v2.61 _Win_BI
I have a model with a tarmac material on it, normal mapped with a cloud texture. I would like to improve the rough look of it using a sharpen filter, but the filter only works on the scene as a whole once the image is rendered. How can I apply the filter to the one material only? I have a theory that I need to use layers for this, but I have never done that before.
Might be easier to bake the procedural cloud texture to an image map and sharpen it in an image editing app like Gimp or the P-word. That is, if it’s not animated.
You are probably right, and photoshop really is that great :eyebrowlift: . I am trying to improve my compositing skills, I thought being able to use the filter node on materials as to just scenes could be really useful for some things.
Not sure how well the materials nodes like sharpen work on procedurals, but it’s worth a try if it’s a matter of wanting to learn new things about the nodes systems.
But sharpening a portion of the rendered image may have some drawbacks. First, isolating the surfaces to be sharpened, though if Materials can be used as an index for his, you’re good to go. But filters applied in the Compositor are 2D filters that affect an area evenly unless modulated somehow (like with a mask). So if your material is a road surface (tarmac) and it recedes into the scene depth, applying the filter across the entire area evenly may produce the unwanted effect of making the far distance look too sharp. You might be able to use the Z-buffer to change that, but that adds a layer of complication that can be completely avoided by sharpening the texture before it’s used to render.
Then why doesn’t Blender have filter effects for the 2D built in? I am not a developer so I don’t know the technicality’s of the code however it is reasonable to assume that the sharpen filter is an object based code block, thusly it should theoreticaly be possible to call on that code to filter an image (If not a procedural generated material) before rendering. Since the code is already present and all it should hardly require any additional code development.
Because it’s not an image editor, and is designed to operate with the types of image components that it generates for its renderings, including animated sequences and effects (try that in Gimp or P-shop!). No need to reinvent the wheel for something as basic as sharpening an image, but in truth, most available filters can be applied to 2D imagery via the Compositor if needed. It’s just not designed to do it as efficiently as an image editor can. Besides, the Gimp and P-shop have many more and varied tools for even as basic a step as sharpening, versatility that Blender cannot (and should not) begin to match.
BTW, it’s never (ever, ever) reasonable to assume that any expansion of features can be done with “hardly… any additional code development.”