Couple of questions on solar flares

[stayinwonderland]

I've seen a few people put various lense flares into their 3d work and it's basically billboard style flat geometry with (presumably) opacity mapped images.

 

So, question 1: what are these and is there a standard place to buy them?

 

Secondly, animation lense flares - would you tend to do any kind of sun flare in post?

 

Example - 18 seconds into this:

 

cheers

[Nic H]

They would almost certainly be done in post using aftereffects or fusion with some kind of plug in like sapphire or knoll lens factory

then maybe a secondary spill glow using the sky alpha as a mask.

 

its pretty straightforward stuff - looks like a bit of key-framing on the brightness to make it shimmer and some rotation on the rays.

 

nice planting in this animation

[stayinwonderland]

Ah ok. Makes sense.

 

But what about still renders like this: http://www.cgarchitect.com/2012/07/the-making-of-paracete - if you scroll down to how she did the car lights. Any ideas?

[Nic H]

yep she used billboards there - she says in the description. you could do it either way really.

 

easier in an animation to put them in post for flexiblity as they arent 'fixed' as such.

[stayinwonderland]

yeah, was just wondering if there was a common place people get those still flares for use with billboards. I've seen someone else use them.

 

Or maybe they're just generated via a photoshop plugin or something.

[Nic H]

yep try getting Knoll Lens Factory plugin in photoshop

generate them on a black background then screen them over your image.

[stayinwonderland]

Cool, I'll look into that. Thanks

[Fooch]

I'm an AE guy unlike nic. Optical flares by video copilot.

For say interior lights etc, you dont even need to keyframe it if you use a luma value for the location (really neat trick)

 

For a pure photoshop method, i would google some lens flare brushes.

Set them to color dodge and control the intensity by the fill not opacity.

[stayinwonderland]

Cool, thanks for the tips