Previewing DOF

[wade]

I am currently getting more and more requests for animation.

I do a lot of close ups with focus pulls.

Does anyone know how I could preview a DOF change without rendering? Been racking my brain thinking about this.
The only way I can think is to do the DOF in post, but I find it doesn't look as good as straight out of the renderer.

The clients want to see the focus shift but rendering is expensive.

[TomG]

I am not sure what you mean - the usual method would be to adjust with Interactive Rendering running. There is no way to see it without some sort of rendered image - if it's for the client to view, then you'd need to have some image to send to them (unless you can screen share with IR running), but then rendering needn't be expensive, smaller images that still have some noise in them would do for picking which DOF they want to go with, and then can do the longer full quality image once they've picked what they like. You could even simplify the scene down to speed things up even further, so that it is acting as a quick illustration for how the DOF will look and not a full, final render.

[romullus]

Actually there is one fast way to preview DOF inside 3ds max viewport. You have to create standard camera, enable multi-pass effect in it, choose depth of field and press preview. You can even export preview animation to external file with grab viewport tool from tools menu.

[sprayer]

Physical camera also can show DOF in viewport

[romullus]

Really? I didn't know that. Could you show how to do that, i'm struggle to find it.

[wade]

I will try out the standard DOF trick. I remember using it a long time ago but it had the tendency to crash my pc.

[sebastian___]

There was also a way without multiple passes, but you needed mental ray I think, even though mental ray was not used but was in fact a screen shader based DOF or Nitrous based.
Sneak Peek: Nitrous DOF and Bokeh effects - YouTube
youtube.com/watch?v=D_xMREE8ZPw

And way back in the past there was a way to get simultaneous DOF and motion blur in viewport with multi passes.

[sprayer]

Really? I didn't know that. Could you show how to do that, i'm struggle to find it.

You need nothing, just enable DOF in physical camera, oh maybe you will need upgrade to 3ds max 2018 and nitrous ;)

[romullus]

Pretty cool. I guess it's much more accurate than the one from standard camera. Too bad that it's not available in max 2016, though.

[wade]

Thanks guys! Super helpful.

I wonder if this is possible to integrate into the corona cam?

[Christa Noel]

I wonder if this is possible to integrate into the corona cam?

hi Wade, could you please create a feature request for this? i'll vote for you :)

[pokoy]

Pretty cool. I guess it's much more accurate than the one from standard camera. Too bad that it's not available in max 2016, though.

Pretty sure it works in 2016, too, I seem to remember it was introduced in 2014 already. You may have to switch the viewport to realistic with Nitrous.

[romullus]

Realistic? That's why i never knew about that, i always switch to shaded :] Thanks for the tip, i'll gonna try that.

Edit: got it, you also need to turn on improve quality progressively in viewport configuration - another feature that i always keep turned off :]

[pokoy]

There's also a mxs command that will enable and disable it regardless of the mode which isn't exposed in the viewport settings:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2016/ENU/?guid=__files_GUID_34892DB6_E840_4F52_9175_30332799B7B1_htm

Should work with a physical camera without any mxs commands, though.