distance fog/fading

[gross]

Has anyone got any tips on how to generate a distance fog easily. I'm looking for a solution that can force the geometry in my scene to dissappear or be masked beyond a set distance. Imagine an infinately large horizontal plane that extends up to the horizon with a sky background spherically wrapped around. When rendered the horizontal plan will appear to fade into the background image at a preset distance away from the camera.

I have been playing with the Z-depth buffer within AE. But this is too timeconsuming plus I can't seem to get it to work without removing the sky background. I'm looking for the quickest and easiest method that wont add any more complexity to my day.

Previously when using electricimage you simply specified the start and end distances from the camera and an alpha channel was created that you could use to turn geometry in the distance transparent therfore exposing the background image.

regards

[jacksc02]

Hi Gareth!

Are you look to use the z depth for DOF?
You can make a copy of your scene and render out the distance fog by using scanline, or if you have vray 1.45 you can render out a z-depth pass by using some dummy objects to replace your buildings and then use the .rla of .rpf files for the zdepth in AE.

Let me know how you get on

Chris Jackson
cj@arcad.co.nz
www.arcad.co.nz

[NumButt]

Did you try rendering out a Max scanline Z-depth in render elements then use it as a mask to fade into your background image in Photoshop or the like?

If this doesn't make sense you may want to post some images for us to take a look at.

[gross]

been away so havn't been able to reply recently. Thanks for the comments.

I've experimented with z-depth RLA files in AE. They work well but take too long for typical architectural animations - which as you know have to more through the office rather quickly.

Haven't considered using scanline and distance fog. I'll give it a try and see how much of complexity/time overhead it will add to my day.

I was hoping for a quick fix.

Appreciate the replys

Again sorry for the delay in returning the comment

gareth

[NumButt]

Generating a z-depth using scanline takes seconds. If you save a copy of your scene, delete all the lights and assign a pure black material to all the objects then your render should literally take 2 seconds.