How to Render Depth of Field in Maya and Arnold

How do we create Depth of Field in Maya and Arnold? Sometimes we don't want the audience to see everything in our shot. Animators are film-makers, and the audience needs to be guided through the scene, shown only what is important - and leaving out what is unimportant.  Focus and Depth of Field can help with this - if something in the shot isn't important, simply blur it out. To see how to create Depth of Field in Maya, watch the short video above.  And to understand the theory behind it, read this blog post.

Depth of Field in the Arnold Render

Arnold Render with Depth of Field

To get started, follow the steps below:

1. Open up your shot in Maya
2. Select your Shot Camera. Open the Attribute Editor (cntrl A) and scroll down to the Depth of Field tab
3. Find the Arnold tab, and select Enable DOF (Depth of Field)
4. Adjust Aperture Size to see the effects of DOF - you will see it in the Viewport
5. But what are the correct settings? We need to know how far our foreground object is from the camera. To find this out, go to your Viewport, find Display/Heads Up Display/and turn on Object details . This will give you the Distance from Camera for any object you select - typically the foreground object (in the example above, it's the yellow Beetle).
6. Now under Arnold/Focal Length type in the correct number for the Distance from Camera.
7. Render your shot. Your foreground element (the Beetle) should now be in focus, with the background elements blurred out

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