The results are in:

I did a series of renders using the Digital Confusion Image Filter plugin. Below are a series of images intended to simulate Depth of Field(DOF) In each render, the Digital Confusion Image filter is used, with varying amounts. In all examples, there is a Null named "focus" that acts as the focal distance for the DOF effect. In all renders except (3) Adaptive Sampling was ON, following the suggestions of other people in the Lightwave forum on CGTalk.com. These results were rendered on a Dell PC with dual processors running Windows XP and Lightwave 7.5c. I also got the same results on an Apple G4 running LW 7.5. Furthermore, in spite of the LW manuals' claim that Digital Confusion is generally faster than the built in depth of field, these renders all took 2-4 times longer to render than traditional(i.e. built in) LW depth of field effects took to render. No third party plugins were used in these renders.

(1) F-Stop: 0.5

(2) F-Stop:1.5

(3) F-Stop:1.5 + Adaptive Sampling OFF

(4) F-Stop: 2

(5) F-Stop: 4

Conclusions:

The problem is artifacts that appear around the edges of overlapping objects. Adaptive Sampling appears to make no difference in the quality of the rendered output. There must be settings elsewhere in Lightwave that cause this or it is bug.

UPDATE 6/18/2004:

The same tests were done using Lightwave[8] and alas, the problems persists; Digital Confusion is apparently still broken.

(6) F-Stop:1.5 Rendered in Lightwave [8]

HDRI Notes & Issues