Maybe! 🙂 Jonas, watch the new post-pro tutorial, it contains some useful bits: http://www.creativeshrimp.com/post-processing-tutorial-in-12-simple-steps.html

thanks once more for these stunning tutorials!
But I also don’t get thatUV Pass for Texture Overlay thing. Maybe you will explain it more detailed in an upcoming tutorial?
🙂

Many many thanks!!! I’ll try for sure 🙂

Hi Marco,

I too struggled with this same problem but I have found a solution after much trial and error. And you don’t need a target empty in your scene etc or to set any information in the camera. I’m using Blender v2.73.

1. When you render your image Blender will need to save 2 output files , one for your Image pass and one for the Z pass, using the node editor in compositor mode. (please see my screen shot below with the Z pass result in the background to replicate the setup). If you are simply rendering a single frame make sure you still use CTRL F12 and just set start and end frame to same number. Remember to set a proper file path in each File output node, one for IMAGE, and one for Zpass. Well that’s what I called them, you could make up your own naming if you want to. Blender will create a folder for each output type and then drop the actual image file (by the same name) into it’s respective folder.

2. Once rendering is complete start a fresh node editing screen, perhaps in a new Blend file, and set it up as in my second screen shot below.

The tricky bit was using the Z pass image, as an “IMAGE” data source, and not as Z (see my colored circles etc in the screen shots).

You can play around with the Defocus node settings but use what I have to get you started.

3. Now the cool part. To vary the focus between the foreground and the background just change the color in the Invert node from white to black, or vice verse. I’m assuming you could even animate that color change in the Invert node to achieve a nice result as well with focus shifting smoothly from aft to fore. I haven’t experimented with that yet.

I hope this makes sense and I hope it helps. I’m still learning so the above explanation may not be the best or most efficient way to achieve your desired result, but it worked for me 🙂

Cheers,

Greg

Thanks for all your beatifull stuff

Marco

Marcin, I agree, it’s a brilliant stuff – when you want to combine UV passes and use a bilateral blur along the way. Watched it when was searching for noise-reduction techniques in Cycles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq5YWSpvME8 nice tutorial by Bartek Skorupa. Great tip how to use UV pass and change texture in ready animation -> fast way without complex re-rendering!