Depth of Field?

[braddewald]

I was wondering if anybody uses depth of field in their architectural renderings? When would/wouldn't you use it?

[Dave Buckley]

check alex roman's work aka third seventh, will answer all your questions

[BrianKitts]

I was wondering if anybody uses depth of field in their architectural renderings? When would/wouldn't you use it?

 

Yes, it definitely adds that extra touch of reality, I'm a big fan as long as it's used properly. When to use it.... probably only for closeup detail shots of an object or large scale exteriors where you're seeing far off into the horizon.

 

There's a large tendency for DOF to be overused, my biggest recommendation is that DOF is something that shouldn't be blatantly noticeable. If you look at an image and the first thing is WOW look at the depth of focus then you've overdone it. The other fail would be on exteriors excessive DOF causes your model to look like a miniature physical model instead of a render.

[braddewald]

So if I understand you, maybe keep to using it only if showing a close up of a detail or if you are dealing with a very large scene.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

So if I understand you, maybe keep to using it only if showing a close up of a detail or if you are dealing with a very large scene.

 

Are you wanting to simulate a camera lens, or are you wanting to give a sense of depth to your image?

 

Look at photography for how depth of field is supposed to work. It depends on the f-stop, the focal length of the lens, and the distance to your subject.

 

I am going to try and explain in my limited terminology, and false concepts of what is going on... I am sure others can correct me.

 

The lowest f-stop you will find on a commercial lens is probably 1.2. Using a lens set to 1.2 will give you a really shallow range of what is in focus compared to what is blurred, but the area of what is considered in focus becomes deeper as the subject moves farther from the camera.

 

This means that the farther your subject is away from the camera, the more items in the scene will be in focus, and the less blokeh will be present in your image. At this point the DOF becomes somewhat secondary, and should not dominate the image. There are very few lenses where the DOF would dominate an image of the subject of focus is more than 10 feet away or so.

 

DOF in the majority of architectural shots should be kept minimal, and only used to convey distance and depth. You should not look at an image, and notice the DOF before you notice the scene. The image should feel natural, and you should only perceive that there is DOF going on after your eye starts to explore the image.

 

I think that a lot of people struggle with adding DOF to their image because the render a Z depth, and then apply a gausion blur off of that, ignoring what is physically obtainable by an actual lens.

 

And in agreeance with Brian.... overusing DOF on building can often make the building look like a scale model. This has to do with extreme DOF really only occurring when the subject matter is close to the lens. Therefore we think that the subject matter is close to the lens, therefore the subject that we are looking at must be small.

 

Keep in mind, the human eye refocuses something like 1000 times a second. DOF in real life is constantly changing, and minimal in our daily experience.

 

Also, look at the quality of the bokeh. Applying DOF with a Gaussian blur will not mimic DOF gained through the use of a low f-stop lens. Lens blur differently than that. Research bokeh, and look at examples.

 

Rendering DOF will take a lot of time, so look for a good Photoshop plug-in that can help you create a nice DOF/bokeh effect.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[braddewald]

Thanks for all the info! Very informative. I would not be rendering the DOF effect in max, but rather rendering the z-depth pass and applying a lens blur in Photoshop cs4 with the z-depth pass as the mask, so that shouldn't affect the render time (right?). But I think I'll stick to using it when I'm focusing on a detail.

[AndyC]

check alex roman's work aka third seventh, will answer all your questions

 

Ditto this!

 

He might overdo it a teenie bit, but 'just ****'n look at that!' Jaw dropping work.

[braddewald]

Double ditto that, when I see images like those and then look back at my stuff I just wonder what it is that I'm not doing right...

[Nils Norgren]

Just to put another skew on the concept, the effect can be boiled down to scale, if one is using a big camera and a small subject close up the effect will be more pronounced, (as with macro photography) and shooting a large subject with a relatively small camera, the effect will be very minimal. This is a gross oversimplification, but if you notice it is hard to get DOF with a point and shoot camera but it is easier with a digital SLR (esp with fast glass, like Travis pointed out).

 

The only thing that becomes common in arch vis is the need to think about extreme foreground objects, these might benefit from some blurring, depending on the view, content and composition.

 

Another place where it can be used is in "focal pull" shots in animation, have a foreground object in focus, and then "pull" the focus to a background object, this draws the eye and can be a useful cinematic device.

 

Hope this brings things into, you guessed it! Focus!

 

-Nils