Anyone have a link to a working Depth Cue tutorial? (Video preferred)

chrono1081 · November 7, 2012, 1:14am

Hi guys,

I’m trying to render a depth of field render in ZBrush however no matter what I do nothing blurs. The only information I could find online was other people having the same issue.

I already looked at the ZBrush documentation which wasn’t terribly helpful since following all steps still resulted in no blur so I was wondering if anyone had a link to a video or tutorial on how to use this feature?

If no tutorial exists but someone can at least tell me how to do it I promise I’ll record it and share with the community.

MealeaYing · November 7, 2012, 7:10am

|There used to be a simple Depth Cue button, but that has changed (its still there it just doesn’t do anything).
|
If you have done a BPR render you can use BPR Filters.

Here are the basics:

Make your scene. (hehehe I know, thats a bit obvious)
Render it using BPR.
In the BPR Filter pallet in the Render Menu turn on the F2 thingy at the top (this is blur).
For the sake of seeing what is happening turn Strength ALL the way up.
In the middle look for four Depth sliders (Lots of control, not much fun).
Turn Depth all the way up.
Set Depth Exp to Zero.
Turn Depth A up full blast.
Set Depth B to Zero.

This should give you an idea of how this works if you are lucky (I say that because I needed to get good and drunk after forcing myself to learn how this stuff works).
In the video I screw around a bit compared to what I listed above, I can never remember all the bloody steps.
Interestingly you can use the same process for other filters to make areas do things like glow or have fog and other effects which makes this a good thing, its more complicated but you end up with a hell of a lot of control.

Please pardon my handwriting, mice are rather difficult to write with.|

And here is the video I made for you:

//youtu.be/1MWTZld23oY

I hope this helps!

Cheers and have fun!
Mealea

chrono1081 · November 7, 2012, 7:50pm

MealeaYing:

|There used to be a simple Depth Cue button, but that has changed (its still there it just doesn’t do anything).
|
If you have done a BPR render you can use BPR Filters.

Here are the basics:

Make your scene. (hehehe I know, thats a bit obvious)
Render it using BPR.
In the BPR Filter pallet in the Render Menu turn on the F2 thingy at the top (this is blur).
For the sake of seeing what is happening turn Strength ALL the way up.
In the middle look for four Depth sliders (Lots of control, not much fun).
Turn Depth all the way up.
Set Depth Exp to Zero.
Turn Depth A up full blast.
Set Depth B to Zero.

This should give you an idea of how this works if you are lucky (I say that because I needed to get good and drunk after forcing myself to learn how this stuff works).
In the video I screw around a bit compared to what I listed above, I can never remember all the bloody steps.
Interestingly you can use the same process for other filters to make areas do things like glow or have fog and other effects which makes this a good thing, its more complicated but you end up with a hell of a lot of control.

Please pardon my handwriting mice, are rather difficult to write with.|

And here is the video I made for you:

//youtu.be/1MWTZld23oY

I hope this helps!

Cheers and have fun!
Mealea

Thank you SOOOOO much! The video was perfect as were the instructions! You’re right its NOT easy! I’m not sure why they have that button in there if it doesn’t do anything.

Thank you so much again for the help!

MealeaYing · November 8, 2012, 6:00am

You are very welcome!

About the button, I did some research and have discovered that it is a placebo button, its there to make you feel like you are doing something important and helpful.
Its just like the buttons on stop lights that do nothing and provides the same sense of accomplishment as pressing the elevator button two hundred times to make it arrive faster.

Actually it might still do things under Best render mode (not BPR). but I’m not sure.