Is it at all possible to specify a glow map with cycles, so that I can apply a glow/bloom shader effect post-process in the compositor?
You can use a texture as the factor input of a mix shader, mixing your object material with an emission shader
That’s not the type of glow I’m asking about. I’m looking more for an ‘aura’ effect
Example of the effect in InWorldz (a game similar to Second Life):
Glow maps are simply black and white maps that specify where to apply post-production filters in the game engine. The equivalent in an offline renderer like Cycles would be using a black and white map to blend between an emission shader and another shader(s) and then doing blur/glow in the compositor. That type of glow is not something you determine in modeling/material setup, it’s all done in post.
The problem though, is that I’m working with a node setup that uses blended emissive+diffuse to accomplish toon shading Though, now I think I have enough information to figure this out: just base the post-process glow on areas that have more than 50% emissive.
Okay, unfortunately this didn’t work, as the compositor obtained the color data for emissive surfaces, rather than a percentage value. So, basing a glow/bloom shader off of emissive is a no-go.
Is there any way I can pass custom data to the compositor?
Okay, I’ll ask again, is there a way to perform a blur/bloom glow effect in the cycles compositor WITHOUT making any use of the emissive property?