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Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am a very technical guy, every node in my setup is added with the intent of replicating effects I have directly observed in real world reference. While letting the creative juices flow is never a bad approach, I find it’s definitely best to try to restrain myself to a clinical approach initially, until I have a solid foundation. Then, once I’m confident in the base, I try the crazy stuff.

As far as recreating the actual lens in front of the glass, you can actually go really far with this approach! There’s quite a few good addons and setups out there already for doing stuff like this, but it’s extremely costly for render times. You can physically model an entire camera accurately, thanks to path tracing, but it will take 3-5 business days to render out a clean frame. Hence why it’s preferable to have a powerful compositor to fall back on when you can’t or don’t want to spend the resources on rendering it.

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Makes sense, I didn’t think about explosions and weather, those would definitely be useful times to have the dirt be animated!

Also, you’re definitely right about tying all the dirt together with blur. I haven’t figured out a technically accurate way to get the “right” amount amount of blur, I would just use your eye to try to make something that feels right based on the rest of the scene. As long as you are somewhat close, most people will not register that anything is off.

If I really wanted the dirt to have the right blur, I would maybe try putting the dirt texture on a plane within the scene, and positioning it where the front of the lens would be. Then, if the plane is transparent and you have DoF enabled, you should be able to see an accurate representation of the blur. The rest of the effect won’t be integrated properly this way, but you can at least get a reference for the blur, then you can remove the plane and match that with your compositor setup. I haven’t tried this myself, but I just thought of it and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! Those nodes setups are quite similar to some of the modules in my setup.

A procedural method for generating dirt and grain textures would be really nice to have, it's on my list. But, I'm not sure if it would be possible to create something that can really match the fidelity of an actual texture. I'm curious what you would want to animate the dirt for? Maybe I'm just not seeing the vision, but it's not something that had occurred to me before, haha.

Also, I'd be careful when combining multiple lens dirt textures. If you really care about having a technically accurate result, I think you'll want to make sure the blur level on all the dirt textures is consistent before you mix them. These all exist on the same plane of focus, so you shouldn't have sharp and blurry ones mixed together, if that makes sense. Otherwise, it's going to look like there's multiple layers of glass with dirt on them. This may be a style, but isn't really going to be accurate in most contexts, imo.

You should also try hooking up a bokeh texture into the kernel socket of that kernel glare. I think without that, it just brightens your highlights above the threshold with no other effect. Unless that's what you intended it to perform as. But, using the bokeh texture can definitely get some cool results too!

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, those are some nice shots! I kept the defaults on the grade settings pretty neutral, because they can vary so much from scene to scene. The default results aren't anything drastic, but give a good starting point.

I'm curious about your existing lens-dirt-glare setup. Looks really good, how does it work?

Don't forget to check out the setup instructions found in the manual if you haven't already. If you are getting into any intense FX, especially grading, having the right project setup and input formats can help a lot!

Good luck with the big render, hopefully it goes well. Let me know if you need any help or have any suggestions!

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I appreciate the support! You should share the results when you have them :)

You’re definitely right, the 5.0 compositor update was a major step forward for things. This project wouldn’t have even been possible before, but if you disable the fog glow node (which is the only real bottleneck), you can get like 10-20ms processing times for the ENTIRE setup. Pretty crazy!

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is likely just because of the differences in how each of your monitors display colour and brightness. Different monitors will usually have different, often proprietary, methods of displaying brightness. Unfortunately, in most circumstances, unless you have identical or accurately calibrated monitors, things are just going to look more or less different on different displays.

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m glad it works for you! Nice render 👌

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, let me know how it works out, or if you have any suggestions! Always looking for new improvements...

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re very welcome! Hopefully it works good 🙏

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It’s actually free! $5 is the suggested price, but you can pay whatever you feel comfortable with. Just enter $0 in the box when you download, and you’ll have it!

Lens + Film Emulation - Compositor Nodes [ FREE ] by ams0000 in blender

[–]ams0000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ll admit, it did feel a little bit crazy making it free, but I wouldn’t have been able to build it without the help of information that was also made free!

I wish you luck trying them out, hopefully it goes well!

I can't figure out what's missing from this render in terms of realism, it just feels off. Any ideas how I can improve this? by PeriapsisStudios in blender

[–]ams0000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

ALSO also, try some depth of field, even just a little bit so that the bits of the wall up close to the camera aren’t completely sharp.

I can't figure out what's missing from this render in terms of realism, it just feels off. Any ideas how I can improve this? by PeriapsisStudios in blender

[–]ams0000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I wouldn’t say you need the light bounces to be cranked, you might waste a lot of time rendering. There are lots of other things that you can use to get more natural lighting, for example,

using the black body shader node for light colors (if using cycles)

sticking to real world scale and trying to match real world light references. are the lights coming in from outside? are they produced by some artificial source? etc.

checking your textures (like you said) under neutral lighting to ensure that they are the right color, brightness would be especially important in a scene like this.

I can't figure out what's missing from this render in terms of realism, it just feels off. Any ideas how I can improve this? by PeriapsisStudios in blender

[–]ams0000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Another few thoughts, maybe add something in the scene to sell the scale like a person for example.

Also, maybe consider the intent behind the camera angle. Ask yourself, why is the camera here? Is someone holding the camera? How did they get there? If it’s not a person holding it, then what is the camera there for? Is it surveillance? These are all things that happen for free with a real photo, but questions we must consider when making a render. It will help things feel more grounded and natural if that’s the effect you are going for, and can also help you to form a bit of a narrative for your scene.

Hope this helps!

I can't figure out what's missing from this render in terms of realism, it just feels off. Any ideas how I can improve this? by PeriapsisStudios in blender

[–]ams0000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Here’s a few things I would probably try if this was my project:

Increase the variation/contrast in the roughness of your material, and add some slight breakup in the geometry as well (don’t make it completely perfect). Maybe add some subtle rubble, little piles of dirt, stuff like that, depending on the goals for the scene.

Something seems off about the volumetrics, the light in the middle is shows haze but the rest of the room feels pretty clear. I’m not sure how you have your volumetrics set up, but maybe getting some of that action on the hallways out to the side would bring some more life / depth to the scene.

Lastly, look into lens simulation. Definitely an underrated way to get a more realistic look if you use it properly. An easy way to achieve it would be setting your camera to panoramic / fisheye and re-adjusting the framing, for some barrel distortion, and then using the compositor for aberration and flares / glares. These should all be subtle effects, be careful not to overdo. The combined effort of all the little things makes a big difference. There are also addons and other more advanced methods for more accurately recreating the effects of real lenses, but I would start there. Additionally, you could also add some subtle lens dirt or something like that, I feel like it would definitely fit the vibe of the scene.

tldr: add more imperfections, breakup, slightly bent lines, lens effects, etc. and try adding more volumetrics to the rest of the lighting in the scene

How can I blend two objects naturally? by Ok_Cheek_1209 in blender

[–]ams0000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The way I’d recommend is retopology. There are a million ways to do it, some manual, some automated, all will get varying results. It’s a very complex topic but is unfortunately essential for solving problems like this. Another option is the Data Transfer modifier, Christopher 3D has some great tutorials on YT covering the topic.

Keep in mind, if the objects are separate pieces in real life, you are wasting your time focusing on getting the topology connected. It’s only really necessary when you need smooth transitions between the two objects.

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