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General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: slex on March 25, 2017, 07:24:41 am

Title: Partial 'out of focus' blur ?
Post by: slex on March 25, 2017, 07:24:41 am
Can anybody tell how to achieve motion blur or 'partial out of focus blur' in Anim8or?

Is that even possible or it need to be made with some external app?

update'' I've seen the motion blur technique  in the ''Spinning airplane prop'' thread, thanks ENSONIQ5 :), so the question is only about 'out of focus' blur- how to do it?
Title: Re: Partial 'out of focus' blur ?
Post by: thecolclough on March 25, 2017, 07:51:54 am
there's nothing in vanilla Anim8or as far as i'm aware.

depending on the placement of objects within your scene, though, you might be able to render the elements as separate images (the new Layers feature is useful to facilitate this) and then composite them using a defocus filter in a separate imaging or video-editing app; i've done that recently for my new film logo project.

this approach could start having problems if you've got elements (say a ground plane, for example) which are partly in the foreground but carry on into the background too, as you'd really want it to get blurrier gradually as it recedes instead of having a step change in blur levels between layers.
Title: Re: Partial 'out of focus' blur ?
Post by: ENSONIQ5 on March 25, 2017, 09:47:02 am
Focal blur is possible but you'll need an external 2D image editor like Photoshop or Gimp.  The idea is to create a 'depth map' of your scene where close objects are white and distant objects black, with everything in between in shades of grey.  This map is used to apply a blur to your 'beauty' render, by manipulating the map you can choose at what depth the image appears sharp.  It's tedious in animations as it needs to be applied to each frame separately and Anim8or isn't able to create depth renders internally, however you can simulate the effect with fog.  This tutorial walks you through the process: http://www.anim8or.com/tutorials/from_users/focal_blur/focalblur_2.html
Title: Re: Partial 'out of focus' blur ?
Post by: thecolclough on March 25, 2017, 12:20:20 pm
...and Anim8or isn't able to create depth renders internally...
it can, actually, but only if you use the still-image renderer.  there's a checkbox to include a depth channel.  however, Scene mode > Render > Movie doesn't have that checkbox, so you can't do depth-channel renders for a video (unless you go through each frame manually, which would be a pig of a job!)
Title: Re: Partial 'out of focus' blur ?
Post by: slex on March 25, 2017, 02:13:31 pm
thanks  for the tips, I'd like to achieve the blur within Anim8or.
ENSONIQ5 thanks for the tip about the fog, I forgot it totally  ??? , the easiest solution by far is using fog with the same color as the light, and it does have depth- object is more blurred as it goes far away from camera, works pretty good.
 
I have a problem here: sharp edge of the front side of the fog that appears after rendering with scanline- is it possible to make front edge more grainy? I've tried changing numbers but no luck, it looks OK in opengl render 
Title: Re: Partial 'out of focus' blur ?
Post by: ENSONIQ5 on March 26, 2017, 07:41:48 am
it can, actually, but only if you use the still-image renderer.  there's a checkbox to include a depth channel.  however, Scene mode > Render > Movie doesn't have that checkbox, so you can't do depth-channel renders for a video (unless you go through each frame manually, which would be a pig of a job!)

Oops, I stand corrected!  Thanks thecolclough!