Streetlight glow Win:f\x
4 messages in this thread
Dear Blackbelt,
I have a question regarding your Win:f\x package. I'm trying to automatically
composite hexagonal light "glows" or halos (Asterize) into a rendered
animation. The animation, rendered in 3D Studio (PC rendering software) shows a
night street scene with several streetlights on either side. The camera moves
down the street, between the lights. The effect I'd like to achieve is to have
the hex glows show where the street light bulbs are and have them "grow"
accordingly in perspective as the camera moves down the street. I rendered one
pass with all objects in the scene. Then I hid all objects and rendered another
pass in which bigger, self-illuminated spheres of different colors were
substituted for the streetlight bulbs. In other words the second pass shows the
stand-in spheres as circles of unique, solid colors on the black background,
moving and growing in perspective towards the viewer. These circles should
determine the size and position of the desired hex glows for individual street
lights. In Win:f\x, by color-sampling each of these circles (or stand-in
spheres) and choosing the Magic Wand area selection I am able to determine the
exact area to be filled with the Asterize hex glow for each street light.
Here's my problem: how can I use the area selection in one image (Magic Wand &
the stand-in spheres) to put the hex glows on top of another image (fully
rendered street scene)? I know how to set up the area selection lists (for each
color), image lists, operation settings lists, etc for animation processing.
But I can't figure out how to use the area information from the second pass to
composite the hex glows on the corresponding frames in the first pass. I tried
setting up the spheres as the source image and the street scene as the target
to Make Alpha, but I couldn't get it to work correctly. Could you please
enlighten me how to proceed? Thanks for any hints,
Greg
Greg…
Unfortunately, I'm not expert enough with the PC software to help you with
this – I'll have to refer you to the technical support group at (406)
367-5509 from (approximately) 9-11:45 / 1:15-5:00 MST. I *think* you can
do this, though… I've seen similar things done by Dave (who is the guy
you'll probably speak to).
Sorry I can't be of direct help. :^(
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Greg,
On the Amiga, I use Imagemasterm which I believe is the equivalent of Win:F/X.
In the File I/O panel, it offers the option of saving or loading an image mask;
this is what you would invoke after defining, with the magic wand, the area to
be affected. When you load the actual frame to be processed, reload the area
selection from disk, and apply whatever operator you choose. This should work.
Blaq!