Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: How to paint a light sabre glow?

BladeWolf opened this issue on Dec 13, 2002 ยท 24 posts


BladeWolf posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 1:20 PM

Anybody know of a way to paint a light sabre glow in Photoshop 7, or know of a tutorial on how to do it? I've attached the picture so you can see what kind of image it is I want to practice on. Thanks a lot! Blade

stewer posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 1:31 PM

Poser 4 or 5? In Poser 5 you could use a shader to create glow-like effect for you. In either case, I'd set the ambient color of the sabre very high so you have a good light-independant guide for post work and don't have to guess when it's in the shadow.


stewer posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 1:34 PM

See the picture in my Tron WIP thread below for how ambient glowing can look like. Play with the transparency/transparency falloff controls, you might be able to achieve the glowing effect without any post work.


BladeWolf posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 1:36 PM

Thanks Stewer, its in Poser 5, and how would I go about attaching a shader to it? I'll do some fiddling and see what I come up with, but if you could tell me how to attach a shader, that would be sweet :) Thanks!


stewer posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 1:56 PM

Unfortunately my Poser 5 is busy rendering for the next few hours...otherwise I'd post a material room screenshot of how I'd create such a shader.


lhiannan posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:07 PM

using Photoshop, try drawing a mask around the saber, copy-n-paste and then using the Outer Glow blending option on the layer.


Crescent posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:16 PM

You might want to IM _dodger. He has created some great light sabres, and I suspect that the glow is created in Photoshop.


Gorodin posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:26 PM

Lots of ways to do this. Here's the easiest that comes to mind: 1. create a new layer 2. set foreground color to the glow color you want 3. using a paintbrush roughly the same width of your saber(maybe a littel wider) paint a line that covers your glowing object. (use whatever method you prefer, just mask out the bit you want to glow) 4. Apply a gaussian blur. I would suggest @10px for this size of a pic. 5. Set the layer blending to Screen. 6. Duplicate the layer a few times until you feel the glow is bright enough

BladeWolf posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:33 PM

Thanks guys... Now, one more dumb question: Applying the hi-lights through the image from the glow of the light sabre? Would I just paint the hi-lights on? And if so, what settings would I use to get a light, but difinate hi-light?


Gorodin posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:42 PM

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12413&Form.ShowMessage=888765

Again, use a new layer, set the layer to screen, paint the highlights using the airbrush. Play with duplicating the layer and setting it to overlay. However, a better method is to make the glow at render time using a colored spotlight. See my jedi pic at the attached thread. The glow on the character was rendered in poser. The glow on the wall was done using the above method.

Netherworks posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:44 PM

If you're going to do postwork in Photoshop anyway, I wouldn't worry with forcing it to work via shaders. The way lhiannan said will do just fine. select the white of the blade (I used the magic wand at tolerance 16), copy, paste as a new layer. use the outer glow layer style, use a bright red that's close the existing glow on the sabre (like RGB 255, 69,60). I used Blend Mode normal, spread 15%, size 60%, opacity 100%. The Blend Modes of overlay and soft light might give good results too. You could also flatten the glow layer and blur it a bit to soften up the blade.

.


RonGC posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:45 PM

Same effect with Eyecandy 3.1 photoshop plugin Free version. Used the glow effect :-) took about 10 seconds to do this..

Netherworks posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:45 PM

good lord, quick replies. LOL.

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lhiannan posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 2:54 PM

I have no external life :) and proud of it.


stewer posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 3:13 PM

Maybe I'm just too much of an animator...shaders are better for animation since you don't want to have to fiddle in Photoshop for every frame of glow. Anyway, here's how the shader looks like.

EvoShandor posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 3:25 PM

Hmm, I was thinking of a different technique perhaps to have some ambient red light reflecting off her body suit for added realism. You could experiment with a red spot light in Poser maybe, or in Photoshop, experiment with the dodge tool on the red channel at varying exposures...thats how I'd do it anyways...or perhaps use another layer of red where you want the glow at varying transparencies...then use your lighting effects and diffuse glow for added realism. MO only Evo


stewer posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 3:33 PM

Ahhh...couldn't stop it. Once I get started in the material room, things get out of control. What was in those cigarettes, by the way? Tasted funny...

JFStan posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 3:41 PM

This is a straight Poser 4 render of a WIP of mine. I wanted a lightsabre that would produce a volumetric glow from any angle with absolutely no postwork. Most of my projects involve animation, so these criteria are a must.

The blade produces a halo glowing effect and can "pulsate" when animated. No textures are used so the color can be easily changed in the materials menu.

I'm hoping to put together an entire package of various blades, blasts and laser beams plus scripts to "pulsate" them for animations.

-=JFStan=-


EvoShandor posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 3:49 PM

That's neat JFStan, I haven't seen anything like that for Poser before.


JFStan posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 4:01 PM

Thanks Evo, I'll try to post a short animation on my FTP site soon so you can see the pulsating effect. -=JFStan=-


jarm posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 5:11 PM

What armour is that?


Little_Dragon posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 6:19 PM

Photoshop Lightsabre Tutorials
http://www.jmort.com/lightsaber.htm
http://wynd.teamanime2k.org/tutorial_lightsaber.htm



Netherworks posted Fri, 13 December 2002 at 6:22 PM

yeah JFStan, I tend to think in still imagery - hadn't thought about animation. That looks really good BTW.

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JFStan posted Sat, 14 December 2002 at 12:46 AM

Attached Link: http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/~jfstan/sabre_test.avi

Thanks Nether... Here's a link to a very short animation which demonstrates the pulsating glow of my lightsabre blades (DivX format).

-=JFStan=-