Disabling Depth of field for a specific 3D layer

[ignatb16649679]

Hi everyone!

So, I am working on a comic book animation and I've encountered a new problem. I have a scene with a camera and lot of characters arranged in 3D space. All my layers are 3D layers. I am shifting the focus constantly from one character to another. Yet, I would like some of the layers (the text bubbles) not to respond to the DOF. I need them to be 3D layers so they can retain their position in 3D space. Generally speaking, is it possible to disable the DOF on specific 3D layers?

[Mylenium]

No. DOF is a camera property, not a layer switch. Nothing stops you from using duplicate comps with cameras linked via expressions, though, and then comping the output result in 2D.

Mylenium

[ignatb16649679]

Thanks

[Kyle Hamrick · Accepted solution]

The short answer is no. There are a couple potential approaches here, though:

- Fake the DoF using blur effects on the layers you want blurred.

- As Mylenium suggested, separate things out into different compositions and then composite them back together. You could link the cameras via expressions (Copy with Property Links would be the ideal) to keep everything consistent, but disable DoF in the comp that holds the text bubbles. I understand this can create layering issues if things need to interact with one another depth-wise, and could get pretty hairy trying to create/maintain proper mattes. If your text bubbles are all on top, however, this becomes a pretty good/easy solution. If you need them to animate along with the other pieces, using Master Properties would be very helpful here.

- This is another imperfect solution, but make sure the focus distance of the camera is always exactly where the text bubbles are. This could be achieved via expressions to make sure it's exact.