are lens flares "back in fashion"?

[cresshead]

so... cast your opinion!
now we have the new star trek film with lens flares EVERYWHERE is it cool again to throw in lensflares into shots?

[cresshead]

have to say i'm loving lens flare on my latest project!
also just to note, lighwave is waaaay better than 3dsmax for setting up lens flares too.:thumbsup:

http://www.newtek.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=73739&d=1243135276

[IMI]

I voted "no" although I'm not sure why. ;)
I think you left out the obvious one though, "Lens flares have their place but shouldn't be overused".
I've used 'em here and there, but only when I wanted to be cheesy. ;)
Like in my entry for the Speed Modeling Challenge #31: LINKY. (http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96850&page=2) Post #20.
But that was entirely for the effect and nothing about that render was intended to be "realistic".

Yours though is pretty good there, I have to say, definitely far better than mine. :)

You know though, you can see lens flares all over the place in regular TV. I don't know enough about it to know how much can be avoided, how much is intentional, but watching some of the nature shows on Discovery, it seems pretty common. So it stands to reason that if you are making an animation, particularly if a camera is pointing right at the sun or bright lights, that it would be more realistic to have lens flares. For that raw look, I suppose.

[JeffrySG]

They are like anything else. They can be good when used appropriately.

[thomascheng]

It just need to be used correctly. It was never bad, just overly used to the point that people got tired of seeing them. I'll definitely use them when the shot demands it.

[OnlineRender]

hate seeing PS ones that havent even been altered

[erikals]

yes, but no. lensflares still look too fake, unfortunately,...

[3DGFXStudios]

yes, but no. lensflares still look too fake, unfortunately,...

The lightwave lensflares look fake! I like some of the compositing plugins :D

[erikals]

... um, haven't seen any good ones i think, got any good links? <:l

[cresshead]

Q. so who does the best lens flares in base 3d apps and also are there better ones via plugins or via compositing apps?

lightwave's flares are quick to set up and really helps to have then also in opengl too.

3dsmax has 2 types of lens flare, one via the effects chanel in a light and one via video post...they give different controls...no open gl feedback though you have to use a viper style fx render that's interactive..one good thing with max over lightwave is the ability to instance lights so controlling banks of lens flare by ajusting 1 instanced light..hope to see this sort of thing in CORE once it gets a renderer.

so Q.

what's the built in lens flare like in>>
modo
blender
maya
xsi
cinema4d
houdini

[gerry_g]

Well I voted yes but I'm fifty-five and still bleaching my hair blond so who knows, LW does a fairly good/fake-ish sort of lens flare but like in the pic at the top what makes it better is the ability to add in the blue anamorphic streak and being able to burn out the image with bloom or corona, For all the prudes who disagree I would liken this madness of adding fake lens aberrations to images in an age when technically when we can do better to that of distilling chardonnay in stainless steal vats then adding oak chips to give it that tainted taste that came from when it was matured in oak caskets just for the sake of achieving authenticity

[JeffrySG]

... um, haven't seen any good ones i think, got any good links? <:l


Knoll Light Factory Pro
Is there really anything else that compares to it out there??

[thomascheng]

Thank you Star Trek for going against the grain and bringing back lens flare. Just goes to show that people didn't use it because of popular opinion. Then again, it's usually because a lot of people didn't used it properly.

[cresshead]

Knoll Light Factory Pro
Is there really anything else that compares to it out there??

just been reading a review on that actually!
http://toolfarm.com/reviews/klf.html

they also mention vision lab studio as an alternative
http://fxhome.com/visionlab though i'm wondering what it offers over discreet combustion [which i have> vesion 2 btw]

lens flares in xsi>>
http://www.digitaltutors.com/free_tutorials/video_d.php?vid=611

[cresshead]

just watched the quick overview of xsi lensflare set up and i really like their idea of having a preset lib that's got some nice presets to work with straight away

http://www.digitaltutors.com/dtv_/xsi/rendering/611/611-bannerb.jpg

[JeffrySG]

just watched the quick overview of xsi lensflare set up and i really like their idea of having a preset lib that's got some nice presets to work with straight away

http://www.digitaltutors.com/dtv_/xsi/rendering/611/611-bannerb.jpg

The knoll package comes with many many presets as well.
(or at least it used to) I don't know why they would not include them anymore.

[JeffrySG]

they also mention vision lab studio as an alternative
http://fxhome.com/visionlab though i'm wondering what it offers over discreet combustion [which i have> vesion 2 btw]

It looks like it has tons of effects but it does seem that it's very prosumer-ish. But as long as it delivers that's all that matters.

Here are some videos for Knoll Light Factory if you wanted to take a look.

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/tutorials-download.php?id=3

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/tutorials-download.php?id=4

[Nicolas Jordan]

I've always liked lens flares as long as they look good and aren't over used.

[Eugeny]

LW's lens flares are super outdated, i think ones they was written for Babylon 5 no one touched them (except the OGL preview that appear in LW 6 or 7).
Did u guys know that u can't merge lens flares (custom build) with merge lights from scene ? They simply going to be replaced by default one if your host scene don't have the same custom flares ... Learned by my skin, after few hours of building custom flares that mimic Hi8 preset from Cinema4D and merging to another scene (i think C4D have the best flares builder, also the max's old videopost flares effect is not bad too) . The only way to merge custom flares is to merge your scene to the scene with custom lens flares or copy paste code from LWS text ...
Here is Cinema's lens flares builder (plenty of presets but u can't save your own)

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5679/c4dlensflares01.jpg

And Max's Video Post lens flares (u can build everything u want and save and load presets, but there is no built ins, as far i know)

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6265/maxlensflares01.jpg

[erikals]

imo, KLF always looked to be the best, but even that one is far from good enough.
if you want a nice lens flare u are better off making it from scratch. (photoshop +post)
(that definetly will be time consuming though)

why no company ever made realistic lens flare software beats me...
i'd buy it for sure, no question.

[SAHiN]

For as long as I've been in this industry, every film director always tried avoided catching lens flares on screen but couldn't. For most it was something like cameraman filming his own shadow..
..and for us, lens falres always meant a type of effect that helped us simulate how a real camera would react if it came face to face with direct light source..

So, in one of the Star Trek movies JJ.Abrams discoverd a lens flare plug-in and turned Star Trek into a two-hour commercial for lens flare plugins? .. Was the result any good ? In my opinion NO !
It was unnecessary.. uncalled for , as we didnt even see the source of those flares and not to mention they were annoying..

So my vote is NOPE.. Lens flares are not in JJ Abrams is out :)

[cresshead]

imo, KLF always looked to be the best, but even that one is far from good enough.
if you want a nice lens flare u are better off making it from scratch. (photoshop +post)
(that definetly will be time consuming though)

why no company ever made realistic lens flare software beats me...
i'd buy it for sure, no question.

so what's missing or poor in current lens flares?

[wacom]

I guess having some lens flare options is a good thing if you have to match bad footage. I'm sure there are cases where it's hard to avoid filming it...and if you add an effect in that scene maybe will add consistency to have lens flare?

Personally I think if a light is shining directly into the camera it seems almost "natural" to see lens flare. But how many scenes with space ships racing past stars over do it? I think the area of that being in died around the same time the PS1 was still THE game console!

I'd like to know what hip kids think is going to be the "next lens flare" so I don't fall too far behind! Maybe it's ambient occlusion shaders used directly on models or just multiplied over a lambert shader pass?

[cresshead]

I guess having some lens flare options is a good thing if you have to match bad footage. I'm sure there are cases where it's hard to avoid filming it...and if you add an effect in that scene maybe will add consistency to have lens flare?

Personally I think if a light is shining directly into the camera it seems almost "natural" to see lens flare. But how many scenes with space ships racing past stars over do it? I think the area of that being in died around the same time the PS1 was still THE game console!

I'd like to know what hip kids think is going to be the "next lens flare" so I don't fall too far behind! Maybe it's ambient occlusion shaders used directly on models or just multiplied over a lambert shader pass?

not going off topic too much but is there anyway either with nodes or whatever to get a similar result in shaders with lightwave 9.6 to match that of the mental ray arch and design shader in 3dsmax where you have a tick box option to add ambient occlusion rather than have to render the whole scene out again and composite it later?

http://www.newtek.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=73774&d=1243216779

i'd love to be able to add in ambient occlusion to my spaceship scenes without the need to calc radiosity [time] or create a separate render of each scene just for ambient occlusion...mainly just to dirty up the nooks n crannies...or a dirt shader?

[erikals]

so what's missing or poor in current lens flares?

inability to adjust blur, and color correction.
ability to customize your own shapes would be the perfect thing, for then to mix it with a glow effect.

[Silkrooster]

so what's missing or poor in current lens flares?

Honoring objects. Nothing like seeing the lens flare on the back side of the lights object. Jeesh...

[erikals]

just an example that is hard to recreate if not done manually,...
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stephen.plews/Atonement/atonement/flare-%20atonement%20redcar%20-%20_jpg.jpg

http://www.steephill.tv/2007/queenstown/pictures/lens%20flare%20at%20sunset.jpg

http://www.elizabethandrien.com/uploads/processed/0652/0612301550191lensflare.jpg

[Panikos]

The next trend will be Wireframe rendering. There is long road until we reach paper drawing.

[akademus]

Better not. I hate that nineties look, where everyone was throwing lens flares in, while photographers and camera operators are trying to avoid them like plague.

[cresshead]

just an example that is hard to recreate if not done manually,...
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stephen.plews/Atonement/atonement/flare-%20atonement%20redcar%20-%20_jpg.jpg

http://www.steephill.tv/2007/queenstown/pictures/lens%20flare%20at%20sunset.jpg

http://www.elizabethandrien.com/uploads/processed/0652/0612301550191lensflare.jpg

so
1.being able to blur the reflections
2. get the flare to have an alpha channel
3.occlusion

[cresshead]

The next trend will be Wireframe rendering. There is long road until we reach paper drawing.

:D
i still love wireframe renders!

[Titus]

Lens flares is the new radiosity.

[erikals]

in other words,.. each render should have a lens flare :)

[SBowie]

Honestly, I think this is one of those things CG artists worry about that 98% of the viewing audience never even notice - even when you point it out to them. Show a CG guy a lensflare, and he wants to dissects it frame by frame, and element by element. Show the same scene to a typical popcorn muncher and he says "Cool!"

In a similar vein, lately I've seen a rash of what seem to me to be very poor CG explosions on tv ... like someone had dragged the old Pyromania disks out dropped a clip on top of cars, ships, planets, what have you, and gone for a beer. I really think the average viewer just doesn't appreciate the difference.

[erikals]

i aim at those 2% http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/wise.gif

but actually, an interesting point is that a lot of ppl are catching up,
they don't go running out of theaters because of a crappy bluescreen spider anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSI5jIY0Zk4&feature=fvst

[mosconariz]

Those flares were not CG at all:

I love the idea that the future was so bright it couldn’t be contained in the frame.

The flares weren’t just happening from on-camera light sources, they were happening off camera, and that was really the key to it. I want [to create] the sense that, just off camera, something spectacular is happening. There was always a sense of something, and also there is a really cool organic layer that’s a quality of it. They were all done live, they weren’t added later. There are something about those flares, especially in a movie that can potentially be very sterile and CG and overly controlled. There is something incredibly unpredictable and gorgeous about them. It is a really fun thing. Our DP would be off camera with this incredibly powerful flashlight aiming it at the lens. It became an art because different lenses required angles, and different proximity to the lens. Sometimes, when we were outside we’d use mirrors. Certain sizes were too big… literally, it was ridiculous. It was like another actor in the scene….

We had two cameras, so sometimes we had two different spotlight operators. When there was atmosphere in the room, you had to be really careful because you could see the beams. So it was this ridiculous, added level of pain in the ***, but I love… [looking at] the final cut, [the flares] to me, were a fun additional touch that I think, while overdone, in some places, it feels like the future is that bright.

Link: http://geektyrant.com/2009/04/5306/

However, I can't say if I liked them or not, cause Mexico's film summer was ****** up by the influenza panic weeks... ****!

We're still waiting for wolverine, hahaha!

****!!

[toby]

not going off topic too much but is there anyway either with nodes or whatever to get a similar result in shaders with lightwave 9.6 to match that of the mental ray arch and design shader in 3dsmax where you have a tick box option to add ambient occlusion rather than have to render the whole scene out again and composite it later?

i'd love to be able to add in ambient occlusion to my spaceship scenes without the need to calc radiosity [time] or create a separate render of each scene just for ambient occlusion...mainly just to dirty up the nooks n crannies...or a dirt shader?
Easy, plug the ao node into the diffuse channel. Add a color tool node inbetween in order to tweak it.

[realgray]

All the live action lens flares were done in camera as revealed in this podcast.
http://media.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-ep058.mov
I liked them :)

[toby]

so
1.being able to blur the reflections
2. get the flare to have an alpha channel
3.occlusion
They also have some texture and irregularity, cg ones are *perfect*. This one also shows a halo edge
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm275/n82LensReflection/n82%20Lens%20Reflections%20with%20Flash/21032008019.jpg

J.J. overdid it, Michael-Bay style; over-the-top. It's just bling, which always gets tiresome real fast. People will look back on it like they look back on platform shoes.

[Titus]

Lens flares go well with flying machines, just look at Blader Runner or Close Encounters.

[cresshead]

Lens flares go well with flying machines, just look at Blader Runner or Close Encounters.

totally!...that's what i thought when starting to add flare to my ikarus spaceship re close encounters ships