3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [516]
Adding glow
The Lens Effects Glow dialog box, shown in Figure 49.24, enables you to apply glows to the entire scene or to specific objects based on the Object ID or Effects ID. Other Source options include Unclamped, Surf Norm (Surface Normals), Mask, Alpha, Z High, and Z Lo. This dialog box also enables you to filter the glow using options such as All, Edge, Perimeter Alpha, Perimeter, Bright, and Hue.
Additional tabbed panels under the preview pane let you control the Preferences, Gradients, and Inferno settings. In the Preferences tabbed panel, you can set the color of the glow to be based on the Gradient tabbed panel–defined gradients, based on Pixel or a User-defined color. You also can set the Intensity in the Preference tabbed panel.
FIGURE 49.23
You can use the Lens Effects Focus dialog box to blur an image.
FIGURE 49.24
Use the Lens Effects Glow dialog box to make objects and scenes glow.
Adding highlights
The Lens Effects Highlight dialog box, shown in Figure 49.25, includes the same Properties, Preferences, and Gradient tabbed panels as the Glow dialog box, except that the effects it produces are highlights instead of glows. The Geometry tabbed panel includes options for setting the Size and Angle of the highlights and how they rotate away from the highlighted object.
FIGURE 49.25
Use the Lens Effects Highlight dialog box to add highlights to scene objects.
Tutorial: Making a halo shine
When it comes to glowing objects, I think of radioactive materials, celestial objects like comets and meteors, and heavenly objects like angels. In this tutorial, I'm leaning toward heaven in an attempt to create some glory. But because I couldn't locate an angel, you'll use a simple halo.
To add highlights to a halo using the Video Post interface, follow these steps:
1. Open the Glowing halo.max file from the Chap 49 directory on the CD.
This file contains a head model and a halo. The halo object has been set to the G-Buffer Object Channel of 1 in its Object Properties dialog box.
2. Choose Rendering⇒Video Post to open the Video Post interface. Click the Add Scene Event button on the toolbar.
The Add Scene Event dialog box appears.
3. Type a name for the event in the Label text field, and click OK.
The event is added to the Queue pane.
4. Select the halo object in the viewport and click the Add Image Filter Event button on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+F) to open the associated dialog box. Select Lens Effects Highlight from the drop-down list, and click the Setup button.
The Lens Effects Highlight dialog box appears.
5. Click the VP Queue button followed by the Preview button to see the rendered scene. In the Properties tabbed panel, select the Object ID option and set the Object ID to 1 to match the G-Buffer channel for the halo object. In the Filter section, enable the All option. In the Preferences tabbed panel, set the Size to 3.0, Points to 4, the Color option to Pixel, and Intensity to 100. Then click OK.
6. Click the Execute Sequence button on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+R), and then click Render in the Execute Video Post dialog box.
Figure 49.26 shows the completed halo in all its shining glory.
FIGURE 49.26
Using the Lens Effects Highlight dialog box, you can add shining highlights to objects like this halo.
Adding backgrounds and filters using Video Post
As an example of the Video Post interface in action, you'll composite a background image of a waterfall with a rendered scene of an airplane model created by Viewpoint Datalabs. You'll then add some filter effects.
To composite an image with the Video Post interface, follow these steps:
1. Open the Airplane over waterfall.max file from the Chap 49 directory on the CD.
This file includes an airplane model. The directory also includes an image called waterfall.tif that is used later.
2. Open the Video