# Depth of Field looks different in viewport and rendered sequence **URL:** \ **Category:** Rendering\ **Tags:** Depth-Of-Field, DOF, unreal-engine, Rendering, question\ **Created:** [September 19, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000 "2017-09-19T20:21:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shain98](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Shain98](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Shain98)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/1 "2017-09-19T20:21:00Z")
Currently I’m working on a short ‘cinematic’ Star Wars animation and I’m using Unreal as a renderer and I stumbled across this issue where my depth of field will look much more noisy (and smaller?) when rendering/exporting a scene from sequencer while it will look much better in the real-time viewport, even when viewing in full-screen/F11 mode. Is it because of the motion blur? It happens in both 4.16 and 4.17. Thanks ![214037-untitled-2.jpg](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/6/2/b/62b466aeb863880ff32a0736ab6014800be2d34c.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Max.Chen](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/max.chen/32/1194502_2.png) [@Max.Chen](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Max.Chen)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/2 "2017-09-20T03:32:31Z")
What’s your depth of field quality set to? Check r.DepthOfFieldQuality. Maybe increase it to 2 or 3? ---
**Author:** ![Shain98](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Shain98](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Shain98)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 11:21am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/3 "2017-09-20T11:21:24Z")
It’s set to 4 but I just found the cause - even though my scalability is set to Cinematic, in Render Settings for the Sequencer Export the “Cinematic Scalability” was unchecked and it was reverting back to lower settings. ---
**Author:** ![soTaddel](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@soTaddel](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/soTaddel)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/4 "2017-11-20T13:15:49Z")
Hello, enabling “Cinematic Scalability” in the render setting window did not work for us. While the rendering settings were set to cinematic in the editor and in the DefaultGame.ini, the DoF was always reset to “medium” I think, when rendering the sequence. Trying to set “r.DepthOfFieldQuality 4” on Begin Play did not work for rendering. Trying to set “r.DepthOfFieldQuality 4” on Tick dod also not work. Both did their job in Editor Play/Standalone Play, but not while Rendering. So we thought, that it is reset by the sequence. Deleting all PostPro Keys/Tracks did also not do the job. We maybe narrowed it down to the cinematic cameras. They are created only by the sequence in Shots and we think they override the Scalability Settings in some way. My really bad but working solution: The Sequence goes from frame 0 to frame 1627. When I hit render, the DoF Settings went low. When rendering from Custom Starting Frame -1627 to Custom End Frame 0 renders everything with high quality. (WHAT)… And it ignores the Custom End Frame and renders the whole sequence two times. I got the double amount of frames: The first half is high quality, the second pass is low quality. This is crazy!! What is going on? Nevermind, it works for now… Sebi ---
**Author:** ![EoinOBroin](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@EoinOBroin](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/EoinOBroin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/5 "2018-07-09T22:03:26Z")
This worked for me (setting the start frame to a negative number), the motion blur rendered properly for me when before it wasn’t rendering at all. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![BtotheLaker](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/btothelaker/32/88719_2.png) [@BtotheLaker](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/BtotheLaker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 12:34pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/6 "2021-05-26T12:34:03Z")
I can’t believe this is _still_ broken 5 years later. I also cannot get the negative frame number to work in 4.26.2… Any solution to this? Makes cinematic cameras completely useless for rendering sequences. ---
**Author:** ![InnovateMedia](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@InnovateMedia](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/InnovateMedia)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2021, 11:32pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/depth-of-field-looks-different-in-viewport-and-rendered-sequence/405000/7 "2021-06-08T23:32:57Z")
Something that worked for me was to actually enable to Manual Focus Debug Plane. The viewport doesn’t seem to understand the large value inputs the focus distance supports. I suggest that you actually dial in and see where your focus plane is _actually_ hitting.