[Bf-cycles] mist pass

[David Fenner]

A few thoughs about the mist pass:

- Can the option to show the mist pass in the camera be activated by
default when you activate the mist pass in the render layer?. This is
because if you activate the mist pass, it is obvious that you will have to
set it properly next. Right now, you first need to activate it in the
render layer, then show it in the camera, then adjust it in the world
settings. I understand if someone wants to hide it later, but having to
unhide it everytime in the camera seems like an unnecessary step. And on
the other hand, if the mist pass is deactivated, it should also hide
automaticly from the camera.
- Is it necessary to be a world setting? Why can't it be a renderlayer
setting? You might want different depths in different layers or scenes that
share the same world. If this was a renderlayer setting and the viewport
visibility activated automaticly when the pass is selected, a 6 step
process (activate mist pass, switch to camera, activate visibility in
camera, switch to world, adjust) would become a 2 stepped one (activate
mist pass in renderlayer, adjust).
- Just a thought... DOF is almost free in cycles, but sometimes it's very
noisy, can get to need 3 times more samples than focused areas. In
production, composited DOF is very important not only because of speed, but
because it is non destructive, you can add it and take it away if the
client wants so without needing to re-render. However, one of the beauties
of cycles is the ability to do it realtime and play with it.... so, could
it be possible to make the mist pass "match" the focus settings in cycles?
This way not only you could mimick what you achieved interactibly in render
(if you decide to render without dof), but you could also use the mist pass
to post blur a little bit the parts that are out of focus (if you decide to
render with dof), getting rid of noise in those areas. I've done manual
tests and it works really well, since the out of focus is already blurred,
adding a little more blur just to get rid of some pixels doesn't hurt. and
the focused areas don't look blurred at all.

Thanks,
David.
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