Introduction
In this documentation, we will talk about Post-Process effects in Aximmetry. Post-Process effects are effects that are applied to the scene after it has been rendered by the system.
These effects can be used to add effects to your raw render.
Some of our Post-Process effects:
- Depth of Field
- Fog
- Volumetric light
- Ambient occlusion
Using the Post-Process Effects
We have some of our Post-Process effects already added to the render compounds and we suggest adding further effects here as well.
These render compounds are the following:
- Render_General for non-PBR workflow with virtual or tracked cameras
- Render_General_PBR for PBR workflow with virtual or tracked cameras.
- Render_LEDWall_4-Wall for Ledwall production.
Before going any further we suggest unlinking the Compound:
You can read more about compounds here.
This will ensure that any change you make will not be saved into the original compound.
Once unlinked, you can enter it by double-clicking on it.
Post-Process effects can be found on the right of the Camera 1 module.
Antialiasing effects
In Aximmetry some AA effects are applied in post-process.
To learn more about Antialiasing here.
Sharpener
Can be used to make the rendered image sharper, it can also reduce the blurriness caused by TXAA
Ambient Occlusion effect
We offer our own Ambient Occlusion effect as well as Ambient Occlusion GW which is created by Nvidia. Both serve the same purpose to create an AO/contact shadow where objects are close to each other or in tight spaces.
They offer a few parameters to fine-tune the AO effects.
Ambient Occlusion
- Quality - Can be used to change the quality of the AO thus making it nicer or have less performance impact
- Strength - Can be used to increase or decrease the AO effect
- Radius - Can be used to adjust how big the space the AO will cover
- Angle Bias - Can be used to set what angle(between objects or parts of the object) the AO is visible at.
- Blur Radius - the AO effect gradually gets weaker around the contact point blurring makes this fade more natural you can change the Blur Radius to adjust the fading of the AO effect
- Blur Sharpness - You can adjust how sharp the blurring is, increasing this value will make the edges sharper and stronger
- Gamma - Can be used to adjust the fading of the AO effect. Decrease to make the fading effect darker or increase to make it lighter.
Ambient Occlusion GW
- Radius - Can be used to adjust how big the space the AO will cover.
- Bias - You can adjust this to hide low-tessellation artifacts.
- Large Scale AO - Scale for the large-scale AO.
- Small Scale AO - Scale for the small-scale AO.
- Gamma - increasing this value will make the AO effect darker
- FGAO - turn the Foreground AO on or off.
- FGAO View Depth - Depth at which the AO footprint should get clamped.
- BGAO - Switches larger-scale AO in the distance on/off.
- BGAO View Depth - Depth at which the AO footprint should stop falling off with depth.
- Precision - If ON, greater precision is used, but with a larger GPU load.
- Edge Mode - Adjust this to hide possible false-occlusion artifacts near screen borders.
- Blur - Switch blurring the AO with an edge-preserving blur.
- Blur Radius - Radius of the applied blur.
- Blur Sharpness - The higher, the more the blur preserves edges.
Tone Mapper
Tone Mapping is the process of converting a High Dynamic Range color to a lower Dynamic Range, in our case we convert a full HDR image to an SDR image.
On top of that, we also use this node to adjust the Exposure of the scene allowing us to make it overall brighter or darker, however, we suggest adjusting the lighting in your 3D modeling software.
You can use the White Luminance property to increase or decrease the bright parts of the scene.
To learn more about Tone Mapping methods click here.
Tone Mapper can also be used to generate Bloom, Streak, or Ghost effects.
Bloom
Bloom effect is called Glares in Aximmetry this effect is a camera artifact that is present around very bright objects that cause the light to go beyond the borders of the object.
In the following gif, we are turning this on and off.
The image to the right shows the current settings for this effect.
Brightness Threshold is used to set objects from what brightness level will have a bloom effect, a higher value means that the object has to be brighter to have a bloom effect.
- The value you set here is the brightness you set in the Shaders Property, if the shader brightness is higher you will get a bloom effect around that object
Streaks
Streaks are unique characteristics of lenses and are widely used in films.
For Streaks to work, you need to turn on Glares as well.
The image to the right shows the current settings for this effect.
We offer different streak types
- Cinema - unique characteristics of anamorphic lenses, a horizontal streak around bright objects. This effect is used in the image above.
- Cinema Cross - Cinema lens flare with additional diagonal streaks around bright objects
- Cross - Horizontal and Vertical streaks around bright objects
- Cross Filter - Similar to cross but much more intense
- Snow Star - A star-like streak pattern around bright objects
- Sunshine - Usually caused by shooting with a smaller aperture which lets less light in and causes the sun to appear small and starlike
You can change their:
- Intensity
- Gamma
- Size
- Rotation
- Add Chromatic Aberration to them using Chrom Aberr property
- Blue Depth for Cinema and Cinema Cross types
Ghosts
Ghosting is a camera artifact that is caused by strong light sources that are reflected from the camera's lens.
For Ghosts to work you need to turn on Glares as well.
The image to the right shows the current settings for this effect.
You can set its Intensity and Gamma.
Depth of Field
In short, depth of field can be described as the distance between the closest and the furthest parts of the image that are in focus.
We have two DoF modules:
Depth of Field
This works in a way that separates the rendered scene into 3 part
- Blurred part in the front
- Sharp part
- Blurred part in the back
The blurred part in the front can be adjusted using the Fore Near and Fore Far parameters. The difference between them sets how sharp the transition is between the sharp and the blurred parts.
The blurred part in the back can be adjusted using the Back Near and Back Far parameters. The difference between them sets how sharp the transition is between the sharp and the blurred parts.
The Sharp part is between the Fore Far and the Back Near parameters.
You can adjust the blur amount with the Amount property and set the quality with the Blur Quality property.
Depth of Field GW
Depth of Field GW algorithm is created by Nvidia.
You can adjust it with the following settings:
- Focal Plane - You can position the focus distance with this property
- Sharp Radius - You can adjust the width of the Sharp part of the image
- Focal Radius - You can adjust the transition between the Sharp and the Blurred part of the image, a higher value means a smoother transition
- Min Blur - You can set the minimal amount of blur that occurs on the blurred parts
- Near Max Blur - You can set the maximum blurriness of the blurred part in the front
- Far Max Blur - You can set the maximum blurriness of the blurred part in the back
- Blur Fall Exp - You can adjust the smoothness of the transition into the blurred parts
Diffusion
By default, this module is not present in the Render compounds but you can always add it from: [Common]:Compounds\Effects\Diffusion.xcomp
This effect adds a bit softer look to the scene. You can change its Depth and Strength.
The image to the right shows the current settings for this effect.
Fog
You can use this module to add a volumetric fog effect to your scene:
The image to the right shows the current settings for this effect.
There are some parameters that you can change to customize the fog effect:
- Mode - Decides how the fog thickens with distance
- Near - Set the starting point of the fog
- Far - Sets the endpoint of the fog
- Density - Sets how dense the fog will be
- Height - Turning this switch on allows you to set the height of the fog
- Height Near - Sets height for the near starting point of the fog
- Height Far - Sets height for the endpoint of the fog
- Height Gamma - Can be used to adjust the fading between the top and the bottom of the Fog effect. Decrease to make the overall effect thicker or increase to make it thinner.
- Color, Near Color, High Color - Let you change the Overall, Near, and Far part's color
