Compositing Glare and Bloom

[crazy homeless guy]

Can someone give me some direction on how to composite Glare and Bloom onto my beauty pass using the Glare, Glare Mask, Bloom, Bloom Mask render elements?

Currently I composite Glare into the scene by difference'ing the RGB pass from the Glare pass, and then setting it to Merge into the comp using and Add function. This gives me a base to work with but I do not feel it is as refined looking as it could be.

I am using Fusion but this would be basically the same in Nuke and to a lesser extent Photoshop/AE.

[Art48]

As far as I know it there is currently no "correct" pixel-perfect way to do it (If anyone knows one, shoot!). I experimented with Soft Light blend mode but I also cannot get it 100% there. This feature kinda has room for improvement in my opinion - but then again maybe I do it wrong.

[Zdravko.Keremidchiev]

Generally the lens effect in the VFB are not made to be used in traditional compositing process with the rest of the render elements. You might consider using the compositing software lens effects instead.
Furthermore one could try to separate the effect from the beauty through a difference operation and then use the result or just simply blend the render element with the RGB.

[chadstevens]

I too have tried compositing these elements together, it seems I got no further than most. will there be an easier way to do this in the future just as all the other render elements work?

I really like the Vray Lens effects but It's almost useless in production if you can't composite it after the fact.

Cheers.

[windowlicker]

I'd just like to have to option to comp the Bloom/Glare elements into a single render element, which could be applied with an additive blending mode in post. It would be a great addition to vray, imo.
The way it works now, burning the glare into the RGB pass, is very impractical. So impractical I almost never ever use it (just like chadstevens said).

[Art48]

I'd just like to have to option to comp the Bloom/Glare elements into a single render element, which could be applied with an additive blending mode in post. It would be a great addition to vray, imo.
The way it works now, burning the glare into the RGB pass, is very impractical. So impractical I almost never ever use it (just like chadstevens said).

+1 here - cool effect but due to said stuff I don't really use it atm. Sadly some wasted awesomenes.

[Vizioen]

Well I just tested this (in 32 bit). If you save a beauty pass with Lens Effects and one without and you put the beauty without, above the one with, and in subtract mode you get a seperate vray lens effects pass that you can layer above your beauty again in linear dodge (add).

[werticus]

Interesting that you can create one yourself but would that not require two renders?

The VFB should output a lens effects only pass that we can 'add' in post.

[Art48]

The VFB should output a lens effects only pass that we can 'add' in post.

Definitely. Even though you apparently can create an approximation or something via a difference operation in 32bit - wouldn't it make sense to just do that difference operation and output the result in the VFB as extra pass? Would save the users some trouble creating it themselves (also those who don't render in 32bit) and should be easy to implement if I'm not mistaken?

[werticus]

Yup piece of cake, vlado, now you have a nice vray 3.4.03 feature

[Vizioen]

Well I've put it in my personal wishlist here, feel free to chime in: http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...-lenseffects-)

[Joelaff]

You could try Fusion's SoftGlow (often you want to uncheck Alpha). This will give you something similar with little effort.

If that is not good enough then just render out a specular or reflection pass and then apply a curve to them as need (to preserve only the brightest parts), blur this, and comp it over the image in Add (with the Channel Boolean) or Screen mode (with Merge, turn off Alpha in Merge).

Also consider Fusion's Highlight node for glints (takes a lot of tweaking and tricks, but once you learn how it is nice). Again, you can use this with the RGB, or if that does not give good results, with a specular / reflection pass.

Everything is of course always rendered and comped in floating point (16bit half-float is typically fine unless you are doing really hard coloring).

[crazy homeless guy]

Interesting that you can create one yourself but would that not require two renders?

The VFB should output a lens effects only pass that we can 'add' in post.

You can do it with 1 render. Just add a VrayUnclampedColor render element to you scene, and then tick use color mapping in its settings. This will produce a 100% match to you RGB pass without Glare/Bloom applied.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

You can do it with 1 render. Just add a VrayUnclampedColor render element to you scene, and then tick use color mapping in its settings. This will produce a 100% match to you RGB pass without Glare/Bloom applied.

I dont really understand how I use the unclampedcolor to get a pure glare/bloom for compositing.
I would also very much appreciate a render element for compositing. Right now we cannot use glare and bloom without having do hand-draw masks in Photoshop and anything underneath that that would is changed in retouching gets the original render layed on top again. Which is really too bad, cause I love this effect!

[coolhand78]

Well I just tested this (in 32 bit). If you save a beauty pass with Lens Effects and one without and you put the beauty without, above the one with, and in subtract mode you get a seperate vray lens effects pass that you can layer above your beauty again in linear dodge (add).

this kinda works but i think the full effect of it is lost a bit, but it does work a bit better than simply using the render element with a screen or linear dodge blend mode...
I agree it would be really nice if vray would output a usable render element that could be added/screened - composited like the other render elements...