Hi Kent, do you have an order recommendation in which to apply compositing effects? Do you add motion blur before DOF or a...

posted to: Filter: Motion Blur
Hi Kent, do you have an order recommendation in which to apply compositing effects? Do you add motion blur before DOF or after? And do you add motion blur to the finished comp scene (after all with lights, glows, etc.) - and is the speed pass taking that into account? At current I assume that you have to order the effects in the order their natural behaviour on the light hitting the cam / sensor would go, e.g. distortion before blur as light hits the lense first and then gets recorded in blur on film. But the key question is whether that means you have to distort / bur the passes as well that input for the DoF and Motion blur effects. I searched the net, but found "not a lot".
  • Jonathan Lampel replied

    Hey, great question! You're spot on that the effects should be ordered by their natural cause and when they would effect the camera lens or film. In the case of DOF and blur, both are related to the lens and happen at the same time, so there's no right or wrong answer besides what looks best. Try putting motion blur first and DOF second, and also be sure to apply the same amount of motion blur to any passes that go into the DOF as you mentioned. The only reason I'm suggesting that order is because I'm not sure how well you can blur a vector pass, but it could be worth trying both and seeing which is best for you particular scene.