A (98)

BEYOND THE LIMITS OF THE RENDER

USE THE RENDER BEAUTY PASS AS A START POINT TO INJECT YOUR OWN CREATIVITY INTO THE WORK

001 SunlightSet the sunlight pass to Screen mode at 70% and mask off

areas where it is not needed

002 Warming up

Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer set to Colorize and make

the layer a saturated orange to warm up the sunlight

003 Cloud light

Set the cloud light layer to Screen mode at 50% and mask off

areas where it is overexposed

004 Boost the saturation

Increase the Saturation by 50% using a Hue/Saturation

adjustment layer, with clipping mask activated, to intensify the blue ambient light

09

CONTROLLING LIGHTS

Most renderers allow output of passes for

lighting. V-Ray can output a pass for each light,

which can be very useful for quickly adding in extra

light from other sources. They can also be used to

change the colour of the light with a Hue/Saturation

adjustment layer. You can use this to increase the

warm/cool balance in the image.

10

SHARPENING

As often happens with 3D renders, the

image is a little soft, so you can apply a non-

destructive sharpening layer. Cmd/Ctrl-click on one

of the plane layers, selecting the layer transparency,

then Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+C to copy the merged layers

and paste to a new layer. Select Filter>High Pass and

set Radius to 3.0 and the layer blending mode to

Overlay at about 50%. This will sharpen the plane

and the level of sharpening can be controlled with

the Opacity of this layer.

11

COMP THE CHASING PLANE

You can build up the comp layers for the

chasing plane in much the same way as the hero

plane. In this case, you could add more diffuse

blue light and more reflection to give the

impression of distance. Also add a new layer,

select the MiG-29 layer opacity and fill with sky

blue. Set Mode to Normal and reduce Opacity to

10%. This will control the distant fog. Here you

can see a before and after of the plane with the

additional layers.

12

CREATE THE BACKGROUND

To create the background, you’re going to

need a combination of a few different photos. All the

images here are from cgtextures.com. You want a

clear blue sky in the background, fluffy clouds around

the planes and a view of the ground underneath. Start

by bringing in all the elements needed and loosely

arrange them. It can be a total mess at this stage as

you play with different elements and compositions.

Once you have a comp that works, you can start

blending the photos together.

13

CUT AWAY THE CHAFF

With the elements in place, you can remove

all the unwanted parts of the photos. You need

mostly clouds, so remove the skies. This can be done

initially with the Magic Wand with Tolerance at 30, or

the Eraser tool, and can be very rough to start as you

will use masking to blend the cloud edges later. Right

now is the time to experiment with the layout and

with different photos to see what works on a

compositional level before doing a lot of time-

consuming blending.

001

002

004

003

The reflection pass is a

very powerful tool for

post-production and can have

dramatic effects

3D AND PHOTOSHOP