How can I blur an object or a Group?

[Ramón López]

Hello, another newbie question ...Well, that's all, I've been looking for a surface option or a material with no luck... Do you know how could I add some blur to an object or a group of patches? There must be a way, isn't?? Well, I hope... THANKS!

[Joe Gamblin]

What kind of blur? Motion blur or just out of focus, or just generally fuzzy.

 

Motion = Motion blur under rendering options (make sure multi-pass is on)

 

Focus = Depth of field rendering option

 

Fuzzy = Translucent material with a high density.

 

Hope that helps. If not, try to describe the effect exactly that you're looking for.

[Fuchur]

Hm... I would say if you only want to blur one object in your scene and everything else should stay sharp, you should render in two layers, blur the layer with the object and combine it with the one without blur in AM oder AE.

 

*Fuchur*

[Ramón López]

if you only want to blur one object in your scene and everything else should stay sharp, you should render in two layers, blur the layer with the object and combine it with the one without blur in AM oder AE.

Ohhh... I see... But is it normal so much complication for a simple (and so basic) blur/fuzzy effect??? Really it's so complicated get something like that into the same 3D application? I wonder, cause I don't really know... and if the answer is "yes", well, no problem () but I really hoped that I was missing something... Anyway thank you for the suggestion! ...Ah! And well, the...

 

Fuzzy = Translucent material with a high density

...way seems to "simulate" the effect but I can't get exactly the spected results cause the edges have still like too much sharp, although it's and aproximation at least... so THANKS!!! And now I'll continue experimeting with this although any other suggestion it'll be welcomed as well

[heyvern]

Keep in mind AM is a "3D" application. It simulates the "real world". If you want something "fuzzy" like a "furry ball" then you could use hair. If you want a fuzzy ball of light or energy you could use glow, or a volumetric light or a glowing spherical combiner with transparency fall off.

 

The type of blur that exists in the "real" world is depth of field, or focus. AM doesn't have "painter" type effects like "blurring".

 

You could render different "layers" of objects and import them back in to AM and composite them on layers and use DOF to "blur" one or the other. This would be a way to "fake" object blurring.

 

Could you tell us exactly what kind of effect you are trying to achieve? A glowing ball? A fuzzy, hairy object? An out of focus object? Without know what you want to do it is hard to offer more specific suggestions.

 

 

This stereo image used render as lines and glow for the "cube". I used a material with "blurred" edges for the glowing stripes coming out of the screen.

 

-vern

[Ramón López]

Keep in mind AM is a "3D" application. It simulates the "real world". If you want something "fuzzy" like a "furry ball" then you could use hair. If you want a fuzzy ball of light or energy you could use glow, or a volumetric light or a glowing spherical combiner with transparency fall off.

 

Ey, THANK YOU hey! And yeah, all that have a lot of sense, and sometimes it seems like if I still be thinking in 2D terms, like in my Anime Studio days, you know ...it have been a long time with it and in some aspects like this one it seems difficult to change my whole mindset, so meantime I'm still missing features like can apply post effects to Models or CP groups for example... but I imagine things so "basic" like that in 2D terms can be difficult talking about 3D...

 

Well, but as you say, it seems that in some or other way it must be possible to "fake" and I'll continue investigating about it treating to aboid (as far as possible) the layer inporting way for workflow reasons... And yeah, I was basically treating to get "out of focus" objects but independently of camera settings or their situation, something more like an own propertly to can exagerate or freely change that own "blury" over time without much sense, hmmm... have you seen that Woody Alen picture where Robin Williams plays that "out of focus" actor? Well, that could be the idea, but not epecifically applied to any project by now...

 

Well, and thanks again for the help & example , regards!

[heyvern]

have you seen that Woody Alen picture where Robin Williams plays that "out of focus" actor?

 

Have not seen that. This effect would have to be done with some type of compositing. There is no way to do that to a specific model in AM. If you want this effect you will have to render your project in "layers" and blur them in post.

 

For example:

 

Render the object you want to blur all by itself with an alpha channel for compositing. You could render with the shadows or you could render the shadows as a separate "layer" for compositing.

 

Turn off this object and render again.

 

Now you can import those 2 or 3 layers back into AM or into another video editor and blur the object independently of the rest of the scene. This would be a good reason to have the objects shadow on a separate layer so it can be blurred more or less as needed. If using AM to composite you would use depth of field for blurring but this would be a "fake". I don't have the latest greatest version of AM so there might be "compositing" tools built in now that allow for "blurring" layers. I'm just guessing. I know the latest version has a built in NLE compositor.

 

-vern

[Drakkheim]

How about applying a material with an edge gradient going from 100% transparent to Opaque to the object.

[heyvern]

How about applying a material with an edge gradient going from 100% transparent to Opaque to the object.

 

That would work for very simple objects but wouldn't actually "blur" a complete model. I think Ramon is trying to achieve a "real" blur effect on an otherwise "normal" model. The only way to do that would be to use DOF or post processing with compositing.

 

I think this is a very specific and unusual effect. It isn't something that would come up very often. It would be 10 times easier to create this effect in post then to create a feature in AM to do it. The return on investment of a feature like this would be small since it wouldn't be used very much.

 

-vern

[Ramón López]

Thanks for expose your ideas guys! I think I'll try that gradient one just in case, althought if finally I have to use composite for this (as I afraid...) well I'll do it, but I only wanted to be sure I used up completely all the other (possible) possibilities... It seems that all this was finally much more complicated that I could imagine at first and now I think to know why, althought (OTOH) I can't avoid to think too how cool could be can apply some kind Post Effect to a model or layer in the same way they can be added actually, in example, to a camera... you know, to get results directly and with the advantage of can make any change at any time with total liberty... And, for several reasons, I'm not asking for a feature like that in to A:M, but can't avoid to desire that could be possible in general , BYE!

[heyvern]

the problem with a "post effect" is that in AM a post effect is applied AFTER the render, thus the term "post effect". It would be difficult to apply a blur to an object that is in front of other objects. The object needs to be blurred, then some kind of "3D" mask to determine how the blurred object fits into the 3D space.

 

Using a material to simulate a blur could work but it is going to be difficult to create this effect on say a character model with textures and surface properties. You won't be able to get a uniform blur on model details like face features or shapes. You would need to have two copies of the model if you wanted a "non blurred" version. Also you wouldn't be able to transition between the two smoothly.

 

Don't be afraid of compositing. Try it with something really really simple. You may find it isn't that hard... and it might save you a ton of time.

 

You could try another thing that would simplify the compositing.

 

Let's say you have a moving character or model in a choreography that you want to "blur". Render out the blurred model in the scene by itself making sure you have an alpha channel. Use DOF to make the render blurred or if there is a blur post effect (is there one? Not sure) use that. Import this rendered animation as a camera rotoscope and set the properties to be on top or above the scene. Now turn off the model in the cho and render. This saves the trouble of actually doing any "complex" compositing. You are just using a camera rotoscope.

 

-----

 

Side bar:

 

A while back I tried a crazy idea based on camera rotoscopes over a chor. I used the OUTPUT rendered image sequence for several layered camera rotoscoped animations with an offset and transparency. When each frame rendered, it used those rendered frames as the rotoscope creating a bizarre... motion trail effect. I had to put that aside until Hash fixed an issue with image sequences. It was fixed recently so I may have to try fiddling with it again some day.

 

-vern

[jpappas]

heyVern, Ramon,

 

I've only been skimming through this so forgive me if this is on the wrong track, but if you want to blur just an otherwise normal object, the method that pops into my mind would be a subframe motion blur applied with an Action, like the airplane propellar method described awhile back somewhere in the forum. You make an Action of however many frames where you move the object back and forth, then when you apply the Action to the object, set it's Cycle Length to a subframe amount, like 0.1. Then you have to use MultiPass and Motion Blur when you render. This allows you to render normally without compositing and for the object in question, every frame rendered will have the complete motion of that Actoin, and with Motion Blur, will show it blurred.

 

 

-Jim

[heyvern]

jpappas you are a genius!

 

Ramón, this should do EXACTLY what you want. DANG! I should have thought of that! I did something very similar a while back using sub frame motion blur to create "vector" lines from moving 2D shapes.

 

I can't believe it... this is such a simple solution and can be rendered all in AM.

 

 

-vern

[jpappas]

heyVern,

 

We must both be geniuses! Because when I was learning about subframe techniques it was your thread (and that other MUFOOF one) that got me to finally understand it. And wow! What a powerful feature, it adds a whole new dimension to A:M.

 

-Jim

[heyvern]

Hash added "jittering" to hair because in past versions someone came up with the idea to use sub frame jitter to "smooth" hair so it doesn't need to be so dense. Sub frame motion is cool.

 

----

 

I love these types of threads. It starts out all negative with no easy solutions and then very quickly the problem is solved.

 

-vern

[Ramón López]

...Ehhhh!!! THANKS & Sorry! I wanted to post before but I couldn't avoid start to experiment with that exciting idea! Well I'm not totally sure about if this method could be applied in all the situations yet of if it could cause some problem in combination with other features (physics, in example...), but that I can ensure for now is that's incredibly cool!!! And well, I must do much more tests to see how it could be improved and can discover all the "hidden" possibilities! For now, I've been doing some simple test with Scale sub-frame changes treating to see what kind of results and "interact" level could be possible, well, the results are not totally "perfect" yet, and I don't really know what level of "perfection" can be achieved with this method but definitelly this seems to me like a very promissing starting point

 

Test001_SolidBlurredBall.mov

 

Test002_TexturedBlurredBall.mov

 

Well, as you can see blurryness of the second one is not very "accurate" but I think better results can be possible with other "sub-motion" combinations, I neither know yet what results be possible with other "irregular" forms or shapes differents to a ball, you know, for scale reasons, but well I still must experiment with translation instead... ah! and HERE is the project just in case you want to experiment too and tell me if I'm really in the right way or not, meantime I'll continue investigating different situations and blurring possibilities , CIAO!

 

...

BlurredModelTests_001.prj

[heyvern]

You could "blur" the texture using the same sub frame technique or blur the texture in photoshop first. I think blurring one texture in Photoshop might be easier.

 

For sub frame decal blurring you could animate texture size at random amounts in the sub frames (is this possible in AM?) or apply the texture multiple times in different "random" positions and animate the opacity of each decal in the sub frames (I know this is possible).

 

Or you could create a set of image sequences with the texture using photoshop. Randomly move around like 3 or 4 copies of the same image in Photoshop then in AM use those images as a sequence for the decal and randomly assign the frames in the sub frame render. Just enough frames to create a pseudo blur. The trick in AM is the "random" movement. You really need it to be random in all directions including maybe a slight random rotation so you don't see "sharp" versions of the decal. This could be done in an action so you can easily "tweak" it.

 

I can see how physics would be an issue. In that case you would need a duplicate copy of the model NOT jittered, like a proxy, that doesn't render but is used only for the physics. The "jittered" version would render but not be effected by physics. Both could use the same action for movement, but the jittered version could use a short repeating action for blurring.

 

-vern

[NancyGormezano]

very nice stuff - could work very nicely for making fluffy wispy clouds

[jpappas]

Ramon,

 

Looks like you're on your way!

 

Nancy,

 

Using this for clouds, what a great idea! With some transparency it could work.

 

-Jim

[Ramón López]

Ramon,

 

Looks like you're on your way!

 

And... I coudn't be more grateful! You seem to have one solution (or even several) for each problem, so THANKS to you and to heyvern for all that ideas and suggestions like that one in the physics case that I'll try as soon as I get more practice in that area... Ah, that I want to try as soon as possible is that random movement to see the results even with textures, I think there must be possible to apply some kind of expression (oh, that other great area...) that I remember have seen somewhere to simplify and make more interesting the process, hmmm... I think I'll continue testing in that direction rigth now, CIAO!

[heyvern]

I can't remember who it was but someone a while back was working on a project and had the most gorgeous soft puffy fuzzy clouds using sub frame "jitter". They looked fantastic. I remember there was a sort of stylized "Knight" character. The whole project had a beautiful global illumination look to it.

 

-vern

[Dhar]

I can't remember who it was but someone a while back was working on a project and had the most gorgeous soft puffy fuzzy clouds using sub frame "jitter". They looked fantastic. I remember there was a sort of stylized "Knight" character. The whole project had a beautiful global illumination look to it.

 

-vern

 

Do you mean this one Vern?

 

Fuzzy Clouds

[heyvern]

That's it!

 

-vern

[Ramón López]

Oh, Thank you! Jeje, heyvern made me curious about that cause I was not exactly sure what he was refering and now that I still know I really like it , it make me think there could be much more uses for a feature like this that I could imagine at first, and really it can look fantastic... Very inspiring!

[Ramón López]

And HERE is an interesting tutorial that I have just found when I was not really rearching for it yet , well... just in case someone still be interested, BYE!

[heyvern]

Ramon, you could use that same thing to "blur" your models. Much easier than key framing it by hand.

 

 

-vern

[Ramón López]

...Yeah! The tutorial seems to me like a "little" advanced in some aspects that I must study with more calm but I have been trying and definitely the blur effect was very accurate, other issue could be talking about the render times, but well, you don't get something for nothing...

 

And well, another thing I'm thinking about all this is... what would do you think about something like a "Multiplier" into the Model options to can control how DOF afect to it? It won't involve the use of any pixel level/post effect and could be an easy and very quick way to can get more of less blurred objects in the scene without any inconvenient, isn't? And well, as we have seen it can result in to a very interesting uses and results... Only a though for now, but if you like it I could turn it into another one more "Feature Request" in seconds