Cine Focus Pro - Autofocus and Focus Pulling for Blender Cameras

Fake focus reads as fake.

Blender's depth of field is static. A focus constraint snaps. Keyframing focus distance by hand is tedious, imprecise, and worthless the moment the scene moves. None of it moves the way glass moves — and the viewer clocks it, even if they can't say why.

Cine Focus Pro measures the set the way a focus puller measures it, turns the barrel the way a barrel turns, and gives the same answer every time.

A rock in the foreground razor sharp at 0.67 metres while the rally buggy behind it dissolves into coloured bokeh — **Focused at 0.67 m**Depth of field is one centimetre. The buggy is gone.

The same frame with focus at 8.5 metres: the buggy sharp against the cave mouth, the foreground rock melted away — **Focused at 8.50 m**Same camera, same frame. The rock has melted.

One idea worth knowing.

A lens does not focus in metres. Extension goes as 1/(u − f), so a pull from 1 m to 2 m turns the barrel further than a pull from 10 m to 20 m. Every ease, every speed limit, every bit of damping in Cine Focus is integrated in that space — reciprocal distance, the same numbers engraved on the ring — and converted back to metres afterwards. That single choice is why the moves land where a follow focus lands instead of crawling through the near distances and snapping through the far ones.

Six coloured cubes at known distances on a plain floor, the nearest sharp and the rest falling away into soft shapes — **1.74 m**Mark A. Ten centimetres of depth at f/1.8.

The same six cubes with focus moved back: the middle of the line is now sharp and the nearest cube has gone soft — **8.72 m**Mark B. Five times the distance, five times the ring travel.

c     = sensor width / delivery divisor   HD 1000 · Cinema 1500 · 4K 2000 · 8K 3000
H     = f² / (N · c) + f                  hyperfocal
near  = H · s / (H + (s − f))
far   = H · s / (H − (s − f))             infinite when the denominator is ≤ 0
m     = f / (s − f)                       magnification, 1 at life size
N_eff = N · (1 + m)                       the stop the sensor really sees

Pull a rack.

The same solver, running right here. Left is a 50mm at T2.0 on full frame — the blur is the real circle of confusion, not a guess. Right is the barrel: dashed is the cue, solid is where the hand actually got to. Change the feel and watch the overshoot.

Camera view — 50mm T2.0

RACK

Barrel — cue vs hand

Focus2.20 m Sharp1.90–2.60 m

Try Handheld, then Previz / Perfect. Same cue, same distances — one has a hand on it and one doesn't.

A stripped-back copy, not the add-on. Real barrel dynamics, transition speed and drift maths; two fixed subjects and one lens. The add-on measures your actual scene.

Four ways to pull.

All four feed the same barrel dynamics, operator feel and breathing. Switching mode changes what focus is aiming at — never how the lens behaves.

Camera body

Autofocus

Continuous AF over an area of frame. Wide, Zone, Spot, Center, Expand Spot or Tracking, at up to 41×41 AF points.

Priority picks the subject: Dominant Surface ignores railings and rain, Center Weighted trusts your framing, Nearest is consumer AF, Average Depth keeps a group acceptable.

One thing

Subject tracking

Lock onto an object or a pose bone. Holds through occlusion, respects the frame edge, measures to the nearest surface or the bounding centre.

Cast in a Priority Subjects collection so extras walking through don't steal it.

Scripted

Rack focus

Marks on the timeline with six ease curves and per-mark hold times. Object-live marks re-measure themselves when the scene moves.

Tape A, B, C onto the camera like a follow-focus disc, then pull to a mark on cue.

Hand on it

Manual

A hand-set distance that still gets barrel dynamics, drift and breathing.

Keyframe it, or press Ctrl+Alt+F and turn the wheel live while it plays.

The HUD reading AF-C LOCKED at 8.49 metres, with focus peaking stippling only the surfaces inside the depth of field — **Autofocus**AF-C, locked, 8.49 m. Peaking marks everything inside the depth of field.

The HUD reading SUBJECT TRACKING at 3.25 metres with a live focus graph, following a cube driving toward the lens — **Subject tracking**Following one object in at 3.25 m. The graph is the last few seconds of barrel travel.

Set up, play, bake.

Quick Setup asks three questions and the shot is focusing.

STEP 01

Pick the camera

Select your subject first if you have one, then the camera. Open N → Cine Focus and press Quick Setup.

STEP 02

Look, feel, distance

How shallow (Dreamy f/1.4 to Deep f/8), how the pulls move (Perfect to Handheld), how close (Scene, Product or Macro). Confirm.

STEP 03

Play it

The HUD reads focus distance, the depth of field band and what the solver has locked onto. Ctrl+Alt+F to put a hand on the wheel.

STEP 04

Bake it

Bake Focus writes real keyframes on the camera. Smart Reduce thins them in diopter space, so the error you keep is optical.

The Cine Focus panel in the Blender N-sidebar, showing mode, barrel dynamics, operator feel and lens settings

See what's sharp.

You should not have to render to find out.

Focus peaking

Dots on every in-focus surface, straight off the depth buffer, in camera view. If it's stippled, it's sharp.

The focus plane

A frustum-sized plane of sharp focus sitting in the 3D view with its depth of field limits, so you can see the pull from outside the camera.

The plane of sharp focus drawn in the Blender 3D viewport in front of the camera, bracketed by its near and far depth of field limits

The HUD

Engraved focus scale, DoF band, rack mark carets, a live focus graph and AF point telemetry. Cine, DSLR, Technical or Minimal.

Status, in a word

LOCKED, TRACKING, HOLDING, SEARCHING, HUNTING, OCCLUDED, OFF FRAME, RACK. You always know why it did that.

DoF calculator

Dial any focal length, stop, distance and sensor and read sharp-from, sharp-to, hyperfocal and CoC live — without touching the scene.

Everything it does.

Physical barrel dynamics

A second-order spring in diopter space. Overshoot, damping and reaction delay — pulls that settle the way a real lens settles.

Operator feel

Reaction delay, hand drift and tremor as deterministic, proportional noise. A different hand per camera, and the same hand every render.

Focus breathing

Seven profiles, Cine Prime to Vintage Unit Focus. The frame tightens or widens with focus, exactly as the optics would.

Live pull recording

Ctrl+Alt+F during playback. The mouse wheel turns the barrel in diopter space and every frame is keyed. Click to keep, Esc to bin.

Pull marks

Tape A, B, C onto the camera like a follow-focus disc. Pull to a mark through the barrel, or copy it onto the timeline as a rack.

Working distance

Scene, Product or Macro. Macro engraves the HUD in millimetres, lowers clip start and switches AF to DoF-aware tolerances with outlier rejection.

Dolly zoom

Focal length keyed against the camera's own travel so the subject holds its size while the background rushes in. Strength dials it; the anchor frame stays exact.

Lens metadata import

CSV lens logs from ARRI and RED, ALE files, DJI SRT sidecars. Focus, focal length and iris keyed onto the CG camera — the fastest way to match a plate.

Focus report

Per-frame CSV of distance, DoF limits, hyperfocal, f-stop, AF status and confidence. The log a digital focus recorder keeps on set.

Multi-camera panel

Every camera at a glance. Jump panels, switch the scene camera, copy a whole focus setup — marks, dynamics, character, HUD — across cameras in one click.

Exclusion lists

Keep glass, atmospherics and set dressing out of the measurement, so the lens never focuses on the fog.

Render-farm safe

Time comes from the frame number, never the wall clock. Solved frames are cached. Bake writes plain keyframes that render the same on one machine or a hundred.

Sixteen presets. Start somewhere real.

Applying a preset resets what it controls, then writes its values — nothing leaks from the last one. Save your own with the + button.

Narrative

Cinema Focus Puller

Deliberate pulls on cine glass. Reaction delay, hand drift, slow transition.

Also: Dialogue / Two Shot, Interview (Locked On), Scripted Rack

Documentary

Run and Gun

Wide area, high density, hunting on. What a one-person crew leaves the camera on.

Also: Handheld / Vlog, Group / Ensemble

Action

Sports / Fast Action

Snap transitions, instant subject switching, a lead on approaching subjects.

Also: Vehicle Tracking, Wildlife / Long Lens, Whip Pull

Specialty

Vintage Anamorphic

Heavy barrel, lazy pulls, a frame that tightens as it focuses.

Also: Macro, Drone / Hyperfocal, Previz / Perfect, Shoot Through Foreground

Wide open.

A 50 mm at f/1.2 has a hyperfocal of 87 m — at two metres you are working with seven centimetres of depth. Every one of these is the solver measuring the scene and driving the barrel to it, then baked to keyframes.

The buggy's grill sharp at 1.77 metres, the cave mouth behind it reduced to soft light

Grill at 1.77 m. The camera holds here, then pans off it.

The same camera panned onto the far cave wall, now sharp at 14 metres

Same camera, panned off. Autofocus has followed to 14.09 m.

The buggy's headlight cluster sharp at 1.81 metres against a blown-out cave opening

Headlight at 1.81 m.

Focus carried out to the far cave wall at nearly 16 metres, the buggy out of frame

Carried out to 15.81 m on the same pan.

N-panel. One tab.

3D Viewport → N → Cine Focus, plus a compact panel on the camera data tab. Simple, Standard or Technical hides what you don't need. Shortcuts: Alt+F toggle · Shift+Alt+F place the AF area · Ctrl+Alt+F record a pull.

Host: Blender 4.2+ (tested to 5.2)
Use: Autofocus, focus pulling, DoF
Output: Baked keyframes on the camera
Version: 5.1.0
Dependencies: None — Blender only
Licence: Personal and commercial use; no redistribution

Questions

Do I have to bake every shot?

No. For a single-machine render of a full frame range the live solver is enough — it integrates frame by frame exactly as playback does. Bake if the shot goes to a farm, if frames render out of order, or if someone without the add-on will open the file.

Will the viewport, playback and render match?

Yes. Time comes from the frame number, never the wall clock, and solved frames are cached so scrubbing back replays exactly what was simulated. Bake writes standard keyframes on dof.focus_distance — and optionally lens and aperture — so a farm with no add-on still matches.

What if the camera already has a Focus Object?

Blender's Focus Object overrides focus distance, so the add-on clears it and the panel tells you it did. Otherwise the solver's numbers would be ignored in the render.

What happens if I uninstall it?

Baked keyframes stay — they are native Blender animation. Live solving, the HUD, peaking and the panel go away. Bake before handing a file to someone who doesn't have the add-on.

Which Blender versions?

Blender 4.2 LTS and newer, tested through 5.2. Baking uses a compatibility layer for the slotted action API introduced in 4.4.

Does it work with Cineflow and Cine Drone?

Yes, side by side. Cineflow or Cine Drone drives the camera path; Cine Focus drives focus distance. One-click focus subject from a Cineflow look-at target is on the roadmap as a free update.

Why won't it focus as close as I set?

Close focus is fitted to the lens. A lens reaches life size at twice its focal length, so Macro closes to 4.8 cm on a 24mm and 10 cm on a 50mm. Fit a shorter lens to get closer.

Commercial use?

Yes — personal projects, client work and billed services. You may not resell or redistribute the add-on itself.

Focus like a lens.