depth map luminance range from 0-127 to 127-255, and setting the focal point controller to the midpoint, 127.

This is the original source image. Since it doesn't change, we only need one image, not a sequence and we simply use the HOLD button.



This is the depth map sequence. Click on the movie link to see the animation.



Click here to see the movie

This is the final DOF sequence. Click on the movie link to see the animation.



Click here to see the movie

You can, of course, adjust the function curves of the depth maps when you animate the luminance in order to get an ease in or ease out of the sweep focus.

-Richard

Hi

I have a couple of questions about the batch animation process you have described.

When you say animating the depth map luminance range from 0-127 to 127-255 are you referring to keying the fog colour in max?

I have set up a simple scene to try the sweep focus effect described above.
I have a squence of 30 depth map rendered images called dmap000.bmp to dmap029.bmp which i load into the depthmap file name section of the batch area and my 1 source image with hold pressed.
With my output file saved and the start and end set to 0 and 29 i press execute but i get a "Wrong source image filename format, no counter found" message.

Im sure its a simple mistake im making but id be greatful if anyone could point me in the right direction

Thanks

Hi Ross;

You seem to be doing everything right, although it's difficult to tell without actually seeing it. You might want to post a screengrab of your setup GUI.

With regards to the luminance values, yes, it's keying the fog color from 0-127 range to 127-255 range, and setting the focal point to 127.

Of course, all of this will be redundant when v3.0 comes out (which should be soon) as it supports full keyframe animation for all controllers.

One thing you might want to check is the following. Usually, this error means that your filenames are not labeled correctly. Make sure your source RGB image is named xxxx000.bmp, even if you only have 1 frame of it. It must have a counter to match the depth maps. The same goes for your output filename. It should be named with a counter so something like dmap_DOF_000.bmp.

Let me know if this helped and make sure to post your work in the gallery when it's done!

-Richard

hi richard

Thanks for the help and the speedy reply!

As you suggested my source image filename wasnt named in the proper xxx000.bmp format.

Working great now.

Congrats on a very cool plugin, cant wait for V3

Hi guys

Our firm just purchased this great plug in. Thank you

1 quick Q - do the image sequences need to be in BMP format, or will JPG do?

thanks

Hey STRAT;

The image sequences (or still images) do not have to be in BMP format. They can be in any common format that DOF PRO supports such as TGA, JPG, etc.

BMP format is natively supported by DOF PRO so it loads faster while the other formats must undergo the conversion process which is also fast, but an extra step. We always suggest to you the file format you prefer but if you run into any kind of problem, use BMP.

-Richard