Distance Blur?

[ProjectX]

Are there any plans to implement distance blur into terragen? Maybe with settings to control the minimum focus distance and maximum focus distance? Such a shader would add hours to a render, but would make close-up or long-distance shots looks so much more real.

At the moment we could fake it with something like photoshop, but itwould be much better with varying degrees of blur, depending on distance.

BTW> distance blur is the effect of blurring far off things - and those close to you - to highlight the main point in the scene, it is used heavily in photography and film. When the cameraman focuses on two people talking in a movie, you won't generally be able to see much of the background or foreground - just the two people talking. Of course there are lenses that increase or decrease the effects of distance blur - so you don't always get it, but it is there.

[oggyb]

So you mean you want a focal plane on the camera system?  I think that would be rather exciting too

[3DGuy]

It's called Depth of Field. It's not really controlled by the lens (i.e. the glass) but by the diaphragm DOF in TG would be very cool.

[Igor]

Or simply to have the ability to save the Images as RLA/RPF with ZBuffer In AE, Combustion, DFusion, PS2 etc you can then blur the depth as you want

[MooseDog]

Or simply to have the ability to save the Images as RLA/RPF with ZBuffer

planetside has stated, i believe, that render buffers and a slew of file formats will be available in the gold release of tg2.  all standard available buffers would be a great thing!

for a depth pass, you could pull it off right now with a brute force workflow.  just texture your terrain jet black, texture your atmosphere jet white, and then set-up a white fog, which you can then control density and distance.  presto! instant depth pass.

[3DGuy]

I got this using a distance shader.

I applied a distance shader to the terrain which, set the ranges and used the resulting image as a mask for the lens blur function in CS2.

Drawbacks: I don't see a way to connect the distance shader to the clouds/atmosphere at the moment.

[Njen]

Yes, I have been unable to connect the distance shader to clouds/atmosphere myself...
I hope this is activated soon, as I have some great ideas that are waiting patiently in my head

[buchvecny]

theres plugin for Phtosho CS2, its called DOF pro developed by richar rosenmann i beleive... it simulates very good depth of field and i bet luc biancos used it in his images

[semuta]

IMHO, DOF blur in a terrain/landscape program... seems like it maybe should be the last thing on the list anyways, You won't normally get DOF in landscape photography, Unless there's say a branch 10cm to (at the outside) 3m from the lens and you're focusing on infinity or vice versa, even then you'd have to work for it. some large format cameras with the lens off angle from the focal plane will produce the effect of DOF over a large area, but again I wouldn't say it was "natural".. I guess my point is DOF on a landscape makes it instantly look like a miniature, like the image above.  If you want it, I'd say a z-depth pass and compositing is all you really need.

[3DGuy]

Landscape photography usually uses the hyperfocal point which gives you the biggest DOF. Which means as much that everything is in focus. Only when focussing on a person or resonably sized object does smaller DOF come into play. So I would agree with semuta that this would currently not be in high demand right now.

[oggyb]

I'd hazard that it would be in high demand if enough people realised its power when composing a scene.  Depth of field is a creative tool as well as a scientific by-product.

[firesuite]

I'd hazard that it would be in high demand if enough people realised its power when composing a scene.  Depth of field is a creative tool as well as a scientific by-product.

I agree, i for one would love to know how this is done. Not every TG artist will adhere to the rules of Landscape photography/CG terrains while using TG2. From a creative standpoint this seems like a valuable tool to have as not every single artist using the software will be going for the "photo-realism"

[Oshyan]

We do plan to implement DoF natively in TG2. You will also be able to "roll your own" solutions using depth buffers and the like.

You can already connect the distance shader to the clouds, though not - I think - the atmosphere:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=111.0

- Oshyan

[RealUser]

DOF is certainly an artistic way to draw someones interest to a specific point of interest. In reality, DOF isn't very common to landscape photograhy. It is relative to close ups or macro photography, but not to wide angle shots. It depends on the focal length of the lens one uses for the scene. Say, if you use a wide angle lens (28mm as a standard), you should have a wide depth of sharpness. If you use a zoom lens (about 135mm or more) the depth of sharpness shrinks. This is a common technique in photographic scenes (portrait, still life, food, and so on) to seperate objects from the fore- or background.
This comes in handy, if you make a "shot" with small details in the foreground. Like grass blades, stones or any small object like flowers or the like you want to have in the point of interest. TG artist certainly take shots of some shrubbery, bushes orsingle flowers. In that case, one would need DOF.

[efflux]

I think it would be useful to have in TG but for wide open landscapes it can look odd because we are used to looking at photos of close subjects with narrow depth of field.