Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
image that has the colors of the fore-
ground elements and another image
that has their alpha “mask.”) Then,
under
Effects | Compositing
, choose
CountryRoad.PNG
for Background
Image, choose your (original) fore-
ground image for Foreground Image,
and choose your instanced image that
has been set to Alpha Only for Fore-
ground Alpha.
Note
It's times like this, when you're compositing
your render onto something shot on film,
that you'll want to render your foreground
elements with the camera's “filmic” soft fil-
ter. You may also want to add some “film
grain” to the foreground elements using
either the Wave Filter or Virtual Darkroom
image filters (found under Effects | Pro-
cessing | Add Image Filter).
Virtual Darkroom is an amazing piece of
software. It does much more than add film
grain. It actually
simulates
the ways that cer-
tain films, processing techniques, and
photographic papers would record the
image that LightWave renders. I've found
that because Virtual Darkroom offers such a
plethora of presets, it's best to use this filter
on a prerendered series of frames (saved
using an image format like Flexible Format,
Radiance, SGI 64-bit RGBA, SGI 48-bit GRB,
or Cineon formats that support LightWave's
ability to create images in IEEE floating-point
accuracy, higher-than-film-color-depth qual-
ity, rather than in 24-bits-per-channel,
television-color-depth images).
Virtual Darkroom can even be used (to a
degree) to “color grade” your footage, giv-
ing it the unearthly feeling of
Minority Report
or the look of footage shot in rural America
in the '70s (the Kodak Gold 100 preset gives
this look quite nicely). It even has settings
for black-and-white film, letting you make
your work look like it was unearthed from
some esoteric, archive film vault.
Figure 17-47: It takes but a moment to render the
pieces together. When you do, you'll see the probe
'droids hovering over and casting shadows onto a
deserted country road, a freak incident that a
hapless traveler managed to catch on film!
Figure 17-48: Summer Vacation (undisclosed
location), 1953.
