Nuke - Realistic Depth of Field Defocus. Complete Guide for CLEAN edges!

Here's a complete guide to setting up ZDefocus and Bokeh to achieve realistic 'depth of field' (DOF) defocus effects for VFX and animation in Nuke.
Lets compare ZDefocus, Bokeh, PxF_ZDefocus and PxF_DeepDefocus nodes to see which one is the best tool for creating DOF effects with CLEAN edges and fast render times.
More information about PxF_ZDefocus here:
• PxF_ZDefocus
More information about PxF_DeepDefocus here:
• PxF_DeepDefocus
• PxF_DeepDefocus - New ...
Don't forget to install Pixelfudger gizmos!
www.pixelfudger.com
www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/filt...
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#VFX #Nuke #Compositing
00:00 Intro
00:44 Setting up ZDefocus and Bokeh
01:53 Picking the focal point
03:23 Comparing results: they're both bad.
05:44 Lens Simulation
07:00 Replacing ZDefocus with PxF_ZDefocus
08:54 Foreground Fill / Edge Inpainting
09:34 Pro Tip 1: Dilate the depth pass
10:20 Bokeh vs ZDefocus edges
11:27 Animating a 'rack focus'
11:55 Adjusting 'depth layers'
14:28 Pro Tip 2: Edge detect the depth pass
15:48 RGBA + Depth recap
16:52 Fixing edge issues with Deep Images
17:42 Converting RGBAZ to Deep
19:42 Inspecting our Deep image
21:01 Bokeh vs. PxF_DeepDefocus - initial setup
22:24 Comparing Edges
23:31 Bokeh artefacts
24:35 Understanding Deep slices
26:13 Bokeh node doesn't deliver!
27:25 Finally a good result!
28:16 Bokeh (in deep mode) is really slow!
28:42 Final thoughts

[@danielmiller1826]

OK I'm sold. Also the maths in PxFZDefocus is much better than the OpticalZDefocus node

[@GabrielMendezC]

Amazing tools you have going on here man! Thank you for making these, Keep up the good work!! 👏🙌🤝

[@henrythejeditube]

fantastic tutorial

[@SHKAAL887]

Great stuff man !

[@sunejunk05]

Thank you so much. lifesaver Gizmo.

[@LoveVFX]

Awesome!!! Thank you!

[@rahjvfx]

Thank you ✌🏻

[@mrrafsk]

Pxf_Zdefocus. Would love a camera input pipe pls. What do you think? FYI: zdefocus was originally dev’d at DNEG. I helped beta it many moons ago. Would love to hear your take on 1) how you order motion blur and defocus filters? 3) filtering opinions from CG? I.e in some renderers it can combine filtered and unfiltered(for rendered of cg), and give ok results without dilate/blur hacks, on jumps of distance. 3) the workflow of rendering separate cg layers with filtered and unfiltered depth and them combining them to create one defocus pass. Thanks for your work dude, amazing development & contribution here!

[@mrrafsk]

You video has inspired me to change a mergeCG node I have previously written (that combined un/filtered depth), to allow one defocus node downstream, and experiment creating a MergeToDeep node instead. I.e. The main spline is in deep, made from non-deep Apipe images with depth data.

[@pixelfudger]

Mixing 'big' defocus with 'big' motion blur is very tricky to do 'right'. In camera defocus is first (lens) and motion blur second (sensor). The problem is that it is hard to elegantly defocus motion vector passes (or motion blur depth passes). At some point you might just want to bite the bullet and do DOF and moblur in 3D.

[@pixelfudger]

Regarding the camera input, there is a 'pick camera' button instead. Is that not doing what you want? See 4:37: kzbin.info/www/bejne/np67dKeOmsaBedksi=HaCbGTU3tTkTvMli.

[@mrrafsk]

@@pixelfudger >Regarding the camera input In a template situation, centralising a procedurally updated camera asset, allows multiple defocus nodes being adjusted/versioned from a central point in the script (connected with an expression or preferably an asset only dot_connect system). Arguably only beneficial on: feature animation/animatics/large CG shows/multi-shot workflows... especially when the director dials in narrative defocus decisions at the post-via stage. 1) I additionally I do like two extra f-stop offset knobs for Front/Back , for 'creative' adjustment of individual nodes, and then 2) I add an extra tab for sub-frame bokeh vignetting (aka cats-eye/magic defocus) My old defocus node used hacked maths of the OZD node using direct Z.. but your node is significantly better in several areas.. good work dude!

[@mrrafsk]

@@pixelfudger > Mixing 'big' defocus with 'big' motion blur is very tricky to do 'right'. yep.. I too haven't found a satisfactory solution. My general rule to reduce artefacts is whatever has a smaller spread of pixels is the top node.

[@KORTULSGAMEROOM]

Awesome! I wonder how pxf_zdefocus compares to optical_zdefocus

[@mrrafsk]

See pixelfudgers previous video, that also includes pgBokeh?

[@pixelfudger]

The last time I tried OZD (a while ago) it struggled with foreground objects becoming out of focus because internally it was using 'direct' math on the ZDefocus node. I dont know if it's still the case today.

[@danielmiller1826]

Yes it still has this issue. Out of the box your tool gave a better result on the same CG@@pixelfudger

[@manolomaru]

✨👌💪😎😉😎👍✨

[@madlookzvfx]

PxF won!

[@IanSocolaiandres]

by this point, can't you just teach foundry how to design their products? lol

[@pixelfudger]

I'm available if they want to hire me. I'd love to do a bug / quality of life blitz on Nuke. :-)

[@kerryniekdam]

A Python exception occurred: AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'addAction' File "C:\Program Files\Nuke14.0v5\pythonextensions\site-packages\shiboken2\files.dir\shibokensupport\__feature__.py", line 142, in _import return original_import(name, *args, **kwargs) File "C:\Program Files\Nuke14.0v5\pythonextensions\site-packages\hiero\ui uke_bridge\initNuke.py", line 17, in cacheMenu.addAction(localisation) this happend to me

[@pixelfudger]

What were you doing? The scripts triggering the error don't appear to be PxF.