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I'm getting on slowly with M3D, my lack of leisure time prevents me learning as fast as I should, but after several years my work is improving  ;D . I have a bare glimmer of understanding of how to use volumetric lighting and dynamic fog. But Depth of Field is still a mystery to me. I'd love to be able to use it the way the rest of you do, it looks so lovely and makes some pieces look almost like photos! I have poked at it but never got anything but a completely blurred-out image or just a few spots (in the wrong places) that were softened or blurred. I wish I could find a visual tutorial, even a video somewhere, I don't understand why we don't have the subject of DoF covered as thoroughly as the rest...

thanks

crystal

It's not that difficult. Click on "Get Z1", then click in the image where you want it to be sharp. Then click either on the arrow to copy the Z1 value to Z2, or if you want a larger area to be sharp, click on "Get Z2" and click on a more remote area of your image. The aperture is often to large, so lower that to create a less blurry image. If you need more blur, you can  increase the value. For calculation use "Sorted" and for number of passes, choose 3 for best results. If you don't like the result, don't forget to click the reset button before you try again.

Is it possible to have "green screen" as the background and still use this tool? Or does it make it harder to "chroma key" the green stuff away if there's blur. Just pondering because I'd love to use Depth Of Field but I'm not sure if it suits my purposes (animations)..