Does anyone know how to have an object (in my case a character imported from Daz) be transparent and also glow as in a halo glow? (I guess you could think of a ghostly figure to get an idea of what I’m trying to achieve)
I have 2.78
Michael
i figured a neat ghost material, but i cant figure out how to make the glow. that is not a feature in blender.
here is the blend file, if anyone else could continue in the compositor, everything is set up. just render out the two layers and you should have everything needed to create the glow.
Here:
Render our layer 1 as it is, and layer 2 with Transparent background so that you get the alpha channel to play with.
good luck.
the blend file wont upload. here you go.
NOTE! this blend file is for other people to play around and figure out how to add the glow!
Faster:
1 - Use Blender Internal (can make a pass for a composite with cycles)
2 - Using Cycles: Add glow in post (mask>blur>mix).
Slower:
3 - Make a cage with volume material surrounding your figure.
eg (3).
emissive sphere inside of a volume
Haven’t tested this, but here is an idea.
Render out your character with a render layer override material using a layer weight/facing node. This will be the character mask to enable glow overlapping over parts of your character.
Create a metaball cage somewhat larger than the character. This will be the source for the post glare fog node.
Combine the finished character and glared metaball character using the facing mask as a mix.
If the layer weight doesn’t work, maybe try a volume shader instead, or some combo. Volume will be harder to render out though.
I have absolutely no idea how that will turn out, so… 
Thanks, finalbarrage and burnin. Downloaded and trying to work with this. Much appreciated.
However, is there a way of creating a figure more like this?
Because like this 3d character I want to put 3d objects inside the body: 
[Ideal if I could make this statue of david transparent like the above two images so I could insert (and see) 3d objects inside:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6l24a4t358vlik/b56becd5ff494f408227f635b1929f0f.obj?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6l24a4t358vlik/b56becd5ff494f408227f635b1929f0f.obj?dl=0)
Thank you. Trying this but where do I find the multiply node? Don’t see it listed.
Add Shader >> Converter >> Math Node
you set the operation to ‘multiply’ and automatically the node’s name change.
Ok, duplicated your node settings and I get the result but with the faintest of outlines. How do I thicken those outlines? And, how do I get different colors as you have with your different suzie renders?
My blend file attached, if you can help out here, thanks.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/81epwl4eizgfm1q/statue%20of%20david.blend?dl=0
The reason is that you are overpowering it with environment light and another light. Things don’t glow in bright lighting unless they’re significantly stronger than anything else around (like a welding arc).
I generated colors for multiple objects. The same won’t work for just one object but it’s the emission color that could be changed or controlled by some factor.
Node tree result on the left. Two others slightly different.
The layer weight node gets the contours of the model. Directly facing surfaces are darker and as the surfaces start to curve away the lighter it is. Layer weight gives a gradient which is controlled with the color ramp, and used as a factor to mix transparent and emission. Both layer weight blending and the color ramp influence how thick the line is, but biggest factor is the model geometry.
The math multiply node is used as a logic gate. In this case it uses light path ‘is camera ray’ which gives 1 if the ray is going in the camera, 0 for everything else. Multiplying the chain end with that makes it only true if it’s for camera, meaning the emission is only visible for the camera. Everything else in the scene gets the transparent shader so it might as well not be there.
I also added geometry node ‘backfacing’ in the image above that works the same way. It hides the backfacing surface from the camera, that would otherwise be visible as the front facing surfaces are made transparent.
This contains all three
Edit: didn’t check before but the model has stored custom split normals which is why it gets shaded like it does. Those can be removed in object data properties -> geometry.
Edit 2:
Speaking of logic gates. Could use solidify modifier and have two surfaces to make a solid outline. If the top surface is made transparent on the side that faces the camera, it’s only visible when the surface turns so much that its other side is facing the camera. That results to a solid outline.
This can reinforce the outline and still have the gradient from the previous setup when that is added for the inside surface. It becomes a bit of a puzzle when there are two surfaces, two sides each, which solidify flips, and still have to take care of how the objects inside receive light through those.
Adding the same gradient to both gives the transparency back.
I reduced the geometry to 10% in the file above. Easier to work with and transfer.
Wow! Thank you for all this, JA12. Amazing. Could I take the node tree you created for this david statue and copy and paste it to any object and get a similar result? And if so, I’m trying to find out how to copy and paste node trees from one blender file object to another.
ctrl+C to copy, open another file and ctrl+V to paste in the node tree. There’s also file -> append that could be used to get whole material, or just nodes that were grouped in node tree folder inside the .blend.
Selected nodes can be grouped with ctrl+G, and a group ungrouped with alt+G.