Hi everyone, I saw some people complaining that the depth pass in Unreal doesn’t include depth of field, but isn’t that actually the correct behavior? i mean the depth pass is supposed to be clean, without post effects, right?
Some folks said that when they render with depth of field turned on, their depth pass becomes useless in post. I think that’s because Unreal adds DoF as a postprocess effect, after the depth data is already created. So once the blur is baked into the beauty pass, the pixels no longer match the original depth values, making it impossible to use the Zdepth later for effects like blur or fog.
So doesn’t it make more sense to just render without depth of field, then use the Z-depth in compositing to add it later if needed? Or, if you want to keep Unreal’s DoF, just skip the depth pass altogether?
Edit : maybe some people prefer Unreal’s DoF because the blur in post using a depth pass never looks quite as good or as natural.