Hey Guys,
I have looked all over the forum for this and I’m sure that an example of this exist but I haven’t found it. Anyway I am animating a character and what I want to to really softten he edges so that they are sort of made of mist. I just need too soften he hard outline, I have a glow attached in the sequencer which is good but I need to make it look like the edges blur or fade into black. Any suggestions?
Cheers
“fade to black” would allow a sphere blend with a color map mapped to the nor channel
… as in glancing angles on the edge of an object can be made black…
but then again, you seem to want something better, you’ll have to find your own post process method for an actual blur
[you might be able to do some transparency thing by extending the first thing I mentioned, but where two parts overlap it would look wrong]
Hmm, as I a bit new to blender what do you mean by fade to black, or how do I achieve this, is it a plugin or a material or texture attribute?
Thanks
I am trying to figure out what you’re asking for…
do you just want the edges of an object to blend to black? the method I explained [poorly] will technically do that
[sphere blend texture with color blend, mapped to nor coords [and choose X Y Null for coordinates in same panel]]
although, it depends on the object being similarly round in all places…
instead of using black you could use the mist color, or set the alpha… but this could look odd where parts overlap [an arm in front of the leg, can see the leg through edges of the arm]…
[I kinda doubt this is what you want, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it before]
but if you want the edges of an object to be BLURRED with the background, you will need to do something lots more complicated [and probably in another program, and using several renders per frame…]
Hmm, I’m also a bit confused, I’ll try and explain it clearer. I am making a spirit animation which will move around etc. I have added an animated texture to as well as a sequence glow effect. However what I am trying to obtain is a less sharp outline to the chacter. Right now although the texture and glow help it is very clear that this is being based off of a female character model. I don’t want this, I want it to look humanoid but overall I don’t want it to be sharp. This could involve either bluring the edges or having a gradiant alpha leading to 0 at the edge or somthing. As long as she has a less sharp shape and can still be animated it will work perfect for me. Does that help. Here a picture of what i have so far.
cheers
Hi !
Just an idea :
You could duplicate your model and resize it just a little (several times if necessary). Like russian dolls. Each new copy will be set with a lower transparency setting. You can also add a frame delay for each copy if you want to add a trail effect.
Rendering this in Blender animation would be heavy, so try first without duplicating the body mesh, in a Video Editor.
I have only made few trials with the Blender built-in video editor, so I can’t tell you if it is possible to resize pictures in it. You can do it with an other soft if necessary.
Philippe.
Good Idea!
I’m wondering if I should do this in Edit mode or make separate objects. If I do it in edit is there a way to make a material on on faces of a material. If this can be done can I then set a gradient from the object center to the outside of it? That might really work. However I just did an experiment and realized that I can even get my object material to be transparent correctly. Here my test, any ideas on what wrong?
The Alpha for the main material is set to like 0.4 or so and its showing the blue through but not the other cube, why? What do ya think?
Hmmm…
for your Gradient question, I do not think so, because blender objects are not volumic… they are only surfaces.
For your picture, I’m not sure to understand… It seems to me that you the cube that shows the blue through has Ztransp not enabled…
I’m wondering if I should do this in Edit mode or make separate objects.
If you do not make separate object, you will not be able to use the delay frame to get a trail effect, if you need it…
As it is a character, you wil have to copy the armatures too, I think !
Philippe.
ahh, I see, where the the ztransparentent button, its a material option right or is it somewhere else? Ok so the character I have made isn’t volumetric but could I potentially fill it with mist or smoke or something, is that possible?
Cheers
One suggestion: Do a multipass render.
Now just load the Alpha pass from pass #3 into any bach capable 2D program and do a edge blur on every frame, or even in the sequence editor with a heavy blur post efect… in either way save the result as pass #5.
Re-Compose passes 1, 2, 5 and 4… that will produce what you are looking for.
how about this idea…if you take your render ( I am assuming that you already have a rgba render of your sprite) just use the seq editor:
add your strip -line1
add blur plugin - line 2
duplicate your strip - move dup to line 3
alpha over - line 3 over line 2
select the blur plugin and ajust the blur for the effect you want…instant visual feed back in the preview window
Sorry, I made a mistake on the previous post.
The alpha pass should have the subject pure shadeless white, and the background in pure black.
Maybe this splains it better.
If the picture doesn’t show up, you can see it here (requieres free registration)
Sorry, i was away for the weekend, I’ll give your suggestions a try and get back to you soon! The blur plugin looks like it may have potential because I am really trying t do everything in blender but i have photoshop and will try the multi-pass too.
Cheers!
Ok I’m having a real hard time getting the blur plugin. I found it at the plugin repository but I’m using Mac OSX and there were none that were complied. No problem, even though I had no idea what I was doing i tired to follow instruction but it never works. I type makeb blur.c in terminal and it says it can’t find the command makeb? Anyway one know about any of this? I just nee to get the blur plugin to work to try all of the above
Cheers
Resize your object or character a little over one frame.
Set curve exend mode to cyclic.
Render with motion blur set to 1.0.
Hey Superdan
This will work for still renders but not for animations ehh? I certainly will use the motion blur as well but will that really work?
get the new version (current cvs). it has the fblur plug in build into blender.
i had the same problem with os x.
also i could mail you the plug in which will work on current os x and blender
versions as well.
btw anybody knows a windows or os x build of the blur plug in? i only find linux ports.
claas
Hey Guys
Just thought for the sake of completing the thread I would say that I have figured out something that works. Basically I duplicated my human mesh and reduced the vertex count 10 fold and then made it a halo mesh with the add turned up a lot. Thats way the original texture was still there but the edges were really soft. Thanks for all of the help! Now I I have to get the particles to work and figure out matching animation to real video. haha
Cheers