Applying a Lens Flare Property

Lens flares occur when a light (usually point) source hits the camera’s lens at a small enough angle to show lens “aberrations.” You can add several different types of lens flares to the lights in your scene.

 

To create a lens flare

1. Select the light with which you want to create a flare.

2. From the Render toolbar, choose Get > Property > Lens Flare. The Flare Property Editor opens.

 

A

The Flare tab has the basic flare attributes including which flare shader to use.

B

The Glow tab has basic glow attributes such as brightness, size, and falloff.

C

The Star tab has the flare’s star attributes such as length, jitter, and auto-rotate.

3. On the Effect tab, activate the flare by selecting Enabled. You can still edit a flare’s parameters if it is off.

4. On the Flare tab, select a flare shader from the Flare File menu. As you can see, there’s quite a variety of flares to choose from. Refer to the following images to help you decide what kind of flare you want to apply to your light:

 

A

Classic lens flare

B

Long Ray lens flare

C

Real lens flare

D

Sharp Ray lens flare

E

Short Ray lens flare

5. On the Flare tab, edit the flare’s size, brightness, and aspect ratio.

 

All three images above use the same flare type:

- The left image is the default flare.

- The middle flare uses increased Size and Brightness values. Notice how the flare’s colors become more saturated.

- The image on the right “squashes” the effect by editing its Aspect Ratio value.

6. On the Glow tab, define its glow properties.

 

- The image on the left is the default glow of a flare (no stars).

- The middle image shows a glow with a higher brightness value and larger size (glow radius).

- The image on the right shows the same glow but with almost no falloff.

7. On the Star tab, define its star rays and their properties. You can edit the number of rays, their length (red arrow), and width (blue arrows).

 

The image on the left shows a default lens flare with the Star property on.

 


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