Depth of Field (DOF)

Depth of Field (DOF) applies a blur to a scene based on the distance in front of, or behind, a focal point. DOF has a large impact on the overall look and feel of your shot and can elevate your shot into a more cinematic space.

Not only have audiences been conditioned to expect DOF in a filmic sense, but we can also actually use it as a tool, to defocus parts of the image that are not important and focus on parts of the image that are important to whatever story we're telling. Just as its name implies, we can use focus (DOF) to quite literally tell the audience what to pay attention to.

Let's learn how to apply DOF using our Plugin, below.

Aperture (f-stop)

Aperture will always affect the camera as soon as you enter it, there is no way to toggle it on or off.
Aperture functions the same way as it does in real life; a low Aperture (f/2.8) lets in the most light, and has the heaviest amount of blur. While a high Aperture (f/22) lets in the least amount of light, and produces the least amount of blur.
Your Aperture also has an effect on your Focal Plane. The lower the Aperture, the heavier the blur, and the smaller your Focal Plane becomes.
In other words, as your Aperture decreases, your Focal Plane decreases in size - as Aperture increases, your Focal Plane increases in size as well. This relationship is something you must learn to work with to set up an effective DOF.
You can increase or decrease Aperture on the fly. While in the Alternate Control scheme on the gamepad, pressing B increases your Aperture (less blur), while pressing A decreases your Aperture (less blur).

Focal Distance

Focal Distance is the distance between the camera lens (you) and the region currently in focus. This distance by default is locked; meaning that as you move the camera forward, this region of focus pushes forward with it at the same rate, maintaining the distance between them.
A low Focal Distance (left side) means this region is closer to the camera, while a high Focal Distance (right side) means this region is further away from the camera. As you slide the tick from left to right, you effectively push this region further away from the camera.
The size of the region in focus shrinks as your Aperture decreases and the blur increases. Keep this in mind when setting up your DOF.
You can increase or decrease Focal Distance on the fly. While in the Alternate Control scheme on the gamepad, pressing LTrigger increases your Focal Distance, while pressing RTrigger decreases Focal Distance.

Focal Distance Speed

Focal Distance Speed is the speed at which you can increase or decrease the Focal Distance using the gamepad.
A low Focal Distance Speed (left side) makes it move slower, while a high DOF Speed (right side) makes it move faster.
To increase your Focal Distance Speed, press Up-DPad while in the Regular Control scheme.
To decrease your Focal Distance Speed, press Down-DPad while in the Regular Control scheme.

Best Practices

When setting up a shot, we recommend starting by always minimizing your DOF by setting a high Aperture, like f/22. This produces a clear image for you to build a shot from since everything is in focus.
From here, set a smaller Aperture to introduce a bit of blur that you can then use to set the correct focal distance. This is where you bring your subject into focus.
And finally, once your subjects are properly in focus, you can decrease your Aperture further to increase the amount of blur, art directing how much or how little blur you'd like in the shot.

Foundational Features

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