Follow and focus mode in animation ?

[itou31]

Hi,

I've made an animation, and would like to focus on the head. I select in DS the head and select follow head. is that right ? or should I select focus head ?
I've tried follow mode but not seems to work. Not select focus yet, perhaps will test tonight.
thanks.

[t_3]

Hi,

I've made an animation, and would like to focus on the head. I select in DS the head and select follow head. is that right ? or should I select focus head ?
I've tried follow mode but not seems to work. Not select focus yet, perhaps will test tonight.
thanks.

"follow" is the correct option; honestly i have never tried that with animations; in theory the camera will keep and update the focus distance to the node to follow also when rendering an animation, but there is a chance that this interferes with keyframes that are already created by ds when you move the camera (keyframes will work also for the octane parameters of the camera) - will have a look into it also.

i also recently noticed, that moving the time cursor constantly creates camera keyframes (apparently for some octane parameters), what is not intended, so this also needs to change...

[linvanchene]

edited and removed by user

[itou31]

Hi,

I've made an animation, and would like to focus on the head. I select in DS the head and select follow head. is that right ? or should I select focus head ?
I've tried follow mode but not seems to work. Not select focus yet, perhaps will test tonight.
thanks.

"follow" is the correct option; honestly i have never tried that with animations; in theory the camera will keep and update the focus distance to the node to follow also when rendering an animation, but there is a chance that this interferes with keyframes that are already created by ds when you move the camera (keyframes will work also for the octane parameters of the camera) - will have a look into it also.

i also recently noticed, that moving the time cursor constantly creates camera keyframes (apparently for some octane parameters), what is not intended, so this also needs to change...

Ok, so "follow" is the right option, but not work, as all my animation is out of focus. I will try to not have keyframe on camera...

[larsmidnatt]

but there is a chance that this interferes with keyframes that are already created by ds when you move the camera (keyframes will work also for the octane parameters of the camera) - will have a look into it also.

i also recently noticed, that moving the time cursor constantly creates camera keyframes (apparently for some octane parameters), what is not intended, so this also needs to change...

Yeah I just started noticing this a few days ago.

[itou31]

So, I just test :
- only have 1 camera and 1 keyframe at the beginning.
- focus is by default at manual, select head in DS viewport, select follow head, but nothing change. select autofocus, and then select follow --> ok status change to follow.
- in DS parameters octane camera , focus distance state 'Currently following : "head"', but the head is out of focus.

so currently, no plan to play with DOF in animation yet. wait for the next(s) release(s).

Thanks t_3

[linvanchene]

edited and removed by user

[t_3]

I do currently not understand what the "autofocus setting" in the Octane Render Plugin is doing.

If it autofocuses on something there should be a way to actually choose and adjust on what it is focusing?

Is the default setting the head?

it's quite simple

"autofocus" is the same function from the standalone and works like a (very simple) real camera autofocus: it focuses the object _surface_ directly in the center of the viewport. note: pixel-perfect center; additional note: it can't see through transparent objects even with opacity set to zero; you'll usually notice that, when a hair object covers an eye, and you focus to the hair surface instead the eye (even if it the target spot is transparent because of an opacity map).

"focus to" an object works in two different modes (which aren't were well presented in the viewport ui ): if done with the tool button, it focuses an object _surface_ wherever you point it (the node name overlay is somewhat misleading). if applied from the focus menu at the bottom, it allows to set the focal distance to the object center(!) of a selected scene object.

"focus follow" does the same like focus to (object center), but memorizes the selected node; as already stated, it should and will (and imo once already did) work for animations at some point in the not to distant future again pls note: i'd also like to provide a focus follow mode that is able to focus surfaces instead object centers; since neither ds nor octane provide sufficient methods, i'd need to implement that myself. not exactly a trivial calculation and also low priority on my list.

ps: it would be of course even more interesting to implement some sort of real camera autofocus with different zones and so on - this should be possible and could also produce very cool effects, since you i.e. would be able to control the autofocus speed without limits, and so mimic slightly off-focus moments that happen with real cameras without keyframing. is also on my list, but of course i can't say when this will ever happen... seems i have more as enough stuff for 2-3 years additional coding already

[linvanchene]

edited and removed by user

[itou31]

Hi t_3,

thanks to consider the follow mode for animation. It seems to work as I see the change of the value when I check other frames, but not the same value when I "refocus" with focus tool.