Autofocus Pro

by Moby Motion in Addons


To upgrade from Autofocus Core to Auofocus Pro, Blender Market should automatically give you a discount based on what you've spent previously. If you have any issues upgrading just send me a message :)

Automatically focus your scenes in 1 click

Autofocus Pro (previously known as aperture) makes it a breeze to add a depth of field to your scenes, by working like a real camera to automatically focus where you want, giving you more time to create beautiful animations.

It's the complete solution for applying autofocus to any of your scenes, allowing you to:

  • Focus your Blender camera in a single click
  • Autofocus anywhere in your frame
  • Focus quickly for fast moving scenes, or slowly, like a real camera. It's up to you

Let's face it, focusing in Blender used to be a chore 

If you'd like to add some depth of field to your Blender scene, your choices are limited. You can dial this in manually, which might work for very simple scenes with no movement, but even then you'll have to spend time tweaking to get the focusing plane exactly right. 

You can pick an object to focus on, but Blender will actually focus on the origin of the object, and not the surface. So, for objects which are close to the camera, or when you are using a very narrow depth of field, the focus will be noticeably off. Never mind if you want to change focus between objects.

The third option, which is the only real option for complex scenes with movement, is to focus on an empty, and manually keyframe this to move where you want your focus to be. But for this to work effectively, you need to insert multiple keyframes, which is time-consuming and might lead to inconsistent or unrealistic focusing speed between each change in focus. 

Now, you can apply autofocus to your scenes quickly and effortlessly, with a single click 

Add autofocus to your scenes in a single click. It's that simple. No need to create empties where you want to focus, or spend time tweaking the focus distance until it's exactly where you want. Click one button to intelligently focus the camera.

Benefit #1 - Focus Anywhere in your Scene

The wide range of built in focus regions means that you can instantly focus on your subject, whether it is in the center, left third, or moving through a large part of your scene. But if you need something more bespoke, you can create your own custom focusing region as easily as you can draw a bounding box. 

Benefit #2 - Don't let your Focus Point Jump Around

Real cameras don't instantly know where to focus, and you can achieve realistic, smooth, focus pulls using Autofocus Pro's intuitive settings. Or, depending on your scene, you can use Autofocus Pro's diverse range of other features while focusing instantly on the subject at hand.

Benefit #3 - Don't Just Focus on One Frame, Focus on Every Frame

Lots of objects moving in and out of frame? No problem. Autofocus Pro will pull focus for every frame, and keyframe this movement for you. This means that no matter whether you are working on a short clip, or a feature length animation, Autofocus Pro has you covered.

Benefit #4 - Apply Depth of Field to your Scenes in Seconds

In testing, Autofocus Pro applied autofocus to low memory scenes in under a second for the whole animation. Even highly complex scenes apply autofocus quickly by utilizing efficient, optimised code.

But why do I need a plug-in?

You might have seen techniques that show you ways to achieve autofocus inside Blender without a plug-in. But they have some important limitations which Autofocus Pro solves.

  • Existing techniques only work with ONE OBJECT. Autofocus Pro sees your entire scene just like a physical camera, and can focus on any object, even when you pan to a different part of your see.
  • With Autofocus Pro, you're not limited to focusing in the exact center, like other techniques. If the wide-range of focus regions isn't enough, you can draw your own and focus exactly where you want to in the scene.
  • Autofocus Pro allows you to pull focus smoothly, using a variety of settings. This replicates a real focusing camera, which doesn't react instantaneously.
  • Autofocus Pro works with a single click. No need to tediously set up shrinkwrap modifiers for every new scene where you want to apply autofocus.

Lifetime access and all future updates included for free

For this one-time purchase, receive lifetime access to the script, as well as access to all future updates. No tiers, no optional upgrades, get all the convenient features above for the same great price. Amazing value for anyone looking to level up their Blender animation game.

Changelog

5/8/2024:

  • Renamed panels in line with blender conventions to suppress warnings in console.
  • New "Probe Focus Distance" feature tells you where the optimal focus distance would be for the current frame, without changing focus. 
  • Fix bug in "Perfectly Focus Frame", which would mistakenly call "Bake Autofocus" on the whole animation. 
  • Fix bug where "Bake Autofocus" only progresses while mouse is moving.
  • Improve in-plugin documentation.
  • Now officially supports 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2.

28/5/2023:

  • Baking autofocus no longer makes Blender unresponsive.
  • Baking autofocus visualises which frame it's working on, so you can see progress.
  • Baking autofocus is cancellable by pressing "escape" during focus.
  • Now officially supports 3.5.
  • Clicking "stop showing focus region" disables render region - preventing accidentally rendering only part of the scene that you were focusing on.
  • Refactored focusing engine.
  • Delete focus keyframes for your current camera at the press of a button (for pro only).
  • Improved UI for Advanced Settings menu.

1/10/2022 - Tested to work with Blender 3.3. 4 powerful new features:

  • Focus perfectly on a single frame rather than an entire animation - great for stills.
  • Skip frames. Long, complex animations can take too long to focus, because blender needs to load all frames before they can be focused. Now you can only focus on every n frames, for an approximately n x speed up in complex scenes. 
  • Control the background distance. Parts of your view where the background is visible with no objects are seen as very far away, which can throw your focus distance. Now you can decrease this distance, so background is seen however you want it to be.
  • New focus strategies - now focus on the closest 1% or closest 5% of rays cast.

Links

Have any questions? Send me a message on here or post them on the official pages: 

Affiliates

Shoot me a message if you like the product and would like to be added as an affiliate :)

Choose a product version:

  • $17 Autofocus Core

    Focus on the most important regions: "centre region", "centre region wide", "left third" and "right third". Key control over smoothness, including "focus strategy", "focus speed" and "time smoothing".

  • $37 Autofocus Pro

    The full experience. All 8 focus regions, including the option for custom regions if the presets don't suit you. Professional level control, including "maximum focus speed" and "sampling rate", "skip frames", "background distance", or focus on any specific frame.

  • $87 Autofocus Pro - Studio

    The full plugin for studio use by up to 5 users.

Sales 400+
Customer Ratings 13
Average Rating
Dev Fund Contributor
Published about 4 years ago
Blender Version 4.2, 4.1, 4.0, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.0, 2.93, 2.92, 2.91, 2.83
License GPL
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