Greetings!

Welcome to Scifi-Meshes.com! Click one of these buttons to join in on the fun.

Local TutorialSunbeams in Photoshop

limdaepllimdaepl171 Posts: 0Member
edited October 2009 in Tutorials #1
Hey Folks!

In this tut i'll show you how to make pretty realistic sunbeams in Photoshop rather than fiddling with volumetrics in your 3D app!

First you'll need an image with a bright background, including a main source of light (e.g. the sun).

Note: If there are other bright spots like strong specularities or engine glows they will show (unwanted) streaks too. You can see this in the last two images of this tut when you check the debris at the lower right. The bright streak looks pretty wrong, doesn't it? Thus, for best results just use an image of the plain background with black masked out objects!

startimage.jpg

Duplicate that layer. This will be the layer which makes up the sunbeams so you might want to name it such.

Next go Filters>Blur>Radial Blur...
You'll have to put the 'Blur Center' into the sun. I always do this by trial and error using the following settings and undo/move center/redo until i'm satisfied (is there a better way?! :confused:)

radialspin.gif

Once you found the center, undo again and use the following settings to finally create the streaks:

radialzoom.gif

In order to get rid of the noise artifacts apply the filter again with the same settings beside 'Amount' which you change to 50.

Now you should see something like that:

pivot.jpg

As already indicated switch to the move tool (V) and drag the pivot point into the sun (make sure you have selected 'Show Transform Controls' in the bar at the top if you don't see it). Now scale the layer by 120%. It's important that you do this by entering the values into the bar at the top rather than doing it with your mouse. Otherwise it won't be scaled in respect to the pivot point!

scale.jpg

Now you have several possibilities to blend that layer into your image whereas all have advantages and disadvantages. Here are two possibilities:

normal.jpg

screen.jpg

Using blend mode 'Normal' has the disadvantage that the image tends to get washed out when the opacity gets too high, 'Screen' or 'Linear Dodge' brighten the image and thus tend to overexpose the image if it's already pretty bright. Also 'Overlay' and 'Soft Light' are worth a try. In the long run it always depends of the image. Play around!

Lastly one word of a warning: Please, for the sake of visual delight, keep the effect subtle. Less is more here! :D

That's it. I hope you liked the tut and found it easy to follow. If you have questions go ahead! :thumb:

And if anyone knows a better way to find the Blur Center of the Radial Blur dialog i'm all ears!!

Regards Roman
Post edited by limdaepl on

Posts

  • AcemanAceman337 Posts: 269Member
    Amazing Tutorial!!!! Awesome Job!
  • OzylotOzylot332 Posts: 0Member
    Wow! thats brilliant! Fantastic tutorial!

    (good choice of subject too :D)
  • backsteptbackstept2018 Posts: 919Member
    I would have never thought to do something like that
    great tut!
  • ComcoComco317 Posts: 1,281Administrator
    So incredibly simple. Of course, Volumetrics will get you close to 100% physically accurate effects, but this technique is just great for certain shots. Great work there, limdaepl! :thumb:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]2 Posts: 3Member
    wow! really handy tut :thumb:
  • backsteptbackstept2018 Posts: 919Member
    just thought of something . . . if the light source is outside of the frame, just change the canvas size so its larger than the current image and so that you'll have room to place the radial blur focus point :thumb:
    and like Comco says, it may not work for every image
  • Aiden FordAiden Ford0 Posts: 0Member
    Wow, this is great, thanks man, I'm glad I learned this way to do sun beams :)
  • HelotHelot391 Posts: 164Member
    I tried this one - worked great!
  • IRMLIRML253 Posts: 1,993Member
    great tutorial

    but I think the image you apply the blur to should be black and white and then screened on top, you'll need to put a little bit of extra work in to create a specific black and white matte for the blurring, but it'll still be quicker than rendering the volumetrics

    is that a homeworld ship in the image btw?
  • limdaepllimdaepl171 Posts: 0Member
    Yeah. That's the wreckage of the Bentus, the Mothership of the Bentusi. I used the game model for that shot.

    Regards Roman
  • FreakFreak1088 Posts: 4,361Member
    oww this will be very handy!
  • th15th150 Posts: 0Member
    I know how to get the blur centre in the middle of the screen.

    The Radial Blur filter defaults to the centre of the image. So, the solution is to make that the centre of the image using the crop tool. Using the crop tool, select the whole image (click-drag across the whole thing) then extend the crop area by dragging the corner points until it's suitably big. Next you move the crop template (which has a handy marker in the centre) so that the centre is over the light source.

    Apply filters, crop the image back to original size and there you have it.
  • limdaepllimdaepl171 Posts: 0Member
    Thanks for that tip. I'll try that later!

    Regards Roman
  • brilliant! And so incredibly simple! I've done that exact thing a dozen times already but I never thought of using it like this.
  • The ObserverThe Observer0 Posts: 0Member
    I went MAD, MAD with the damn volumetric lights on 3dsMAX and they never turned out this pretty! You are my hero :D Plus I love Homeworld!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]2 Posts: 3Member
    cool this will be very useful. by the way what version of photoshop did you use?
  • limdaepllimdaepl171 Posts: 0Member
    Thank you. I was using CS2
  • agelshaxeagelshaxe331 Posts: 0Member
    Excellent tutorial, thanks a lot !
  • reviwere56reviwere560 Posts: 0Member
    awesome
  • limdaepllimdaepl171 Posts: 0Member
    Kadaeux pointed out my links where broken. They should be fixed now.

    Please don't hesitate to let me know if there arise any problems or questions regarding the tutorial (or anything else ;)).

    Regards Roman
Sign In or Register to comment.