robcat2075

This article suggests that it is possible to run an older version of Windows under a virtual machine in Windows 10. I have not tried this. Another possibility is to set up your computer to dual boot and have an older Win, like WinXP as one of the options.

We recently discovered and solved this problem for Windows versions earlier than 10. Read this thread for info. Short Summary: Microsoft has disabled the system file needed for the CD copy protection to run However, that fix doesn't include Windows 10 apparently. I haven't actually tried it on a Windows 10 computer. A:M installs the file needed... you can try the registry mod mentioned in the Microsoft Bulletin linked to in that thread and see if that makes it work, but i don't know if it can.

Complex interactions like that may be where the multi-pass DOF is the only accurate solution.

Try moving that backdrop much closer and see what happens. The edge of that window ought to be much blurrier.

Pretty good. Is there anything unusual about how the windows is done? Is the view thru the window a rotoscope image?

Weren't you using 16 or 17 before?

And remember, there is a space at the bottom of those interviews to post your favorable comments.

Part 2 of Mark's interview has now gone live. See link for it in top post!

Try it with A:M fast DOF now.

That's very soothing.

I think someone here has a workflow for A:M to Zbrush to A:M already without needing to decal in blender.

Tell me what you mean by "UVing"

Would it be more convincing as a displacement?

See post 19 I'm sure it's just a bug.

I imagine it's possible but I've never used Zbrush. Someone has been able to move maps back and forth between A:M and zBrush I recall.

I tried v15. For some reason the render to file just gets a blank screen whether DOF is ON or OFF. But the DOF is working in an onscreen render, Something non-DOF related must be weird about the PRJ. You can use v16 or v17. Those work. V15:

Displacement maps are typically painted like bump maps are. I have generally painted them in conventional formats and lived with the +-127 problem My version of Photoshop only supports some basic processing of HDR formats like OpenExr and I can't actually paint directly in it. I have tried converting my 8-bit grayscale maps to 16 bit and then applying a slight blur to get the extra steps but that's just experimental. Most of what i have done with displacement has been with materials rather than bitmaps. Materials don't have that 8-bit limitation in the greyscales they can make Tanks, but no Tanks

I call it "Fast DOF" (the DOF you get with multi-pass OFF) because I recall Martin talking about A:M once with something like "...and a fast depth of field effect that only takes a second to compute..." It is a "post effect" much like FakeAO; it uses a depth buffer that A:M creates internally for rendering purposes to calculate its effect. FakeAO isn't real AO and Fast DOF isn't real DOF, but they resemble their namesakes well enough in most circumstances. Fast AO does pretty much the same process as the DOF plugins for After Effects that use a depth buffer. It's not as advanced and full-featured as the other guy's who've spent 10 or 15 more years coding and tweaking whereas A:M's has been sitting there unnoticed without much clamor for it to be improved. But it is there. The DOF you get with Multi-pass is done by jittering the position of the camera to simulate the way a real lens is not an infinitely small point and is capturing the scene from many slightly different angles.

I think the Fast DOF has been there at least since v11, probably before that. For big blurs with multi-pass DOF you have to do a lot of passes to blend it all together but it should be more accurate and not have the weird artifacts when objects move that the depth buffer DOF (what FastDOF really is) has.

There is an upper limit to the blurriness and i may have reached it in my test PRJ. One way to get a bigger blur is to render a much larger field of view and larger res and then crop the image back down to the original field of view. The left was rendered at 640x480 with the camera "focal length" set at 45mm The right was rendered at 1920x1440 with the camera "focal length" set at 15mm and then cropped down.

Those are a favorable situation for it. Some cases will not work as well, but it's there to try if you want to load up v16 or v17. I'm sure the absence in v18 is just a bug and I've made a report for v19 on it. Here is the PRJ and render Preset if you want to try it... LegoGlossy06b DOF rack.prj FastDOFDemo.pre

Here are two frames from my Legos DOF test but this is with A:M's built in Fast DOF instead of doing it in post. This is done in v16... near focus far focus

I just noticed that Fast DOF doesn't seem to be functioning in v18.

This previous thread has a discussion of both of A:M's DOF effects and down around post #29 information on getting A:M's OpenEXR buffer into post programs like After Effects. It also has a brief demo of the effect created in post on an A:M render..

Use the OpenEXR depth buffer, that has millions of steps.