glare shader in VRay

[zsero]

I am just before choosing between VRay and MentalRay for arch viz with max, and I really like many features of VRay and it's speed, but I would like to know how limited it is? So is it possible to do all the stuff in VRay that would be possible with MentalRay for arch.viz?

For example I really like one of jeffpatton's model called lightme2, because after the rendering has finished, it adds a very realistic effect to the picture. Is it possible somehow in VRay, with or without advanced tweaking, or I shell go for MR, if I would like to do some advanced shaders?

 

http://www.jeffpatton.net/Max6/pages/Lightme2.html

[LKlemenc]

Just add this effect in your post-process application. You will have grater control over this effect anyway.

 

Here is one tut I found about bllom effect: http://gamedesign.4players.de:1026/LS/Tub/Others/Tut3/Bloom.htm

[Craig Ramsay]

Or you can get a similar result by using Max's blur effect

[Christopher Nichols]

This is really a 2D effect that you want to do in Post, doing that in 3D would not be the way to go. The get ultimate control of this, make sure you render in and hight dynamic range image type such as EXR or HDR.

[Craig Ramsay]

Yeah ideally you would do this in post because you get a lot more control over the effect and it's non destructive

[zsero]

And what application do you suggest? I know Photoshop, but is there a better/faster dedicated application for that (which could process HDR images)

[Christopher Nichols]

Photoshop is the best place to start with stills. CS2 will real HDRs but does not do layers when in 32bit float. So you may need to clamp down to 8 bit for that. What you will need to do is render out passes and use those for the bloom. You will want to bloom your specular and reflection passes, or, if you don't have those, your raw lighting pass. For animation compositing, AE may help you, but for serious floating point compositing you will need to use something like Shake or Nuke. This are generally reserved for the VFX crowd, but it is about time that ArchViz crowd thought about using it. On the other hand, Combustion may be able to help you.

[zsero]

Thanks for the answer. I think in the foreseeable future I will need to use some composition software, so it is worth learning some.

Shake is only for mac, isn't it?

I know, some of you guys using Nuke with VRay, but why is it preferable over Combustion? Combustion doesn't support HDR?

[Christopher Nichols]

Thanks for the answer. I think in the foreseeable future I will need to use some composition software, so it is worth learning some.

Shake is only for mac, isn't it?

I know, some of you guys using Nuke with VRay, but why is it preferable over Combustion? Combustion doesn't support HDR?

 

Yeah... Apple bought Shake from Nothing Real and their first contribution to it was to remove the Windows support. Only works on Apple or Linux.

 

Nuke is a super powerful compositing tool which is super quick and pretty amazing. It was the in house compositing software for Digital Domain for years before they started selling it to the public. Here is a little secret... Nuke and Shake came from the same same origins. Nuke supports multiple channels and layer files while Shade does not. The next thing to keep in mind that Nuke is not cheap. Now, combustion is a pretty good option because it has been designed to work well with 3ds for years. I would say you would need to trail both to find what you like best.

 

 

***Edit Correction: Shake and Nuke actually are not related as I suspected, but Shake came from another package which is still an in house software. On the other hand, the workflow of shake and nuke are very similar.