Greetings In this video, we will be talking about Depth of Field and how to use it in Daz Studio Depth of Field, also called DOF, is a range of distance that appears sharp In simple words - it is when you look at something and see it clearly and sharp But everything around it becomes out of focus, blurred out It is just our eyes work, we need to concentrate on something and this does blur everything else If you were to look at most of the renders out there, such as this render of Yve for Alawa 8 - you would see the depth of field in action The main focus point - character is sharp and clear, while everything else, such as background is blurred out Let’s go step by step how to create this ourself This is the scene that I am going to use today It has two simple characters in a free Level 19 environment The male character is closer to us, a female character is a bit further to create distance and a better example First things first - we need to create a Camera Because Depth of Field only works with cameras and you can’t use it on the Perspective View To add a camera to your scene you need to simply press the Create a New Camera button Also, you can make it copy the position of your current perspective view, for an easier positioning I already have my camera created and positioned properly It is pointed at the characters and captures them really well If I turn on the Thirds Guide, you will see that they are positioned right on the intersections It is where most attention is pointed usually Let’s see how this looks rendered I could render this scene out, but you should be able to observe all the main things even in the Iray viewport So we can see that there is absolutely no DOF on the scene Everything is equally sharp, nothing is blurred even a little Looks very unnatural, because our eyes can’t see everything equally sharp as this By default Depth of Field is turned off in Daz Studio, so we need to turn it on For this, open the Cameras tab It is usually located here on the right side, near the bottom If you can’t find it - just open it by following the Window > Panes(Tabs) > Cameras In this window, we are interested in the Camera section Here we have the Depth of Field settings that is turned off Click on it to turn it on And let’s render the image this time to see what exactly did this setting change On the render, we can see that the female figure is quite sharp and we see it clearly While both the background and a male figure are blurred Just turning on the Depth of Field is not enough, we need to set it up properly On the scene, if you would go into the Perspective view and point it, so you could see the camera’s from the side You will see that some new gizmo has appeared on the camera object - these two planes When I turn off and on DoF - they appear and disappear They show us the Depth of Field range So everything between these two planes would be in focus Such as the female figure And everything that is out of their range - would be out of focus Like the male model Exactly this we saw on the render with the female figure being sharp and male being blurred out We can control this range by changing the settings from the Cameras window Namely, the Focal Distance setting moves planes further or closer to the camera You may notice that when planes move, the distance between them changes too The green and red cross is the focal point, the very middle of the Depth of Field range that would be the sharpest F/Stop changes the distance between the planes Which allows for a very shallow or wide depth of field So using these two options we can control exactly which parts of the image would be in focus I want the male figure to be seen sharp this time and everything else is out of focus So you can see that the figure is exactly between two planes and the focal point is in the middle too When rendered, this scene looks exactly as was expected The model in the foreground is perfectly sharp and visible, while the figure in the back is a bit blurred With the background being far from the focal point - it was the most out of focus To show more examples, let’s now change things up and make female figure to be in focus with a very shallow depth of field So I change the Focal Distance to place the focal point right on the figure And correct F Stop to some value that is very low, to receive the effect of a very shallow DOF Render perfectly shows the result Everything except the female figure is very out of focus, with absolutely no details seen The DOF so shallow, that even the female hand and legs are a bit blurry Let’s analyze another situation - when you want to have a big range Depth of Field So on this scene, it is when both characters are in focus, but the background would be a bit blurred For this situation, I move the focal point to be somewhere between two characters And change F Stop, so that both of them would be between two planes A few small corrections and it is ready to be rendered The result speaks for itself - both characters are visible and are in focus, while the background is out of focus and blurred Exactly as we planned As was mentioned before, Depth of Field is very important and widely used everywhere You can just visit the Daz3d dot com shop and see it for yourself here For example, let’s take one of the newest figures - Jacqueline 8.1 Notice how all renders have a depth of field on them in some regard Parts of the scene that are meant to be the main viewing point, as the figures - are very sharp Everything else is less sharp, the further it goes Like here we can see that the very shallow DOF is used, even things that are close to the character, such as wheel and hands are out of focus On the Daz3d.com/shop, you can also find other products that will help you with Depth of Field scenes Such as HDRI sets like UltraHD Iray HDRI With DOF - Meadows The catch here is that this HDRI is designed to be used with DOF Or another even more prominent example - After Midnight 28 HDRIs and Lights The catch here is that these HDR images already have Depth of Field built into them The ground is sharp and backgrounds are blurred So these scenes can be rendered without using the Daz Studio DOF at all To learn more about DOF you should check out our Daz3D Depth of Field: How to use it article Or the Daz3D Portrait Tutorial that explains how to use DoF and not only it to create a proper Portrait render These and more articles can be found on our website - 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