Niagara Fluid and Depth of Field

Howdy,
I’m looking for some insight on Niagara Volumentric Fluid simulations.

Is there a way to have volumetrics affected by a cameras’ depth of field?

Simulations I create don’t seem to blur in-camera.
I’m assuming this is by design, since it’s the same in UE5 and 5.1. But I can’t seem to find any settings, toggles, or even information on why or how this is happening.

If anyone can share some further insight or advice, it would be much appreciated.

Niagara fluid’s composition and lighting to the view frustrum is deeply complicated, I watched their series on it and know just enough to know it doesn’t play well with a lot of UE features.

That said, the path tracer’s reference DOF toggle might do it: it computes DOF analytically as part of the rendering process rather than as a post-pass, and will probably work with niagara fluids (at least it did the last time I used it). If you’re looking for real time, you unfortunately might be out of luck for now.

Dang. I don’t suppose there’s any workaround to even remotely cheat it in engine? I’m using it for short film production, but not with the path tracer.

But thank you for answering! The shots I was using it for, I can mostly get away with just leaving it, but I was hoping to avoid external compositing.

There may be, but UE5’s PP stack is not something I’m familiar with enough to say for certain. Movie render cue could simplify extracting the nessesary passes, but overall I just wouldn’t know.

I know that Unreal engine 5.1 has support for a form of order-independant transparency, but I know it’s experimental and expensive, and likely has a complex interplay with Niagara. It may work, but I wouldn’t know.