GPU Pro 4

1

III

The Skylanders SWAP Force

Depth-of-Field Shader

Michael Bukowski, Padraic Hennessy,

Brian Osman, and Morgan McGuire

1.1 Introduction

This chapter describes the depth-of-field (DoF) shader used in production at

Vicarious Visions for the Skylanders SWAP Force game on multiple console plat-

forms.

DoF is an important rendering effect. A real camera lens focuses on a single

plane in the scene. Images of objects in that plane are perfectly sharp. Images of

objects closer to or farther from the camera are blurry. Of course, most objects

are typically outside the exact plane of focus. Photographers recognize that each

point on an out-of-focus object blurs