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How to produce a glass rods overlay effect?
Hello, I am currently trying to produce a piece of visual artwork for a large led screen which will be a featurepiece in a lobby. The screen size will be 9m x 3m!
The brief is simple: To film a 24hr segment from the top of our building (sunrise to sunset) and then overlay the effect of glass rods/curved glass on top of the segment.
Currently I have experimented with the AE ‘Wave Warp’ modifier with some success.
The effect of glass rods however, I am finding hard to achieve. For this I have made a black and white gradient image in Photoshop, which I have then overlaid over the segment in addition to the Wave Warp modifier.I have also tried to put a glassy texture (together with normal map) in front of the segment as per Andrew Kramer’s glass tutorial [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZW8kDQWQ5I%5B/youtube%5D – but the effect is still not there for me.
Please see my current tests below. If anyone could help me improve the glass rods effect I would be very grateful!
A still from the unedited 24hr video segment:
Glass rods inspiration images:
Or curved glass:
Another curved glass image:
My gradient map:
My current output:
Again, any help on achieving the glass rods effect much appreciated. Thanks!
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5 Replies
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use your gradient map as a displacement map instead of a overlay…also you might have to work on your gradients a bit so that they look more like glass..maybe use a bulge..make one first.
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Thanks for the replies. I have played with it a bit more and have got a better result. The next step is to introduce bulges to the gradient map as you have cleverly suggested!
Regarding the 24hr playback – this has not been thoroughly thought through. I have assumed using the right codec/compression-mode will allow for this. I presume you think that the file will be so large that it will not be playable?
The screen will comprise of 60 or so frameless LED screens clamped together. A separate company that specialises in this will do that. All the screens will then be hooked up to a central computer where we can display any video.
Here are my current tests. I added clouds to help with seeing some distortion through the rods.
In this image the rods (ie the gradient map) is not displaced, but an ice normal map texture is – as per Andrew Kramer’s glass tutorial.
In this image the gradient map is displaced. Not a big difference, but still a nice effect.
Please let me know your thoughts.
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All I’m seeing on your effect is the refraction that overlaying glass would create. But with glass its reflection is more prominent than its refraction.
I think (not at all knowing the look you’re after) that adding some highlights and lowering that noise distortion would sell the effect better.
Cassius Marques
http://www.zapfilmes.com -
The CC Glass effect will let you do both distortion and lighting. You can re-use the elements you’ve got already.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Thanks for all your comments. Very helpful.
Regarding the CC Glass effect, I didn’t find it that useful, but this then led me to the caustics effect which I think is very cool. It works by having input for three layers – one for the seafloor, one for the waters surface and one for the reflection of the sky.
For the seafloor layer I input the image of my skyline
For the waters surface I input the rods greyscale image
For the sky reflection I left blank as I have not found a suitable image for this yet (but this is potentially very useful)As this project is essentially a piece of artwork, I am quite happy with the exaggerated distortion . There are also so many settings to play with in the caustics effect that this could be easily reduced if desired.
Regarding the length of the video – I can now image that we will have to reduce the segment to capture everything from sunrise to sunset and a little bit after. This will therefore take the total segment length to something like 16 hours. Then we will have to compile a number of three hour AE segments in premier once they are done.
If anyone has more suggestions please let me know and thanks again.
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