DeepFocus  /  Documentation

01  Installation

Edit › Preferences › Get Extensions › Install from Disk, choose the zip.

Alternatively: Drag and drop the .zip file directly into Blender's Preferences window.

02  Setting up a camera

Select your camera, open the Sidebar (N-Panel): View 3D › DeepFocus tab and press Set to Selected Camera; the renderer switches to Cycles. Revert Selected Camera puts the camera back the way it was.

03  Lens presets

• ▸ Load Lens Preset: classic lenses in one click. A preset resets the lens settings first, so each one starts clean.
• ▸ + Save: keep the current lens as your own preset, texture paths included. Tick Include Focal Length to store it too.
• ▸ − Delete: remove the saved preset you last applied. Built-in presets stay.

04  Main components

Camera configuration

• ▸ Physical Specs: Define Focal Length and Sensor Size to match real-world lens characteristics.
• ▸ Zoom Factor: In Orthographic mode, crop into the frame digitally without altering perspective distortion.

Focus management

• ▸ Targeting: Use Focus Object to auto-track a mesh, or Focus Distance for manual control. The eyedropper picks a distance from the viewport.
• ▸ Bounding Box: with a focus object, focus on its near side (−1), origin (0) or far side (+1).
• ▸ F-Stop: Adjust aperture size to control blur intensity (lower values = shallower depth of field).
• ▸ Max Blur Size: Clamp the maximum defocus radius to keep background elements recognizable.
• ▸ Lens Breathing: framing changes as focus moves, like a real lens: 1 is physical, higher exaggerates, negative widens (like many internal-focus lenses).
• ▸ Tilt X / Tilt Y: Tilt the plane of focus to simulate miniature effects or correct perspective.
• ▸ Animation: Keyframe Focal Length and Focus Distance right in the panel, or animate the focus object. Every frame renders with the right focus, render farms included.

Bokeh styling

• ▸ Shape Modes: Switch between Disc (perfect circle), Bladed (geometric polygon), or Image (custom texture).
• ▸ Bladed options: Blade Count and Roundness, an Inner Size ring for donut-shaped mirror-lens bokeh, and Diffraction Spikes.
• ▸ Anamorphic Ratio: Stretch bokeh vertically (e.g., 2.0) to simulate cinematic anamorphic lenses.
• ▸ Rotation & Bias: Rotate the aperture shape or adjust light distribution within the blur.

05  Advanced features

Hover over each N-panel parameter for detailed explanations.

Optical characteristics

• ▸ Lens Distortion: Realistic barrel or pincushion warping. Simple uses one factor; Advanced uses K1–K3 (radial) and P1–P2 (tangential) coefficients.
• ▸ Aberrations: Add Chromatic Aberration (color fringing) and Field Curvature (blurrier corners) for realism; Optical Vignetting gives cat's-eye bokeh toward the edges.
• ▸ Astigmatism: Toward the frame edges, positive values swirl out-of-focus highlights around the center (Helios-style); negative values stretch them outward.

Focus visualization

• ▸ Focus Peaking: Toggle the Preview checkbox to see a high-contrast overlay: green is in focus, red behind the focus, blue in front.

Texture & customization

• ▸ Lens Dirt: Load a grunge map into Dirt Texture to simulate dust, scratches, and smudges on the glass.
• ▸ Custom Bokeh: When in Image mode, load a PNG into Bokeh Texture to turn highlights into custom shapes (e.g., hearts/stars).

06  Compatibility

Blender 4.5+, NVIDIA GPU with OptiX enabled. Non-OptiX systems are supported in CPU mode only.

07  Troubleshooting

Email: [email protected]

08  Tutorial and demo