Enabling Depth of Field Effects

The depth of field effect occurs when the camera is focused on one particular object in the scene and all other objects closer to and farther away from the camera than the designated object appear blurry. The amount of blur depends on the distance from the object in focus. For example, picture a football player running down the sidelines. Using a depth of field effect, you could focus on the football player while any players in the foreground and the crowd in the background would be blurred.

To enable this camera effect in Anime Studio, open the Project Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 32.3, using the File, Project Settings menu command. In the Depth of Field section, choose the Enabled option to turn on this effect. You can then set the Focus Distance, which is the distance from the camera where the focus is clear. The Focus Range determines how near and far the focus is clear and the Max Blur Radius sets the highest amount of blur in the scene.

To enable the depth of field effect for all layers in a project, follow these steps:

1.	Open the Butterfly depth of field.anme file from the Chapter 32 folder on the CD. This file includes two layers: the Butterfly 3D layer and an image layer with a background image.
2.	Select the background layer and choose the Move Layer tool. Then hold down the Alt/Opt key and drag in the working area to move the background image backward along the Z-axis. Use the Scale Layer tool to scale the layer to fit within the working area borders.
3.	Choose the File, Project Settings menu command to open the Project Settings dialog box. Click the Enabled checkbox under the Depth of Field section, set the Focus Distance value to 2, the Focus Range to 1, and the Max Blur radius to 212. Close the dialog box.
4.	Select the File, Preview menu command. The scene at the current frame is rendered with the depth of field effect, as shown in Figure 32.4. Notice how the background is blurred while the butterfly in the foreground is in focus. Figure 32.4. Butterfly with depth of field effect. [View full size image]

Making a Layer Immune to a Depth of Field Effect

If you enable the depth of field effect, it is applied to all layers in the scene, but if you have a layer that you don’t want to be affected by this effect, you can enable the Immune to Depth of Field option in the General panel of the Layer Settings dialog box. This option removes the selected layer from the depth of field effect.