The DOFTOY for 3dsmax:

by Christian Bauer

This is a tiny little toy for 3dsmax to play around with the behave of a real analoge Camera inside the 3dsmax camera.

This Toy is a hint for all 3dsmax users AND softwaredeveloper to start using and playing around with values from a real camera to setup Dof in 3dsmax...instead fakes or wrong Params!

There is no(?) renderer available for 3dsmax which calculates accurate DoF!!!!! The Renderers uses wrong or misleading names for the 80year old logic params for the optical behave of a camera. It's so easy to understand and visualise the effect to the artist that i don't understand that developer still try to confuse the users! *g*

The Real Life Camera:

To setup an analog camera is somehow tricky, but when you understand two simple rules everything can be done with only two parameters:

1. Small aperature opening (f/32) will makes everything sharp -
   wider aperature opening (f/1.4) makes a small range sharp the rest unsharp. ->
2. Focal lens will influence DOF too... a 15mm lens have nearly no unsharp areas -
   a 105mm macro lens tends to have a wider unsharp Area

The exposure control is a different point and connected to the Aperature too: one slower exposure (from 1/60 to 1/125) is similar to one step smaller Aperature (f/1.8 - f/2.8) ..anyway exposure will not influence the DoF.

Here are some examples with

50mm f/1.4.. even the focused object get a little blurred

105mm f/2.8 ..the sharp area is so small that even the focused object get blurred!

The Dof toy maxscript

This script uses the manual clipping feature from the maxcamera to show you only the sharp areas. Everything invisible would be blured by the real Lens. ...it's a toy ,so it will not change any rendersettings. NO! now it's setting your DOF effect right out of the script!

Download the DofToy 0.61 (26.03.2008)

0.61 (26. Mar 2008)
fixed: The script is now setting the f-stop multipass parameters for mental ray in max2008... i forgot this parameter

0.6 (17. Jan 2008)
NEW: The script is now setting parameters for Vraycamera and vray rendersettings.
It also sets Std Camerasettings for Multi-Pass Fx: Dof (mental ray) = you can set MR for max2008 easy as a multi pass fx, what it isn't when rendered!

0.5 NEW: some kind of "what you see is in focus" snap
**** use 3d snap and snap to faces **** to point to the place which should be focused!
I think my toy is finished ..

0.41 BUG: fixed an issue with a missing variable on starting the script
0.4 NEW: Aperture diameter in different units for different renderers:
AperatureSlider instead a dropdown box.
Option to set the cameraparameters... but no rendersettings

0.3 NEW: some additonal informations:
HFov / VFov : the difference between a 36mm slide and the 3dsmax camera
Aperaturesize: is the opening diameter of the aperature... this can be used(?) for your renderer .

0.2 NEW: Maxwell camera (check the Manual Clipping checkbox) and Brazil Camera should work
(note: it's blind flying, because i only got the varables and replaced them)

bugs: Will *maybe* not work correctly (?) with imageaspects different then 1.3333 ..it's a maxbug! (see below)

Howto:
Select a camera and run the script(Maxscript-> run script)

I think it's really a funny toy and easy to understand!

Here some hints what you could try:

- Focal length
Higher Value -> smaller the range of DoF

- F-Stop
Higher Value ->wider the range of DoF

Please honor my work with a postcard or a little donation;
This Tool is at least postcardware ..it's not Freeware!

any questions: please ask me

have fun with this toy!

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