Depth of Field..
badstrref
Member Posts: 124
hello, just wondering if we could get a slider for its intensity,
and if we could have an option to set the origin of DoF calculations based upon the cursor location instead of the middle of the screen
thanks
and if we could have an option to set the origin of DoF calculations based upon the cursor location instead of the middle of the screen
thanks
Post edited by badstrref on
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Comments
That said, it's definitely the plan to further improve on it. And while I can't make any promises of what that will entail, all feedback is very welcome. The new depth of field depends on the difference in distance between the object in focus and other elements in view, increasing with proximity of the focus. This if how depth of field realistically work. Focus is defined as slightly above your character's head, meaning you can focus your camera by rotating it and zooming in and out.
Again, it's the plan to further improve it and being better at setting focus point will definitely be a priority. But ultimately I also believe that it will always be a matter of preference whether you like having a depth of field effect at all. It's like lens flare - something that stems from the way camera lenses work more than normal human vision (the human eye does indeed have a depth of field, but the focus is always where we look so we don't often notice it).
What you desribe sounds odd though and more like something you'd experience in a museum of contemporary art. Does changing camera direction not affect the focal distance at all? You should be able to rotate the camera so that it sharpens at whatever is just above your character's head on screen.
I have read all your comments but I must say that still today (November 2018) the depth of field is still strange.
Especially with the character.
The character looks great, and the textures are good.
Click here, to enlarge the screenshot.
If you move your mouse just a little bit... the character and the textures are blurry.
Click here, to enlarge the screenshot.
The DoF controls are super difficult to dial in NOW that the Options menu is BIG again, and it is in a fixed postion. -it was very easy when the options menu was small and movable to push it out of the way so that you could actually SEE the center point of your DoF to be able to understand the controls.
Now that the options menu is fixed (something that really sucks imo) it's nearly impossible to really see what's going on.
Luckily, I did a lot of experimenting with them when I had the chance when I was making my NWN YouTube videos.
Explaination:
The DoF amount controls the amount of blurry bits in your frame, as per the designated center, whether it be your character, or the dynamic spot defined by the angle of your camera, or the object your mouse cursor is touching.)
The DoF slider makes it really blurry, or just a little blurry. The scale is from 0 to 5.
The amount of 'blurry' is measured simultaneously from the extreme foreground AND the extreme background to the center point, as described above (your character, a dynamic point defined by your camera angle or the object your mouse cursor is touching)
you have to think in THREE dimensions though, it's not just blurring whatever is at the edges of the screen
--think of what your camera sees like a cube. and the point that you designate as the center of the DoF, there is a 2-dimensional plane (This is 8th grade Geometry class here) --whatever object is on that plane is in focus, whatever is in front of that plane (closer to the camera) and whatever is behind that plane (further from the camera) is now blurry.
The "Deadzone" slider, that controls how much in front of and behind that plane is ALSO in focus. --think of the 'deadzone' as in "this region is unaffected by the DoF Blurry. this 'zone' is also like a cube within the larger cube... if you remember from your 8th grade geometry, a cube has 3 dimensions, X, Y and Z. The X and the Y of the "deadzone" are == to the X and the Y of the plane that is the center of the DoF.
It almost works like "fall off" of the inside blurry edge. --if that makes sense.
The "DoF Vignette" slider forces the corners of the visible area to be more blurry. --it doesn't quite turn the blurry bits into a sphere shape... but it makes it more like a diamond, and gives the illusion of sphere'ish (i just made that word up)
look at this image.
The character is in focus, but the foreground and background are out of focus.
it is difficult to see that it is actually the PLANE of where the character is within the X-Y-Z coordinates of the cube that is camera view.
So lets look at it another way... from the camera looking straight down.
In this you can see the tops of the trees are out of focus because they are closer to the camera.
but the character is the point of focus, and so the PLANE which the character is on (Relative to the camera angle) is also in perfect focus.
And since we are 90 degrees looking down, you can see ALL of the ground is in perfect focus.
Looking at it from this top-down angle...
the controls work like this:
The DoF Amount slider determines HOW MUCH blurry there is from the Camera TO the Character.
The DoF Deadzone determines how much NON BLURRY there is centered around the CHARACTER
The DoF Vignette makes the BLURRY bits extend more in the CORNERS of the Camera View than in the center of the edges.
--Now, if BEAMDOG you could PLEASE make the OPTIONS windo a little more narrow... AND make it movable.. it would really help.
--and in an unrelated note.. please return the LIGHTING math back to it's original values too... you've really screwed that up big time... that's another discussion.
Here you can see the DoF is centered on my character (my prefered setup) and so the ground is all in focus because the ground is equal in distance to my character... almost.. because my camera is not exactly 90 degrees, the edges of the frame, you can see the ground is out of focus.. because it is no longer inside the 'deadzone' that I have set up
((we are entering the realm of the Pythagorean theorem here))
But the Hobgoblin, because he is on the ledge and very close to the camera, he is blurry.
if you look at the rising cliff face, you can see exactly where my "Deadzone" ends.
DoF Amount = 0.75
DoF Deadzone = 10
DoF Vignette = 10
DoF Never Blur PC = OFF
DoF Focus Type = Player Character
And this is the result (btw.. I almost always play with my camera like this, at Ground Level)
if you want to see screenshots I have posted to STEAM you can find them here:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/krivoklat/screenshots/?appid=704450
if you want to see the NWN videos I have on YouTube (all done with DoF on) you can see them here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkD0-XU8wDXMvqtGOFa5zLw/videos
All my videos posted so far are from the Easting Reach PW server.
[edit]
*sorry, had changed my DoF settings for an above post and didn't have them quite right. now they're back.