has anybody seen http://sudakyo.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gimp/fblur/focusblur_e.html - free Gimp plugin that makes very good DOF
and http://www.richardrosenman.com/dofpro.htm - commercial
maybe this may become inspiration for integrating better DOF in Blender
To bad that focus blur doesnt work for windows system.
To bad that focus blur doesnt work for windows system.[/quote]
There is older version 1.6 for windows. Try google.
edit:
“http://designpicnic.com/web-atelier/img/lib/gimp/fblur.exe”
there is a copy to try from my site. It is hard to find
Ah, good information. Thanks for that.
Disho: Thanks alot 
fixed 2 bugs, one in mask mode and one in alpha inversion…
links above and in first post have been changed…
so… %| has anyone on a mac or a linux box tried these yet?
ooooo, fast motion blur? even not animated.
well… I had to try…
grabbed some code from zutilz, turned g-blur inside out , and just hit random keys til the dang thing sorta worked…
http://webpages.charter.net/paprmh/sys/papsdof1.c
http://webpages.charter.net/paprmh/sys/papsdof1.dll
origional:
dof mask…red->yellow forground, blue->cyan background, greyscale in focus:
result
there is a bug that can cause artifacts… not sure if it’s the plugin or blender… wierd thing is that you have to close and reopen blender to get rid of them
this is a proof of concept… it’s slow ( 2.6 p4 takes 20 sec with max rad =15 with a 640*480 image) and needs alot more work… if it is worth persuing…
Hi paprmh, first of all thank you for this new plugin.
I have tried it a bit but I have several problems with the gradients,they give me strange results.I don’t understand well how it works,i have tried with a grayscale image but it doesn’t appear to work as I expected.(but I’m looking for a variable radius gaussian blur,not a true dof effects).
Bye
Hi renderdemon, once again I haven’t been too clear about the capabilities of my latest plugin…sorry.
This is just a test of my crazy ideas for dof blur. It is completely different than the others( which are all the same algorithym) At the moment it only accepts a real zbuffer - either strip 1 or strip 2- and if strip 2 is a zbuffer “snapshot” it can use that (zutilz can make one… %| ). At the moment it cannot use a greyscale depth map- partly because it uses more than 2 times as much info as a greyscale can provide. I can add greyscale capabilities but I am not wasting more time on it until I get some feedback…
At the moment I am sicker than a dog but when this clears up a bit I will finish up my “demonblur” plugin…I think you will like it 8)
Speaking of not feeling too well . . . anyway hope you get better soon.
Actual z-buffer sounds really great. I think for the plug to be useable it’ll have to be very straight forward. ‘Do that and this happens’ kind of a thing. Otherwise you’ll be washed aside by the torrent of new features.
A new algorithym also sounds great. But again you need to hand it to your users in a tool form that can be tried and played with.
I would also think that a lot of your potential user base doesn’t read anything about coding. With all doubt as to the soundness of my judgement, maybe the front page would grab some attention.
Yah, and we’re back at the opening sentence above. Ah, well. Ignore me, I just spent 4 hours removing a McAfee installation that totally thrashed performance on this machine. Hard to believe they have the nerve to ask for money.
You should try cambo’s approach. Write it, post it, link it, and move on for a while. Ah, well. Good luck. And have fun at it. That’s what matters.
@ renderdemon: here ya go…I think this plugin should do what you want (catchy name too huh? 
).
Max blur is at white, with 256 separate blur filters for a smooth blur gradient. The edge boost slider is to allow the blur to “spill” over the totally black(focused) areas - experiment with it and you will see what I mean…
I decided to use this checker pattern as the test image:
This is the blur mask:
and the result:
http://webpages.charter.net/paprmh/sys/demonblur.c
http://webpages.charter.net/paprmh/sys/demonblur.dll
@Marty_D: Yeah, if nothing else, I have enjoyed coding these plugins… . I also know that I should do some tutorials and docs if I want them to be used more, but I think that it’s a moot point now though, because most of this stuff will be directly implemented in the new seq editor by much better coders than I…
@All: yeah… this is my last yasp…it’s time for me to relearn blender, and time to wait for the new seq editor…
BTW: if anyone has actually used any of these plugins, I would really appreciate seeing some of your results… just email them to me…
paprmh,what can I say,thank you!!I have read the notes in your code,I’m really happy to have help you,even if in a very limited way.Now I don’t have much time,I have only tested a bit your demonblur plugin and it seems working very well(the only problem I have found is when the radius is much big(42 and above)in some images the plugin create some black spot).With this I can now experiment more on my subsurfacescattering postproduction trick,thank you.
well, I was researching compositing and found this interesting site about the advantages of rendering in passes… There is an example psd file (SpaceSample.psd) mid way down the page on the left.
Just for kicks and giggles, I decided to give it a try with layer5… and immediately found a couple of bugs :-? :
normal mode didn’t handle transparency in strip 2 correctly
mult and overlay modes were reversed
so here is layer5c:
http://webpages.charter.net/paprmh/layer/layer5c.c
http://webpages.charter.net/paprmh/layer/layer5c.dll
Anyway, here is what I did:
first, I opened the psd in gimp and started by saving each layer as a separate png. Then I looked at the way each layer was set up in gimp and duplicated those settings in each instance of the plugin. Here is how I did it, step by step…the code boxes are the keystrokes used to add images and plugins to the editor. the line numbers refer to position of the strip in the editor. The source images are shown at 1/2 size
in the seq editor window:
line 1: shft-a ->add image->sampleback.png
line 2: shft-a ->add image->ground-keylight.png
select line 1, shft-select line 2
line 3: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
ok, this layer is normal mode, same as an alpha over…all I did was click [use layer] to turn the plugin on
line 4: shft-a -> add image-> ground-shadow-keylight.png
select line 3, shft-select line 4
line 5: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is multply so I set mode to 6
line 6: shft-a -> add image-> ship-shadow-keylight.png
select line 5, shft-select line 6
line 7: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is also multply so I set mode to 6 again
line 8: shft-a -> add image-> ground-filllight.png
select line 7, shft-select line 8
line 9: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is screen so I set mode to 8…also, the opacity is about .4
line 10: shft-a -> add image-> ground-backlight.png
select line 9, shft-select line 10
line 11: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is screen so I set mode to 8
line 12: shft-a -> add image->ship-beauty-pass.png
select line11, shft-select line 12
line 13: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is just normal alpha over
line 14: shft-a -> add image->ship-relfection-pass.png
select line13, shft-select line 14
line 15: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is screen
line 16: shft-a -> add image->ship-highlight-pass.png
select line15, shft-select line 16
line 17: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is screen
line 18: shft-a -> add image->glow-backlight.png
select line17, shft-select line 18
line 19: shft-a ->add plugin ->layer5c
This layer is screen and the final image
and here is the gimp generated image:
personally, I would tone down a few settings…
and here is what the seq window looks like…
