Flare

DEPRECATED. This shader is unsupported, but it may still get installed with Softimage to provide compatibility with older scenes that use it. It is recommended that you replace unsupported shaders in your scenes with equivalent shaders from the current Softimage shader library.

| Render Tree Usage

Category: Lens

Shader Type: Lens

Output: Color (RGB) value

Creates a lens flare using the illumination from a selected light source(s). Emulates several different flares, based on lens type and focus. The flare's brightness and saturation can also be defined, as well as which light(s) will flare.

Tips

If you select a non-0 virtual radius, the camera's origin is moved randomly within this radius and the light's intensity is sampled repetitively. This way, normal point lights can be made to appear to have a finite radius when they disappear behind objects.
You can also use the Focus Pull parameter to animate the flares. This parameter causes the flare components to change their relative position and rotate as the lens's optics readjust.
To apply different flare effects on different lights, apply this shader multiple times to the same camera and select a different light each time.

Name	The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
Light List	Lets you define a light in your scene that will be used to compute the fast lens effect.

Flare Type

Lens 1, 2, 3	Each lens type corresponds to a different geometric characteristic of a lens. Lenses 1 and 2 create colorful and dazzling lens flares (when viewed in white light), and lens 3 gives an iris flare, resulting from the hexagonal shape of the aperture.
Saturation Multiplier	Defines the flare colors. At 0, the flares change to gray scale. Very useful for fine-tuning a flare's color.
Brightness	Defines the brightness or intensity of the lens flare.
Samples	Defines how often the lights are sampled. Very useful in reducing render times for area lights.
Virtual Radius	Lets the lights fade out along with their flare. Unless 0 is selected, the light is given a virtual radius; i.e., non-area lights, such as spotlights, can be partly obscured by objects in the scene, and the flare is diminished accordingly.
Render Flare Only	Renders only the flare on a black background. Saves rendering time and makes image composition easier later.
Focus Pull	Allows a lens flare to be animated. The effect's individual components rotate and translate to simulate the realignment of the camera optics. You can also use this parameter to select a specific configuration in the flare pattern.
Lens Guard Margin	Defines a rectangle around the view plane with the width equal to the margin. The flare intensity falls off linearly within this region. This parameter blocks out direct rays from light sources outside the view angle. In screen space, this means that light(s) outside the view area should not cause lens effects. In reality, a lens guard isn't perfect, and when a light is nearly within view, it will cause lens effects.
Safe Overlay	Causes a lens flare to take the underlying color into account and tries to ensure that the result does not exceed the maximum color intensity. If both the rendered flares and the underlying scene do not exceed this intensity, the result is guaranteed not to exceed either.

Render Tree Usage

This shader can be applied directly to the camera in the lens shader stack.

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