Camera - Background help

sindweller.kj13

Greetings everyone, I have a question for you all!

I want to do renders that would be something like this: My character - a background. The thing I don't know how and / or if possible to do without postwork where I blur stuff.. is if it is possible to make it in DAZ so that the background is blurred out lightly so that the character gets the 'spotlight'.

I don't really know how to use the camera either, like, I only leave the base settings and don't touch them at all soooo yea.. I could use some explanation on how to do the above, should anyone feel like helping me out!

Thank you! :)

Tjeb

I now consider setting up a background as old fashioned and do that almost always in post work (Photoshop)
Anyway.... how I used to do it:
- Create a Plane,
- rotate 90 degrees on X-axis,
- translate well enough behind your character,
- scale 144 on X,
- put a background in the Diffuse channel in your Surfaces Tab.

Tjeb

Now, for the camera:

- Create New Camera
- in the Parameters Tab:
- switch on Depth of Field
- fill in a Focal Length that you would choose on a real-life DSLR camera.
(A professional photographer who does lots of portraits usually prefers 135mm.)

- In the viewport:
- switch to your just created camera (most likely: Camera 1)
- Adjust the parameters for that camera in the parameter tab.
- While in the parameters tab, also adjust the background plane.
(at this point think about The Golden Rules of Composition: the main focus point of your character is obviously her/his face; put that left or right of the middle. Try to avoid the horizon in the background being exactly in the middle, that sort of things)

Now, in the scene tab, select Camera 1, but in the viewport select Perspective view,-
- in the Parameters tab adjust Focal Distance & F/Stop.
- In the Spot render in the Third pic you see already the effect on the background.

sindweller.kj13

So, from what I see, the focal distance and F stop, need to be always like in the 2nd image to like.. bare with me, I don't know how to put it really "surround the character" not go any further behind, nor stop BEFORE the character itself or the charater will be blurred as well, correct?

Jaderail

Not so much the Depth of the Planes is the Depth of the Field that will blur the least. But in truth there is only ONE place that will be perfectly clear it is the Cross Hair of the DOF field when Viewed from the sides...

Here I show the DEAD center of the DOF which will be ZERO DOF and the two Planes, they have MUCH less DOF in the Area between them but WILL blur any items in there area depending on how far from the Center point they are. All other items beyond the Planes will blur in a rato based on the Focus from dead center, the Fields or space between them really is the part you have FULL DOF control over. DS does the rest automatically for you based on your Field Settings.

Tjeb

Jaderail is right, I forgot about the crosshair, because lately I don't pay much attention to that anymore.
(Like I said: I put the background in later, in postwork.)

A few more things, nice to know:
in the Display tab:
- put some sliders to the right and choose a color different to the background color to make the lines more clearly visible.
- Also use the Near DOF Plane Visibility and the Far DOF Plane Visibility in turn on and off to see if that comes in handy for you to determine the DOF area, but in that case switch back to Camera 1.

Jaderail

Also another thing to watch is your Pixel Samples X and Y in the render settings. To low a value in them when rendered and you can get very boxy blur effects sometimes.

sindweller.kj13

Okay, I must say.. thanks a lot guys! I got the hang of it for small simple renders so I`m on the right path. I assume for more.. complex renders, I`ll have to adjust the focal distance and f/stop accordingly but now that I know how to do it, I doubt it will be hard.

So yea, thanks again and as always, Daz people are THE BEST! :)