This is one of the projects I started last year. Didn’t really know what to put on the catwalk along with Suzanne. I’m trying to get a type of a glow for the crystals / glass in the background, but my knowledge of the compositor is very limited. If anyone could give me some advice I’d really appreciate it. Using the emit function does not really give me the desired effect… so I’m looking to do the following :
The crystal should have a glow about them, much like they’re emitting their own light
To give an object a glow effect, do the following (it’s really easy):
You have to take the crystals and put them on a seperate layer. After that you go to the compositor. Add a blur node, and change the type to “Fast Gaussian” - gives smooth results, but you can experiment with that … you can change the “x” and “y” values to get a larger glow. Use Mix Nodes to put the layers together, and now your crystals will look like they’re glowing.
Also I suggest you turn “ray shadow” on one or more of your light sources. Currently there doesn’t seem to be any shadows on anything. Not bad overall.
You can also use the “glare” node as well. Follow Jbest’s steps to put the crystals on a new Render Layer, then instead of using two Render Layers just for the glow, attach a “glare” node to the layer with the crystals and use AlphaOver (my preference) or Mix to combine the crystals with the rest of the scene.
Be careful when layering objects in your scene in the compositor - if you don’t attach the nodes in the right order the crystals will appear to be floating in front of the rest of your scene. Good luck!
@bldr08 -> You’re right… emit only acts as a light source
I have the following problems though with the compositor. If I put the crystals on their own separate layer, blender does allow me to add a glow effect with the nodes, but then I can’t put them back in the original scene without the showing over Suzanne’s face. How would one go about adding a glare effect to something in the background, without also adding glare to some in the foreground…
e.g
layer 1 - everything but the crystals
layer 2 - only the crystals
Now in the node setup I have the crystals being highlighted with something that looks okay to me. But When I mix the two images, I don’t get what I looking for. Is the a way to use the zbuffer to set the depth of the mix perhaps?
You’ll see that in the second images the crystals are showthing through the objects in from of them.
That’s what I meant about layering the layers. You would need 3 Render Layers for this scene:
1 for the foreground (everything in front of the crystals)
1 for the crystals
1 for the background (everything behind the crystals)
Now you have to layer the nodes so Blender’s Compositor displays the layers correctly. The easiest way to do it would be to layer the crystals (and the glow effect) on top of the background using AlphaOver or Mix, then combine that result with the foreground using another AlphaOver or Mix.
If I need to explain anything more let me know - good luck!
I understand what you’re saying, now before I render this again (took 3hrs!!) - won’t I lose the reflections in the roof if I render out these separate layers?
Unfortunately I have no idea on how to make crystals glow but I am happy to comment on some other things. I love the marble on the sides of the catwalk and the apparently lit floor pieces of the catwalk as well. You just need a really shnazzy model to go up their and be surrounded by a really well-done catwalk. I would say, though, that the ceiling looks claustrophobic. It might be my imagination, unless you planned to have shorter-than-humans on it. I guess I would probably put the ceiling out of sight but then it would hide the nice details you have up there. All said, it is looking really nice!
Hi… been awhile since an update. I’ve managed to get the glow working the way I wanted it. Thanks for the suggestion. I guess the next would be to move the roof up a bit as well as add some better looking objects
