Glow me, C4D!

Cool, thanks guys. I like the AE DOF better as well... The render time was very close... The C4D image render took 1:52 on my system, then the C4D DOF only took another 2 seconds. The AE DOF with lens blur was probobly close to 2 seconds... so it seems to be about the same in regards to just render time... but AE seems like it will take much longer in total because of the time it will take to import, set the depth map, tweak, etc... But, I still prefer to use AE for a couple reasons - you can tweak in your DOF without re-rendering the entire image and you avoid glitches like the ones I was having with the displacement (you can see some of it along the right edge of the stelagmite on the bottom right of the cave opening).

oneinfiniteloop- lol, it's funny... Before reading your post, I was tweaking more today and I ended up using a double resolution depth map and downloaded the Frischluft Lenscare demo based on a recommend from another posting. I Doubled the depth map resolution in response to the edges looking a little messy, and that cleaned things up nicely.

The frischluft, on the other hand, I found to yeild worse results with more work than the lens blur... lol, but I didn't tweak with it too much so maybe I'm missing something. The blur looked exactly the same as the lens blur to me, only the edges actually didn't look quite as nice... But again, thats coming from a very limited experience.

Anywho, I have a few more questions... The one I'm working on right now is... how do I get the edge of the AE DOF to look as smooth at the C4D DOF? If you look close in the picture, there is a bit more of a jagged edge to the parts in focus in the AE DOF render... and that was with a double-sized depth map. I just tried it with a triple sized depth map, and it helped veerry slightly, but still didn't match the smooth edge of the C4D render... I tried blurring the actual depth map slightly as well, but that didn't work very well either...

Also, do you know how I could get DOF behind the glass? The depth map seems to render the glass as a solid object, not taking into account transparency or refraction... Also, I would want to keep the white cloud in the center in focus as it is in the middle of the glass, but have the refraction of the background out of focus... Hmmm...

Ok, last one... I found the only way to get a nice front DOF blur is to actually have a seperate matted image on top of a background image. Otherwise, the foreground is blurred, but the edge isn't. I blurred the depth map enough to give it a slight blur without being washed out, but it wasn't enough. Finally I seperated the foreground using the depth map as a matte, then rendered the same image, only without the foreground, to place underneath... Now, when I blur the foreground, the edge blurs nicely with the background... it only makes sense because there is image information under the foreground matte, where as with one image there isn't, so it cannot blur correctly with the background.

Ok, right, so my question in regards to the above is... Is there a way to render an object into it's own image and it's surroundings into a seperate image in one render in C4D? To use the picture as an example, I would want to render the sphere and the stelactite/stelagmite above and below it into a seperate image, only still have the refraction, reflection, transparency, etc. of the surrounding environment. Then I would also want the rest of the cave to be rendered into it's own file, including the part of the image that sat behind the glass sphere... I'm not sure if this is the purpose of the 'external compositing' tag, but I haven't seem to have been able to get it to fill that purpose for me... in fact I dont even know what the purpose of the 'external compositing' tag is yet...

Alright, I know this is a loaded response. I really appreciate any furthar help you can send my way.
 
djembeplay said:
... Is there a way to render an object into it's own image and it's surroundings into a seperate image in one render in C4D?.
Click to expand...

Add a compositing tag to an object and click the Object Buffer tab.
Select a Group ID value.
In the Render Settings-Multipass, click the channels arrow button and add Object Buffer. It will ask for the Group ID. Add as many as you want for each object or groups of objects. Should do the trick.
 
Sweet, thanks raptor... I'll go try that.

Here is a render of what I came out with from the frischluft plug-in... I'm not sure why it treated the stelagmite and stelactite above and below differently than the sphere considering that they were pure black on the depth map, just like the sphere... Maybe I'm not using it correctly somehow.

Anyways, here it is:

frischluftDOF.png
 
Hmmm... not sure what I need to do here. I added a composite tag, clicked 'buffer 1', set the buffer group 1 for multi-pass render, and I did get an image, but not what I need.

Here is what was rendered:

Bufferedsphere.png


The other image was my complete render, sphere included. I need to have my sphere and my background seperate from eachother, only still interacting with eachother in regards to shadows, refraction, reflection, transparency, etc...
 
Did you select which channels to render also, Like diffuse, shadow ect? You can lump the rest of your objects under a null and give that a buffer group 2 for example. You can also render seperate lights if you wanted to.

I'll go through it a bit later if you're still having trouble.
 
Oohhhh right, I was wondering if I might need to do that... So I won't even need to render my image... all I need to save is my multi-pass if I am understanding correctly.

Alright, I'll go try it. Thanks a bunch for the help.
 
Ok, I just tried it... I just added everything for the multi-pass render, plus my two object buffers. I'm not sure if this is what I should have done... I started rendering and it looked like it would take sooooo long just for one image to finish.

I'll go play with minimizing my channels to just what I need... I wish I could just render the two objects seperate and not have other channels seperate such as diffusion, refraction, ect...

What is the difference between specular and image specular, reflection and image reflection, etc.?
 
Ok, I added what I thought was necessary for the entire scene, but they didn't seem to layer correctly to compose the original scene... hmm, hard to explain.

Also, my object buffer keeps coming out the same as the pic I posted above, all black and white... and the buffer of everything else in the scene looked like the invert of that image. It looks like it is rendering an alpha channel for where the image is... hmmm...

I posted a link to the project file earlier if that would help in some way.
 
You could always do seperate renders. Add a compositing tag to the objects you don't want rendered and uncheck Seen By Camera.
You'll still need an alpha.
You can do batch renders too if it's a long job.

I've only used AE a couple times. I used the seperate objects alpha to seperate the object from the rest of the scene. All of your other channels should be somewhere. Maybe they're all layerered in one of the other files. What are you saving as?

The difference between specular & image specular, if you mean the material channels I understand that the material channel renders are used mainly by developers. Other than that I don't know.

//Here's a tutorial that may or may not help...
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/thorn/c4dtoae1.php
 
The object buffers are meant to be used as luma mattes in AE. If you do multi-pass and save an AE compositing file, import that into AE and open it up, everything will be layered correctly with the correct blending modes, etc.
 
Ok, I put something quick together, I didn't finish it, but you can look through it to get the idea. The trick is to render out two depth mattes with and without the transparent sphere, so that you can use those depth mattes according to which layer needs to have what blurred out.

For example, for specular you would want to blur using the depth matte with the trans sphere. For the refraction (transparency) you would have to isolate the clear parts of the sphere and blur that using the depth matte without the trans sphere, then, by using multiple object mattes, use a inverted luma matte to isolate the portion of the sphere not to be blurred using a depth matte.

You can see this all in the file, and it should get you started. Study it and figure out as much as you can, then ask questions if need be.

www.andrewjfallon.com/multipass.zip

The AE file is a CS3 file.

As for DOF, I like Frischluft the best, more photographic, but lens blur is a decent solution.
 
one, for those of us without cs3, is there a way for you to make an AE7 version?

I would really like to see what you are doing, but I can't open CS3 files.
 
Hey, awesome, thank you so much for doing this for me. I'll be studying what you did and I'll come back with any questions I have. It may be a little bit b/c things are a bit crazy for me right now - - I have a client who wants a fully animated video done by the 1st of May... and I took the job b/c I need the money, heh...

Ok, thanks again.

Matt - I'm not sure if there is a way to make an AE7 compatible version... I've never tried. I'll snoop around for a way when I look at the file later today. I know in photoshop it gives me the option everytime I save a file, but it's not like that in AE CS3...
 
I wanted to ask you about the frischluft plugin... I must be missing something. There is no tutorial that I could find on their website, so it's tough to tell. It seems like no matter what I do, I get an image like the one I posted earlier... It's weird too, because my depth map has the sphere and the stelactite and stelagmite above and below as the same shade of complete black...

The pics on their website look amazing, so it must be something I'm missing. Here is a pic of the depth map I am using:

Depthmap.png
 
Matt, I can't export an AE7 file, but if you download the AEC importer from the C4D site you can import the AEC file in the .zip package. It'll be set up and you can play from there. Link below for the AEC extension.

djembe, if you look at the depth map in the file I put up, it's totally different with more gradation, and that's why yours looks wierd because there is no gradation in it. Take a look at the files I put up.

@Matt: http://www.maxon.net/pages/download/plugins_e.html
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
Matt, I can't export an AE7 file, but if you download the AEC importer from the C4D site you can import the AEC file in the .zip package. It'll be set up and you can play from there. Link below for the AEC extension.

djembe, if you look at the depth map in the file I put up, it's totally different with more gradation, and that's why yours looks wierd because there is no gradation in it. Take a look at the files I put up.

@Matt: http://www.maxon.net/pages/download/plugins_e.html
Click to expand...

Nabbed them both. Time to install and play. Yippeee!!!!! :thumbsup:

Thanks one, as usual.


M
 
Ok, I'm starting to pick up on what you did here... I'm still playing with it.

I still dont understand the frischluft thing... If I manipulate my depth matte to say that everything at the depth of the sphere is at the exact same depth (very close) and everything else is far away, shouldn't the program accomodate? I mean, what if I had a flat wall very close, then another flat wall far away... then the depth map would naturally only have 2 gradations in high contrast to eachother... This is the same depth map I used with the AE Lens Blur DOF image I posted, and that worked great.

Also, I just used the 'stock' depth map I rendered directly from C4D (I think that is also what you have in your multi-pass project files) and I have the same problem happening... Does frischluft work for you with this scene?
 
Oh, I think I may have just solved the problem. For some reason I had to invert my depth map. Now it's working like a charm, with the exception of needing to put the focus up to around 255 to get the closest objects in focus.

Any idea why I would need to invert my depth map (that was just rendered from C4D an not manipulated)?
 
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