have you noticed, in most animations the lense flare is a big part of space animation (moon moving behind earth,..but have ever seen a lense flare in space.. i now the effect is to make it look like it being filmed with a normal camera, but i have always found it great that people make such things, i.e "The light flare you get off a camera when it hits sunlight".. and it makes the animation look so good.. so its these things that make me love 3d.. plus the fact i can make my own world.. Plus i can make my own comic book, seing as my archie comics have no relavence to todays world (well maybe jughead does) and i can get in to making all kinds of kids projects.. After i finish making my webpage for carrara shaders (up next year i hope,"Carrara's Shader kitchens") i have allways wanted to make kids games..and know with the internet,and everthing else that has made my computer have a soul..thats no longer a dream.. and with the price of carrara(with its features) i can get my dream going.. so a big thanks to all who made carrara work..

The biggest joke in my line of work is that film makers spent millions to remove lensflares from their work. As soon as this was accomplished animators spent millions trying to put the lens flare back in.

BTW: No offense intended to anywork in particular, but I have determined that I hate lensflares. Actually I have found that its not the lensflare I hate, its just anyeffect thats made with a resource. Ever look at your local tv commercials? I swear they are all using the photoshop lensflare. Did you notice that 90% of low budget 3d work is just composed of regular poser people? I cant wait till the graphics industry grows up a bit more. This will largly suck for me b/c I stink, but it will greatly improve results. Its sort of like wipes and DVE's in video...in the 70's you had crazy wipes, in the 80's some bastard created paint boxes, and in the 90's people went crazy with 3d dve's...thankfully a cleaner look is becoming popular for 2000+.....now that they have all the toys, people are seeing that simple cuts and dissolves are the best. Thats how I think it will be with 3d soon....I think they will gravitate from the weird wild shots where the effects are the scene and they will move more towards compistions where the compisition is the shot, not the shiny lens flare and lighting effects :) rant mode off...must go to bed so I can go put photoshop lensflares into crappy commercials tomorrow :) (hey smaller towns are about 10 years behind the times in video...I figure in 2010 I will be allowed to use cuts and dissovels again :)

My advice regarding wacky transitions: Just say NO! And I'd agree that much of the time lensflares are cheesy, but sometimes they're just so amazing. I don't know how much time I've spent trying to get flares out of a shot from off-screen lighting sources -- but on-screen? I love flares. And I use them in reality more often than I use them in 3D. The sad thing about RDS lensflares is that they look wrong. Photoshop flares look great and you can animate them in AfterEffects, but it's hard to get them to line up with actual, on-screen sources. But the things we have to put up with, eh? I just hope nobody comes up with a "dirty lens" post render filter -- I'm sure somebody would just love it because it makes the image look gritty and real....

REgarding lens flares in space... My fave show, Babylon 5, was the first to use this effect, and use it well, I think. That, along with the Jack Kirby space backdrops (filled with nebulae, gases, etc) really set the show visually apart from what had preceeded, like Star Trek. But like anything, exp. in TV, if Show A (or B5 ;) ) uses it and it works, then every show afterward makes use of it. I noticed DS9 started adding nebulae and such... And of course, the short lived Crusade series departed from the B5 look, with simple star-filled skies. On a related note, my own personal work I'm trying to head for a more iconic style (see Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics") to break out of the "hyperreal" 3D art we see everywhere. I'm not trying to smack anyone, I just want to do something different.

I agree with the lensman, there about B5 and the origins of lens flares in space settings, although it's arguable that Kubric really did it first in 2001.... Looking forward to seeing your iconic style -- loved McCloud's book, too.

Yea - I cant wait to see some of your work!! Clint

I cant wait to see some of your work!!< AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH! Performance anxiety!!! But seriously... I'll post some (unfinished) ideas up here tomorrow. Thanks for the interest! AzChip wrote >it's arguable that Kubric really did it first in 2001< yes.. I had forgotten. The scene in the Tycho excavation is what sticks in my memory. Hey with 2001 coming up in a month do you think MGM (or whatever it is now) will rerelease Space Odyssy?

Haven't heard anything about a re-release, but I fully expect to hear "Also Sprach Zarathustra" until we all die (just like we heard "Party Like It's 1999" last year). I fully expect smug TV reporters to use clips from 2001 making comparisons to our real state of space travel, etc.... Also, look for the movie all over cable.... And as for the performance anxiety -- "relax, don't worry. It happens to everyone once in a while.... Maybe we can try again later...." (Name the movie that line comes from and you get ten extra points!)

"No, not to me...." Is that the next line? AzChip, I've been running that line through my head all morning. I can see it, but not place it in the film. (Am I remembering the movie, or plugging into the Collective Unconscous, where this scene has been played out in bedrooms across time and spce?) So, having no lifelines left, I'll take a stab- "The Fly"?

Actually, the next line is, "Do you believe that they publish this trash?" It's from Top Secret. Hillary was reading from a romance novel to Nick just before the "Are You Lonesome Tonight" scene.... OK, I'm a dork....