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Lens Blur and Depth Pass issues
I have a 3D character that I am attempting to superimpose over a live action background in AE. I have a beauty pass and a depth pass that I rendered out from maya. The beauty pass has a transparent background.
I need the close up parts of my character to be out of focus while the back parts remain in focus. However, as much as I attempt to fiddle with the settings of the lens blur effect I am only able to get a proper looking blur in the opposite direction (that is, back bits out of focus while close bits are in focus). Inverting the depth map (while causing close and far to blur properly) causes the character to only blur within the bounds of it’s alpha mask, which means his features get all muddy while the crisp outline remains. I have tried both manually inverting the depth map in photoshop before importing, and using the “invert depth map” option in the lens blur properties, neither of which have solved the problem.
Help would be very much appreciated, thank you!
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6 Replies
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Just a thought…
What if you disable the alpha channel and use the depth pass as a luminance matte?
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caleb would first have to apply levels to the depth map and then clip the white contrast. theoretically, that could then work.
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What does it look like if you apply the lens blur to a precomp of the foreground and background combined?
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It doesn’t seem to change anything when I do that except for making my background extra blurry, but I think I know what is causing the problem now. Since my depth pass (which I think I am using as a luminance matte, its a separate render out of maya using the “luminance depth” preset and has no alpha channel itself) is my character (close bits light back bits dark) surrounded by a black background, when I want close bits blurry, the entirety of the black background is considered in focus, and thus the blurring of the other bits aren’t allowed to bleed into it. I just assumed it had something to do with my beauty pass’s alpha.
When I manually changed my background from black to white in photoshop it solved the issue, except for the nasty black edges left around my character in the depth map which made the blur look poor, but that’s a maya issue.
Sam, was that what you meant by “clip the white contrast” or is that something different?
Thanks guys.
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Not sure if anyone will be reading this, but I cant believe this issue hasnt been resolved..
Im working with C4D, but I’m having the same problem. I’ve got a 3D tree, and I want to blur out the branches closest to the camera, so ive rendered a depth pass that is mostly black, with the closest branches in grey and white.
The problem is the same as Caleb’s. Lens blur sees the surrounding black background as ‘in focus’, meaning the white branches don’t blur beyond their confines- sharp edges.I thought it might be possible to use an adjustment layer with fast blur, and the depth map as a luma matte, but it doesnt work..
What we need is an all white matte, with the branches further away fading into black. Its frustrating, as I feel that all the info is there.. I just want to blur the white bits!! Is there a workaround?
Thanks in advance.
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I know this thread is really old but I hate to see unresolved issues. To fix this right click on your alpha image/sequence/video in the asset list, go to Interpret Footage. Turn off the alpha for your depth maps. A lot of times 3d software exports the other maps with alphas built in, which is sometimes good and sometimes not good.
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