Fade object effect, like in photoshop but not in postproduction?

[roger.olofsson]

Hi,

I am looking for a way to fade objects, not the lookt that you get by animating the visibility channel but the look that you get when you make a layer transparent in photoshop. With the visibility channel the object gets transparent and it's possible to see whats inside the object but I want the effect that the object still is solid but fades so that what's behind is seen.

Isn't there a render effect that would do this? It would save so much time not having to bring in animations into post just to create this effect.

Thanks,

Roger

[kgokhangurbuz]

Hello,

You can achieve this by using an Opacity channel on the material of the object(s).

-Apply a completely black opacity map to your material

-Decrease the value of opacity usage to "0"

-Increase the value of opacity whenever you want your object to become less visible / Invisible.

Hope this helps.

Best regards;

[Anonymous]

The above solution will work, additionally besides animating the opacity, you could also add a falloff map to opacity channel to add some gradation to the transparency... this is a nice effect. (more transparent on surfaces facing the camera and more opaque on surfaces that curve away from the camera. 

Another thing you could do it to use a visibility track in the track view and use a controller (like bezier) to animate its visibility over time. The advantage to this method is it object-based as opposed to material-based and can be more easily controlled. Plus, if you change the materials, you'd have to re-animate the opacity. If you animate the visibility track, opacity and surface properties are independent.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[roger.olofsson]

Hi,

I am not getting the desired effect. I have done an image trying to show what I mean. In doing this I discovered that Standard renderer and Vray renderer gives different result in using the visibillity track, just hit me that Vray renders double sided which gives the different results, so never mind that.

First images shows the scene, Red box with a green back side, ball behind and a torus inside. It is the look in the last image that I want to achive without post production. The first two example you can se inside the cube but in the last it the solid rendered cube "layer" that becomes transparent. If there is a lot of cavities in an object (like in a Engine block) the difference is even more apparent since the opacitiy of faces adds up in the two first examples but not in the last.

Hope this explains it.

[kgokhangurbuz]

Hi; I have tried the same scenerio with the information you have provided, and i'm having the "photoshop" example with V-Ray.

I'm attaching the scene to share with you, I simply assigned a basic VRayMtl and dropped Visibility to "0,5" Using V-Ray 3.4 by the way.

Please check this scene and tell me if you ar having the same result or not. Screenshot is below:

[roger.olofsson]

Hi,

I opened your file but it is not the way I would like it to be. I put a VrayEdgesTex on the box and then it renders as in image 1. The look that I am after is in image 2, done in paint.net with two seperate layers, the box is faded as a solid object.

[kgokhangurbuz]

Just to clarify things;

Do you want flat shading on all surfaces with edgesTex applied and behind the actualy viewing faces edges not being visible?

If so, it has a very simple solution;

Simply apply VRayLightMtl to your object, and in color section, assign VRayEdgesTex map

To avoid GI generation and receiving of LightMtl, simply right click on your object, go to VRayProperties and uncheck Receive and Generate GI options.

Sharing the scene with you;

Regards;