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Real Lens Flares

PRESET BROWSER

As shown in Designer Overview, the Designer interface is comprised of several important areas. We will delve into each of these in turn, starting with the Preset browser.

In VFX Real Lens Flares, a “preset” is a lens flare projection, lens prescription, and/or the collection of characteristic values associated with the projection(s) and prescription. For example, a single default starburst could be a preset, as could a starburst combined with glowball and spike projections, lens reflections, and a host of detail adjustments. As the name implies, a “preset” is a collection of lens and/or projection values all saved as a single group.

The following image illustrates thumbnail images displayed in the preset browser. When Lens Flares is selected, the browser shows all default presets in the Designer library.

You’ll find the preset search bar above the preset thumbnail gallery. This can be a handy way to filter presets quickly. You may search by the specific name of the preset as well as characteristics, such as mood, lens type, and color. Search results will span multiple preset categories, if appropriate. For example:

To clear the search results, either click the X on each search tag or the circular reset arrow near the top-right corner of the browser pane.

Most Recent

The Most Recent feature tracks the 20 most recently viewed presets and displays their thumbnails in the browser for easy reference and access.

Favorites

VFX Real Lens Flares allows you to tag any preset as a favorite. To do this, mouse-over the preset’s thumbnail. An empty heart icon will appear in the top-right corner of the thumbnail. When you click the heart to select it, the heart turns white. All "favorited" presets appear in the favorites gallery.

Lens Flares

We’ll dive into lens flare preset construction in much greater detail later. For now, let’s just touch on lens flare presets from a Designer interface perspective. The presets browser shows the three principal preset types all together:

• Core projections are the various types of light artifacts that comprise the flare. These artifacts typically arise due to how light from the source passes through the lens. Core projections such as Glow Ball, Starburst, and Gate Flare exemplify this, and it's why these types of core projections are subject to animorphic distortion, which we'll explore later.
  
  However, as Real Lens Flares has evolved over the years, we've loosened the "core projections" definition a bit. For example, a Light Ball core projection is simply a way of rendering the light source. A Schmutz core projection revolves around light interacting with (simulated) matter on the lens, as opposed to being strictly about light and glass elements. Technically, the mechanisms behind these core projection types are varied, but functionally they impact the look of your flare in similar ways. Thus, we group them together.
  
  If in doubt, just remember this: Core projections are the building blocks of more complex lens flares. And if you want to start your flare effect with just a single building block, you'd likely do so by selecting one of the Core Projections presets, then adding onto it.
  
  Each core projection is accompanied by a collection of attributes (the light source, flare properties, and minimal aperture sections) with preset values in the inspection pane. On the projection strip, each core projection is comprised of two elements: the core projection and the reflections caused by default light values passing through the default lens elements. Core projection presets have their reflections hidden by default.
  
  Clicking on each projection in the projection strip will open a new set of attributes in the inspector pane column along the right. Since these attributes are specific to the core projection type, we’ll delve into each core projection in turn. See our Core Projections page for more explanation on the core projection types.
  
• Stylized flares are a collection of lens flare presets created by Maxon as convenient shortcuts for users. They can help match a flare to a known mood or color scheme is seconds rather than having to create the flare from scratch. Maxon expanded and reorganized its stylized flares into several thematic categories, including Dream State, Grunge, Horror, Stellar, Thriller, Western, and Xeno.
  
  Stylized flares are comprised of a range of core projection components and have the same primary Inspector Pane control groups (light source, flare properties, and minimal aperture) as other presets. As with the core projections, every projection and reflection on the projection strip can be selected to reveal that projection’s more granular control settings. Studying and deconstructing how stylized flares achieve their look and feel is a great way to master the nuances of Real Lens Flares.
  
• Lens simulations are modeled prescriptions of real-world camera lenses. If a scene is shot with, say, a Canon 18-55mm lens at 35mm, the lens preset for that exact simulation may give the lens flare an added degree of realism and authenticity.
  
  Depending on the context, Maxon may already associate a lens prescription with a given lens flare preset, but you may wish to mirror the camera used during the original footage capture or achieve a different flare effect. The three examples below illustrate just how different lenses can be in their internal element construction.
  
  
  
  We will explore lens parameters in more detail in this guide’s Lens Pane section. From a preset perspective, though, recall that each core projection preset yielded two items on the projection strip. Every lens simulation preset yields three: a starburst, a glowball, and (now visible) lens reflections. The Heliar Tronnier 35mm is the single exception; it adds a halo.
  
  Keep in mind that Maxon optimized the settings in these lens simulation presets to best show off their unique lens attributes and reflections. Light source size, aperture settings, color, and projection settings all differ between these lens simulations. You will need to do some tuning and custom lens flare creation to see a direct apples-to-apples comparison between lenses.

Custom Lens Flares

After creating a lens simulation or lens flare just the way you want it, you can save that work as a custom lens flare.

1. Click the New button just above the preview pane.
2. Give your preset a name.
3. Select the folder in which to save it. To create a new folder, simply overwrite the text already in the Folder Name field.

In the example below, we started in the Thriller presets group and modified the Choppah preset. We then saved it as a new lens flare preset called "Cuz This is..." and placed it in a Custom Lens Flares subfolder called Thriller 2.

By right-clicking on the thumbnail, VFX Real Lens Explorer offers options to show the Explorer folder containing your custom presets, rename the custom preset, or move it to the Recycle Bin.