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Underwater Compositing - Softness
February 9, 2015
Hey all!!
Today we cover the last in the series on underwater compositing! There may still come future posts on certain features that still apply, but as far as compositing goes for a basic underwater scene, we're ending today :D.
As you've seen, we're covering softness today. While this is not always required, there is a certain presence to water that to most often presents itself as a softness. You'll find it even out of water in very humid conditions, but really makes most underwater scenes pop!
It is also a very common photographic element when it comes to people who do weddings or engagement shoots and so on.
It is a very basic effect that can be described like this:
Your original image/video blurred over itself
It is as simple as that. Some people use it to suggest heat in the desert, other humidity in a forest, others still humidity at sea and of course, photographers adding a little something extra and last but not least, people who use it to round off an underwater scene, haha. Ironically, I add this very simple effect to almost every render I do in a very subtle amount.
As you can see, it is very subtle - so subtle that the glare over powers is that you barely even notice it. Granted, you can make it more or less intense if you want to, depending on the kind of water you want to create.
Here is an extreme example on the same image:
Huge difference, no, haha.
This is very very simple to set up:
1) Render output into a Color > Mix node and
2) Render output into a Filter > Blur node (set to relative fast Gaussian, about 0.5 should be enough) into the same Color > Mix node as the first one
3) Blend Type has to be Mix and the Fac value will determine how strong the effect will be
It's that simple! So simple that I made this into a node group that I have on blender as part of my start-up file - saves a lot of time to make node groups for often used set-ups or special effects you know you want to recreate later. That's for another time though, hahaha.
Hope you were blessed by this!! Now get out there and make those underwater scenes stand out!! :D
Thank YOU!!!!!!!
PS, check out for the video on the facebook page to see the above image in motion! :D
Today we cover the last in the series on underwater compositing! There may still come future posts on certain features that still apply, but as far as compositing goes for a basic underwater scene, we're ending today :D.
As you've seen, we're covering softness today. While this is not always required, there is a certain presence to water that to most often presents itself as a softness. You'll find it even out of water in very humid conditions, but really makes most underwater scenes pop!
It is also a very common photographic element when it comes to people who do weddings or engagement shoots and so on.
It is a very basic effect that can be described like this:
Your original image/video blurred over itself
It is as simple as that. Some people use it to suggest heat in the desert, other humidity in a forest, others still humidity at sea and of course, photographers adding a little something extra and last but not least, people who use it to round off an underwater scene, haha. Ironically, I add this very simple effect to almost every render I do in a very subtle amount.
As you can see, it is very subtle - so subtle that the glare over powers is that you barely even notice it. Granted, you can make it more or less intense if you want to, depending on the kind of water you want to create.
Here is an extreme example on the same image:
Huge difference, no, haha.
This is very very simple to set up:
1) Render output into a Color > Mix node and
2) Render output into a Filter > Blur node (set to relative fast Gaussian, about 0.5 should be enough) into the same Color > Mix node as the first one
3) Blend Type has to be Mix and the Fac value will determine how strong the effect will be
It's that simple! So simple that I made this into a node group that I have on blender as part of my start-up file - saves a lot of time to make node groups for often used set-ups or special effects you know you want to recreate later. That's for another time though, hahaha.
Hope you were blessed by this!! Now get out there and make those underwater scenes stand out!! :D
Thank YOU!!!!!!!
PS, check out for the video on the facebook page to see the above image in motion! :D
Posted by Marius Oberholster. Posted In : Quick Blog Tutorial
