CompuServe Thread

You're not missing anything. You can blur a foreground object, as long as you don't mind the hard mask edges. Blur is primarily for blurring the entire image and/or the background. 3DSr4 allows for z-buffer-based ixp's to act on the image, so depth-of-field ixp's are now possible. That's what you really are looking for. – G

You should be able to do this, but it takes a few steps. Blur should have had an option included that would allow it to effect the alpha channel of an image, allowing for a smooth composite, but even though it doesn't, you can still do it manually. First, render your forground object with no background, render alpha ON, and split alpha ON. Once this is rendered, make sure you turn Alpha split off. Then, run your forground image through video post and use Blur on it (Vpost queue will only have your forground image (or an IFL list of frames if you're doing an animation) followed by Blur. This will give you the blurred forground against black. Now repeat the process for the alpha images (because alpha split was ON, they were written to disk as separate images with an "A_" prefix). Now you will have a blurred Alpha image(s) to use as a matte. Now place your background at the top of the queue, then follow it by the blurred forground image. Click in the Alpha slot of the foreground entry and then click on the RGB Mask button, then click in the blank field to the right of it to select the mask. Choose the blurred alpha image that was rendered. Now you're set (you no longer need Blur in the queue). When you render the queue you should get an in-focus background with an out of focus forground object (with soft edges, since the alpha mask was blurred too.) I hope this was what you needed. David