Blast off with Hypervoxels 2.0
Since LightWave 3.5 I’ve known how to create a really nice overcast sky using two polygons with an offset fractal noise pattern (Figure 1), but even though I could create nice rolling thunderstorm type clouds, they just weren’t 'puffy' enough. When I upgraded to LightWave 5.0, I was excited about the Metaball function. With this feature I thought I could create some really fantastic puffy clouds. While I could create the shape of a puffy cloud it just wasn’t believable enough. With LW5.5 came Steamer. 'Oh boy, now we can create cool clouds!' But alas, back to a semi-flat looking skyscape. With LW5.6 came Hypervoxels 1.0, a cool plaything for flowing effects like blood and thick water, but no puffy clouds...GO
Camera Zoom
While working on some routines for Visual FX for Image FX, I decided to try one of them through Lightwave as well. This article is about that routine. If you have ever seen a documentary on TV you have seen this effect. They use it ALL the time. The one I am talking about is when they show an old photo and then zoom in on one section or one person in the picture...GO
Colorfull refractions
Inspired by the prism tutorial from lw-fin.org i was thinking about how to achieve such an effect with hdri. since i wasn't keen on the lighting, just the refraction part was interesting for me, i started to do some tests. and it was a little surprise that i found different ways to use a hdr image and that my technique works well for 'common' lighting setups as well. touching this interesting phenomenon caused a nearly complete research about color/light theory and conversions between different color models...GO
Compositing
3D compositing can be extremely challenging but at the same time, very rewarding. Unfortunely, one of the difficult parts of compositing is to create a format that is usable in a variety of editing environments. Lightwave's alpha channel is an exellent way to do this even if making a "perfect alpha" is quite tricky. The problem with alpha channels is that when an image is rendered using motion blur, DOF or even anti-alias, whatever background information was used during the render, the edges will contain color portions of that because of the way that render passes are mixed together. Another difficulty is casting shadows onto a background image without damaging the background. Here, we will explore the basics of compositing and specifically look at how to create shadows and matte objects that don't interfere with the composited image...GO
Camera Zoom
While working on some routines for Visual FX for Image FX, I decided to try one of them through Lightwave as well. This article is about that routine. If you have ever seen a documentary on TV you have seen this effect. They use it ALL the time. The one I am talking about is when they show an old photo and then zoom in on one section or one person in the picture...GO
Colorfull refractions
Inspired by the prism tutorial from lw-fin.org i was thinking about how to achieve such an effect with hdri. since i wasn't keen on the lighting, just the refraction part was interesting for me, i started to do some tests. and it was a little surprise that i found different ways to use a hdr image and that my technique works well for 'common' lighting setups as well. touching this interesting phenomenon caused a nearly complete research about color/light theory and conversions between different color models...GO
Compositing
3D compositing can be extremely challenging but at the same time, very rewarding. Unfortunely, one of the difficult parts of compositing is to create a format that is usable in a variety of editing environments. Lightwave's alpha channel is an exellent way to do this even if making a "perfect alpha" is quite tricky. The problem with alpha channels is that when an image is rendered using motion blur, DOF or even anti-alias, whatever background information was used during the render, the edges will contain color portions of that because of the way that render passes are mixed together. Another difficulty is casting shadows onto a background image without damaging the background. Here, we will explore the basics of compositing and specifically look at how to create shadows and matte objects that don't interfere with the composited image...GO
