ZDepth Filtering for Frischluft Lenscare, and Post DOF General Advice?

[atelieryork]

Hi all,

Quick one - should we be using filtering (on by default) for the zdepth pass when being used with lenscare/DOF plugins for AE?

I'm getting artifacts when I filter and artifacts when I don't, so neither approach looks great so far. I think this is becase I have a very strong contrast between extreme foreground and background, so I'm getting fringing and moire-like effects around objects as they go in and out of focus.

I also discovered that 32-bit exr for zdepth pass is unusable with lenscare for AE. You get all sorts of weirdness with the area of sharpness. If you render to 16-bit TIFF it's absolutely fine. Just an observation.

Any tips?

Cheers,

[maru]

I am not familiar with the software, but my guess would be that to get the best results you should disable filtering for both Zdepth and beauty, but this is obviously not always possible.
Also, obviously it is not possible to render some effects using 2D dof. Example: http://smg.photobucket.com/user/F12Bwth2/media/Forums/M1A-Socom-039.jpg.html using only one image, without the software knowing what background is behind the occluded parts.

[atelieryork]

Thanks Maru,

I'm going to keep testing. Both methods are giving me issues so far so I'm struggling against it. Generally lenscare is giving some really, really nice DOF but it's just very tiny artifacts on those extreme edges where the contrast is really strong in the zdepth channel that cause problems.

[johan belmans]

I am familiar with Lenscare, but do you know if there is a equivalent competitor  (for After effects) on the market?

[Juraj]

Could there be any kind of difference how z-depth is saved in Corona ?

I don't remember any artifacts with 32bit linear z-depth in AE (as long as it's interpreted correctly). But I have not yet used it with Corona z-depth (no anim really...so I just use the one in VFB+).

But I am interest how do the artifacts differ between filtered and non-filtered ? VFB+ for example suggests unfiltered.

[johan belmans]

If you mean by unfiltered no AA, than I can confirm this is necessary to do.
If your Z-depth pass is saved with AA, it will not work with Lenscare in AE.
As well you should save it separately from the beauty render, otherwise it will have AA.