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368 Chapter 19: Video Post-Production
mimics a camera, in which the aperture does not
rotate.
Rays, stars, and streaks don’t animate either unless
you turn on their individual Auto Rotate toggles.
Intensity—Controls the overall brightness and
opacity of the flare. Higher values produce bright,
more opaque flares, and lower values produce
dim, tr ansparent flares. This parameter can be
animated.
Sq ueeze—Squeezes the size of the lens flare,
either horizontally or vertically to compensate
for different frame aspect ratios. You c an set
Squeeze f rom 100 to -100. Positive values stretch
the f lare horizontally, and negative values stretch it
vertically. The value is a percentage of the size of
the flare. This parameter can be animated.
Forexample,ifyouconvertafilmforuseonTV,
applying Squeeze would cause the lens flare to look
correct on the smaller screen, and not thin and
tall, although a wide-screen 35-MM film image is
muchwiderthanaregularTV.
Although Squeeze is a global setting, you can
apply this effect to selected portions of your flare
through t he
Preferences panel (page 3–369) so that
only the flare elements you want are distorted. The
Squeeze spinner value is g iven as a percentage of
thesizeoftheflare.
Node Sour ces—Lets you select the source object
for the lens flare effect. The source of the lens flare
may be any object in the scene, but is generally
a light, such as a target spot light, or an omni
light. C licking this button displays the Select Flare
Objectsdialog.Youmustselectasourceforthe
flare to key off.
Note: If you select a source object, then rename the
object later, you must reselect the object to ensure
the correct generation of the lens flare.
Lens Flare Effects group
Controls specific effects for the flare, such as fades,
brightness, softening, and so on.
Brighten—Lets you set an overall bri ghtness that
affects the whole image. When a bright effect,
such as a lens flare, appears in an image, the
whole image should appear brighter. This effect is
available only when the Brighten option is enabled
under the Render section of the Preferences panel.
This parameter can be
animated (page 3–365) .
Animating the Brig hten spinner is an easy way to
create flares that "flash" t he scene as they appear.
Dist Fade—Cau s es the e ffect of the lens flare to fade
with its distance from the camera. This opt ion
is used only when the Dist Fade button is turned
on. The values are in 3ds Max world units. This
option is used when you want to create the effect
of flares disappear ing at a certain point away from
the camera.
Cent Fade—Fadesthesecondaryflaresnearthe
center of the row of flares along the main axis of
theflare.Thisisaneffectthatcanbeseeninmany
lens flares seen through a real camera lens. This
value is in 3ds Max world units. This setting is
only active when the Cent Fade button is selected.
Dist B lur —Blurs the flare based on its distance from
the camera. This value is in 3ds Max world units.
This parameter c an be animated.
Blur Int—C ontrols the strength of the blur when
it is applied to the lens flare. The value set in this
spinner takes full effect as the flare reaches the
Dist Blur distance in your scene. Flares closer to
the camera plane get a percentage of the intensity
setting. This parameter can be animated.
Soften—Provides an overall softening effect for the
lens flare This parameter can be animated.