Okay, I give up, how is this effect done? Promo Art, yep.
Griffin Avid
Posts: 3,815
I hate to be that guy, but this one has me stumped. I've seen it before in a few places, but how the heck is this effect done?
There's a slight blurry haze over the whole image. I don't think it's tied to the DOF, unless they've moved the focal point BEHIND the subject.
In reality, that would be moving the focal space IN FRONT of the subject so even the main character is slightly out of focus.
In some images, I can see the brush or overlay. It's not really that.
Like see, this one looks like a lot of rim lights. Makes sense.
This one. This one, right here.
Who has an idea?
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Comments
Gausian blur on an overlay layer, mabe?
DeWaterRat is right. A little bit of blur and an overlay image on top of it or blur effect + contrast control.
Or maybe the effect is in the camera? I know there are fog and haze cameras.
As I battle to my last breath, I am stumbling across all kinds of other effects....
This is something else...
Anything that affects the whole, image, be it blur, sharpness, contrast etc, is likely done in postwork, ie a using a photo editor like Photoshop, rather than via some special effects in the renderer.
The render is important you will struggle to get the look you are after if the render is not right, bloom in render can help as can DOF; good lighting is imperative, good bright but not overexposed lighting.
Then post work as others have suggusted.
Just one thing won't get you the effect, at least not in my experience.
if I had to guess I would believe it was done with something like this fog camera by Marshian then applied the fog settings accordingly to the needs of the render effect, it maybe even made using a iray light gel with a DOF set on the camera
Also some renders you have shown looks like they used the bloom filter then reduce the bloom in layers in postwork. but that be just a guess
It's also highly probable in your examples that the background is a still image rather than something rendered. That allows the focus/lighting/color balance in the foreground to be completely independent of what's going on in the background. Likewise, the effect can be duplicated in render by placing planes with a light frosted glass or other diffusion shader at multiple levels between the camera and subject and adjusting the cutout opacity (Marshian's new Fog Camera is pretty much a prebuilt version of this.) You can also make clear spots in the middle of those diffusion planes by putting a mask on the opacity layer, which is the virtual equivalent of the old photographer's trick of viginetting with a partial layer of vaseline on glass. The catch, of course, is that doing it all in-render will take a lot more time to render than rendering it straight and doing it in post, and will require a lot more care with the lighting.
Here's a technique that will give similar results to the second image in the first post:
Copy and paste the base image to a new layer, use unsharp mask on this second layer to enhance brightness/details. Copy and paste the second layer to a new (third) layer and use Gaussian blur to soften everything. now adjust the opacity to the top 2 layers to achieve the desired effect (you will need to play with the values for both the unsharp mask and gaussian blur to get the proper effect for your image resolution).
It looks like there is a probably bit more going on in the images, but this is a good starting point.
Fog atmosphere (an object around the camera with a certain type of SSS shader, Marshian sells a setup and I have a DIY tutorial) plus bloom in the Render settings (maybe around 35k threshold, I'd guess) is the way in-engine, as others have said. Postwork is often faster because bloom slows render a little, but in-engine fog slows it a lot.
I vote bloom in the render settings as well ;)
Laurie
Photoshop. Looks like to me. One of the glamour ones I imagine.
They may be applying diffuse glow also. That will give it that dreamy look.
If you've got Filter Forge there are a ton of filters that might produce similar effects to the second one when combined with some DOF either in-render or post.
Here's a couple likely ones I found with a quick search for "soft glow" and "soft focus" on the Filter Forge site:
Apply one of those on a copied layer and playing with the opacity of the layer would pretty quickly create that basic effect.
If you're curious, here's a good article on how to create a soft focus effect with a real camera (I imagine these could all be adapted with varying amounts of work to 3D): http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/camera_skills/master-soft-focus-photography-91530
I assume its bloom radius set to 1 with a low brightness. I've used that in several of my latest renders
Try this:
In Photoshop, duplicate the base render. Blur the copy with Gaussian Blur. The amount should be small, but it'll vary depending on the size of your image. Like 2-5 or thereabouts.
Then Filter > Distort > Diffuse Glow. Set grain very low or to zero, glow and clear to something like 15-20 each. After applying the filter, change the opacity of the layer to 50%.
That should at least get you started towards a similar look. The first image you posted in particular has some really excellent lighting in the render, and the better your render, the better any photoshop trickery will be.
You might also want to experiment with render canvases, which will give you the freedom to "dial in" lighting layers, but that's another (huge) topic.
The last picture that you are refering to is absolutely stunning.
I am putting the outfit and Karyssa 8 in my cart.
I have no idea how to use Daz Studio, however to be able to use this outfit would be a dream!!
I use V4 and A3. I don't know if I have an outfit that stunning!!!
I know this is thread is well over a yeaar old. But, I was looking at SY YouTube channel, and can't find the DIY tutorial she says is there regarding the fog procedure type setup without purchasing a product?. Also I assume what additional settings to use in DS, etc.
Hopefully she, or another person can help. Thx.
I believe this may be the one : Creating Dust And Atmosphere In Iray
Ha!
Hadn't realised it was a year old, I've been looking for the product, to see if I want it. :)
If I was going to replicate the effect, I would start with a nice HDRI with foliage to create the lovely background; it will create diffuse light and provide the background. Next, pose the character. Next, create a plane primitive and apply the frosted glass from the Default Resources Iray shaders to it. Position the plane halfway between the camra and the character. Change its cutoff opacity to 10% - 20% so that it is just a translucent haze. Position the camera and use DOF so that the little green line lines up with the portion of the character that should be in sharpest focus. You are focusing past the haze plane. Add a directional light from above to replicate the sun. Perhaps, add a touch of bloom. And Voila!
Soft Focus tutorials for PS (which apply well to GIMP)... there's usually at least one layer with blur (Gaussian works for that), and then another layer with the mode set to Hard Light or something similar in effect. Your blur layers shouldn't be 100%... but how you balance the layers is part of the fun, I guess.
You can clean up mid layers of blur to give less blur to detailed areas (like, wipe it with a cloth, or the eraser tool)... so the face might be less blurred in the detail areas.
God-rays also can be done post-render. Lots of things can be done post-render. It's actually very fun to learn.
Depth Shader https://www.daz3d.com/depth-shaders and Depth of Field enabled on the camera
If it's not postwork it's bloom and DoF. You can see it in some of Stonemason's camera and render settings packages for his UF products.
E Arkham is on the right path. IF you do that method with diffuse glow, make sure your foreground color is set correctly. Set it to white or to whatever light tint you want. Otherwise it will make the whole image go dark. You have to set the foreground color BEFORE you launch the filter dialog in PS. It's an old technique they used to call sugar skin. Do it on the separate copy of the beauty layer and adjust opacity to taste. You can also get neat effects changing that layer at low opacities on different layer modes like soft light and overlay.
ETA: You need to set the "sugar skin" layer to soft light or overlay as well if I remember right.
Griffin, what was the specific effect on that last image you were talking about? The skin or the overlay? I couldn't tell if you were asking about it or if you DID that image.
You could also use something like this along with the sugar skin technique. There's literally bazillions of them all over the design sites. They're just one or 2 click presets using lightroom, via Photoshop or standalone LR. Throw the effect on a smart layer and you're good to go, maybe with a diffuse glow layer thrown in.
https://creativemarket.com/dslava/2733190-Dreamy-Lightroom-Preset
Here... soft focus techniques. Plenty of free tutorials on the internet to show you how to do it in PS, and those all apply to GIMP. I'd explain it better, but I'm no expert.
2 Hard Light mode layers, 2 layers with Gaussian blur, 1 base layer. Took me less than 5 minutes to throw this together. If I spent time on it, I could make it look better... it's not difficult to layer, erase what you don't want too blurry and/or put more focused layers on top...
(Also have the non-soft focus image from the Babina thread just to show it didn't start blurry.)
As for doing in-engine... I like the layer/planar fogs? I think SickleYield has a planar smoke/fog product.
Volumetric is bad on the system resources that I have.
If you're not casting shadows from the figures onto the fog, why do anything except in post? Rendering is already an imperfect science. Smoke, fog, blur & bloom - all so much more convenient to do in PS or GIMP.
Sickleyield has a quick introduction to using Iray canvasses that shows one way to add a glow effect.