LensFlare Tutorial Part 3 of 4: Blender Lens Flare: Automatic Masking 

I have just posted a new tutorial on how to achieve automated masking of the lens flare using Blenders compositor.

Automated masking of lens flares can be very useful for complex scenes -- such as in a forrest - where many randomly placed branches may block a lens flare.

Here is an introduction animation showing the automated masking in action:

Here is the tutorial.

It's a little long - weighing in at just over 60mins -- but it has been put together to allow a non-expert to create a scene using the lens flare shader from scratch. Links in the info section below the video allow advanced users to skip ahead.

Here's the Automated Masking Node Setup

The actual node set up is reasonably simple - as can be seen from the noodle below.

The general idea works as follows:

1. Solid 3D objects in the scene that should block a lens flare are given a Pass Index.
   The IndexOB render-pass is enabled in the RenderLayer(s) for these objects.
   
2. A small emission source (e.g an icosphere) is placed on it's own RenderLayer.
   The emission source is parented to the empty that defines the position of the lens flare bloom.
   
3. The emission source output image, from its RenderLayer is Multiplied by the output of an IDMask. The IDMask index is set to match the Pass Index from above.
   
   a) Flare Blocked: When the  emission source is behind a 'solid' 3D objects (white) mask -- then its bright white image passes through the Multiply node. (i.e. 1 x 1 = 1 = small white dot)
   
   b) Flare Not Blocked: If he emission source is not behind a white mask -- then it does not appear at the out put of the Multiply node. (i.e. 1 x 0 = 0 = totally black image)
   
4. The output of the Multiply node is fed into a Dilate node. This will turn the small white dot from 3a into a fully white image that is the size of the render image.
   
   a) Flare Blocked: Output = fully white image.
   b) Flare not Blocked: Output = fully black image.
   
   (In earlier version of this noodle - various blur functions were used to spread the dot 'gating signal' to cover the whole image.
   
5. The output of the Dilate node is inverted.
   
   a) Flare Blocked: Output = fully black image.
   b) Flare not Blocked: Output = fully white image.
   
   Hence this signal can be fed directly to the Fac input off the ADD color mixer that mixes the output from the lens flare render layer with the output from the general 3D scene render layer.

Automated Lens Flare Masking Node Setup (click to enlarge)

The main reason that the video is so long is that it takes a while to go through the steps (for newer users) that allow all the render layers to be setup and the  drivers to be added to the shaders.

There are many more way's to achieve this automated masking effect I'm sure - so it will be interesting to see what people come up with.

This latest invocation is fair;y simple -- and very fast. It does appear to be very 'binary' however. It mostly seems to block - or not block.

Some of the earlers methods that used blur nodes etc were very good at quickly 'fading out' the lens flare as it passed behind objects (such as tree branches or plane wings).

Some tuning can be made with the masking sensitivity however by changing the emission brightness of the source (as seen in the video).

Draw Backs

The compositing method as described above has a key drawback in that once the lens flare bloom moves off the screen (along with its special masking emission source), the compositor can no longer be used to manage the masking -- as it cannot process off screen images.

There are work around for this - such as adding another special emission light source on the 'Masking' Render layer that can be 'keyed' by hand to get the flare into the desired visible state. The lens flare shader's Intensity input itself may also be 'keyed'  in this case.

The Future

I would like to investigate the use of the OSL 'trace' function to determine if any 3D scene objects are occluding the ray from the camera to the 'light source'. I did try this when porting/developing the shader - but without initial success.  It should be possible though - so hopefilly in the future -- extra compositing nodes and render layers will not be required.

Until then however -- this nifty trick seems to work well.

Also in the future - it would be good to see if a Python add on, or a Pynode, could be used to automate the set up of the lens flare render layers  camera plane creation and parenting. Again -- this should be quite do-able - but will have to wait for some development time  ;-)

Lens-flare Shader for Blender Cycles with real time preview

I have been using Blender for several years and have recently started to learn OSL - Open Shader Language.

As a first project I embarked upon creating a lens-flare shader for Blender. In the process I came across a lens-flare shader, written for the Renderman language by Larry Gritz & Tony Apodaca.

I decided to try and port this to OSL - and to my surprise after a day of tinkering it worked! Along the way I added a few features, such as user definable images for lens-flare elements and have got to a point where the shader can now be released. Details about how to download and use this shader are given below - along with video tutorial links.


Before proceeding, a big thanks to the original authors of the shader, Larry Gritz for his work in making the Open Shader Language available to the world and the Blender developers for creating such a great tool.

In the process of learning OSL (an on-going process) I found the following blogs / links extremely helpful.

• Open Shading web site by Thomas Dinges.
  A great way to learn how to start with OSL and Blender.
• Small Blender Things - a fantastic site for OSL code implemented for Blender.
• The Open Shading Language Specification. An essential tool.

Screenshot showing the lens- flare shader node set up, real time 3D preview, and positioning control.
Drivers are used to link the position control Empty to the shaders "LightPosition" input.

Lens-flare Shader Features:

• Real time 3D viewport preview.
• Shader output may be connected directly to a Material's "Surface" node connection (easy node setup).
• Lens-flare light source position co-ordinates may be set by the user.
• Highly customisable Bloom, Starburst, Rainbow, Disk, RIng,Blot and Hole elements.
• Number of spots, and the distribution of spot type, may be varied by the user.
• Optional user definable images for all lens-flare elements (new feature).
• Full control to mix between synthesised lens-flare and user image based lens flare.
• Lens flare elements may be drawn in GIMP - Photoshop - Downloaded - or other.
• Easy color tinting.
• Simple random color variation user settings.
• Automatic or user definable aspect ratio setting (e.g. for anamorphic lens-flare).
• An Extensive selection of Color outputs allow all of the lens flare elements to be further proceed in the node editor if desired.

Shader Set up:

The lens-flare is created by applying the shader to a plane
 parented in front of the camera. An "Empty" is used to define the
position of the flare's light source.

The image above shows the simple shader node set up
for the lens-flare plane material. The "Light Source Empty" position is fed to the
shader using Drivers to set the x,y and z inputs of Value nodes.

Video Tutorials

Two of the planned four tutorial videos have been completed. Follow the links to see an overview of the lens-flare shader features - anda tutorial on how to set up a scene with this shader.

• LensFlare Tutorial Part 1 of 4: Blender Real TIme Lens Flare Shader Introduction. 
• LensFlare Tutorial: Part 2 of 4: How To Set Up a LensFlare Shader in Blender.

Part's 2 and 4 are yet to be completed - but will go over additional composition features - such as automated masking of the flare as it passes behind objects. (Download the .blend file or look at the node 'noodle' below if you want to try this before the videos are completed).

Download an Example Blend file and LensFlare Shader File (lensflare1v1.osl) 

An example .blend file with an:

• Example scene
• lensflare1v1.osl shader 
• Sample user defined shader textures
• Masking composite node setup

is available from Blendswap here.

Blender Artists Link

• There is a lens-flare BA thread here

Get a copy of the Shader here!

• Download a copy of the code below as lensflare1v1.osl - and save into the same directory as your .blend file.
• Load the file as a script in the materials node editor - and connect directly to the Material output node of a plane parented to the front of a camera. Follow the video tutorials for more information.

Automated masking of the flare 

This is the subject of an upcoming video - however if you want the Node
Noodle - either download the .blend file from Blendswap (see above) or copy the node setting below.

Note: An additional lensflare plane with its own shader is needed in front of the camera for this to work)

Finally

I hope to see your example scenes and tutorials on the web  :-)