3Delight Camera Focus Tips?
Stryder87
Posts: 899
I'm finding (and have seen other people mention it) that rendering in 3Delight never seems to result in a really well focused image. Using a standard camera doesn't do it for distant objects, or even for closer, smaller ones. I've tried turning on depth-of-field, and setting it for nearly the entire scene, but it still isn't in very good focus. I always seem to have to post-sharpen the image, which makes edges seem a little too grainy.
Has anyone found a way to improve 3Delights camera focus at all? I'm working on a scene for the latest New Users contest (first time entering!!) and have made a custom label for a bottle that I totally get a huge kick over, but because it's smaller, it just doesn't focus well.
Tips? Tricks? (Please don't say "Use iRay instead" haha) 
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Comments
If the whole image is blurry then its probably not a depth of field thing, I would check the render settings.
What do you have set in the 'filter' and 'sampling' sections?
Render twice and blend the two images after blurring the edges slightly, focus on the object you want focused... Instant clear focus on one specific target. That is essentially all the focus does in rendering, however, it can over-sample and uses blunt-point-focus, unlike a camera that actually has a "curve" in the center to infinite-focus.
The other trick is to render it twice... Once without focus (infinity), and once with focus, your modification to the other image. In any paint program, you can select the desired "focus object" and feather-erase or feather-alpha, the blurry image away so your focused image comes through. (Or on the reverse, erase the initiate focus of the background image, so the blurry image comes through.)
In the rendering, with that specific "point focus", you have only one real choice, like with a real camera... Back-up and zoom-in. That gives you a wider FOV in-focus at your target, instead of an exaggerated FOV when you are too close with the camera and on a wide-angle lens. What you will lose is the super-blur of the background, and the wide-distortion from being close to the target. (Eg, you see more of the targets sides and less of the sides from side-objects. More linear, less fish-eye.)
Other than that, you can only render 2x larger then reduce it 2x later, to regain sharpness without disturbing the actual true colors and edges. (That is also how to get full-screen anti-aliasing done.)
It has NOTHING to do with cameras, image size, need to render2x size or any of that...it is like prixat said, either pixel filter or pixel samples (or both).
X/Y vaules for pixel samples need to match, and should be whole numbers. For 'normal' use, with the 'sinc' filter they should be in th 4 to 8 range. Box, gaussian (which is what the most common cause of blurry overall images is) can be different...but still under 10. Filter depths (any filter) of 10 or more are NOT NEEDED, except for heavy DoF or motion blur..
Thanks guys. I'll check this when I get home from work today. It's not that the renders are totally blurry, it's more like smaller objects or distant objects just aren't totally 'sharp'. Maybe it's just a small tweak I need to do. I'll check and report back later today.
That can be image size...and still be filter related. If you are using the Progressive option...it automatically will use the box filter. Sinc usually is the 'sharpest' of the filters.
I usually do my renders at 1920x1080. I seem to remember reading a while back to never use Progressive, so I'm pretty sure it's set to Sinc, but I'll check. All these settings are in the Advance Render tab, correct? I've played around in there, usually pixel and shadow settings but I'm not sure what they all do. For example, what does the Bucket adjustment mean/do?
Bucket size and order are the size (in pixels) of the 'buckets' (the little squares that zip across the screen while rendering) and the order which the go across the render. You can pick up a few seconds savings on a render by making sure that the size 'fits' your render size. If you can divide one of the dimensions evenly by the bucket size, you won't end up rendering (and discarding) part of a row/column. It doesn't really do much else...except when doing very fine, heavy displacements...then it can also be a setting to tweak.
You may also need to lower your Shading Rate, especially if it is at the default value of 1 - try 0.5 instead.
Ok, so I checked and here are my settings:
1920 x 1080
Progressive: Off
Buckets: Order: Spiral, Size:20 (recalculated from 24 as per above post)
Sampling: Max Ray Trace Depth:8, Pixel Samples (X):8, Pixel Samples (Y):8, Shadow Samples:18
Gain: 1
Gamma: Off
Shading Rate: 0.5 (my standard)
Filter: Pixel Filter:Sinc, Pixel Filter Width X:6, Pixel Filter Width Y:6
I'm not seeing where Box or Gaussian or Filter Depth are set. The only thing I changed from before posting these settings is Sampling. I changed Ray Trace from 10 to 8 and Pixel Sample (X,Y) from 12 to 8. I'm not sure what that's going to do for change, but maybe you can tell me where the other settings are that you mentioned that I can't find?
The Box, Gaussian, etc are the Pixel Filter (it's a choice of Box, Triangle, Catmull-Rom, Gaussian, Sinc). Gaussian tends to be the 'fuzziest'/softest.
RayTrace covers the number of 'bounces'...how many reflective/refractive bounces that are rendered.
As to the bucket size, I've had renders that have literally shaved minutes, by not having to render that partial row.
Filter depth is the same as the samples.
Alright, so it looks like it should be as good as it gets. I'll do a render overnight and see if there's any difference. It usually taked about 3-4 hours, or up to 8-9 on some scenes if I have 5+ figures in it.
That's too long...
Dropping the samples should speed that up some. Motion blur and DoF (heavy) are the only times you really need to go very high.
Same with ray trace depth. If you don't have lots of reflective or need the refractions, then don't take it above 4 or so.
You can probably cut your runder time in half by doing that.
So I think I pretty much got it all sorted out. The only real postwork I had to do on my entry was some sharpening.
You can check out the results in the Contest thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/60278/aug-2015-new-user-contest-entry-thread#latest
It's the Mary Poppins themed entry.
Thanks for the help folks!
Btw - render time was 2 hours, give or take about 5 seconds.
Were the blocks say 'ew' intentional?
Yeah, that was me.
I modified it for the scene.