"Simple" Ghost image

# 1 21-05-2012 , 11:36 PM

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Hey All,
I'm working on making a ghost in a haunted house image. It's a still in Maya messing around with various lighting and materials.

I was thinking of it using a surface shader so that it has the illusion of white, but I guess what would I start off with first? Or is this even the correct way to begin. I could use a plane, but should it be a nurb or?

Just a simple image really but having a glowing ghost would be more what I'd like to go for.

Any ideas? Mat X ok to use?

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# 2 21-05-2012 , 11:52 PM

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Ghost sample

Here is a sample of the ghostly image.

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# 3 24-05-2012 , 06:57 AM

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I would personally opt for doing the ghost effect "in post"... i.e. build your environment and ghost models, render them in separate passes, and use after effects or smoke or something to comp them together. Then you have fast, simple controls for the ghost's transparency (and parts of it that shouldn't be?), extra glow filters, and the flexibility to make changes to the ghost effect without spending a ton of render time.

That's if you're currently working on a production that needs this shot. If you're doing it just to learn, I'm really freaking new to the vfx world, so I have no clue user added image

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Peter Srinivasan
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# 4 24-05-2012 , 03:38 PM

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Hey Peter.

LOL. Thanks, but alot of what you said is beyond me right now. I just needed to add a ghost to a still 720 X 1024 image. It's part of an exercise in texture and lighting.

Thanks though!

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# 5 24-05-2012 , 05:12 PM

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I guess you could try setting backface culling to ON for render, adding some transparency to the material, and adding some glow (in a maya material, "special effects>glow")...

I used to try to do these effects in the 3d package, I would ask questions here, and everyone would say "that's better, faster, easier, doing in post". And they were right user added image

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Peter Srinivasan
Producer

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# 6 25-05-2012 , 02:23 AM

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I was also told something about creating a poly plane, then attaching a "Picture shader" with the alpha channel and adjust some transparency. As you can imagine I'm still sort of lost. Picture shader? does that mean taking a surface shader and adding it as a material to the polyplane and then pluggin the alpha mask into the alpha channel but then what about the image? Does it get plugged into the out color?

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# 7 25-05-2012 , 05:30 AM

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Let's say you have a picture of of a person (is this a still or an animation?). Cut the person out so you have a tiff or png (or any normal image file that carries an alpha channel). Apply a material to a polyplane the same aspect ratio as your photo, then add a "file" node to the color input of that material. This will usually auto-connect the file's alpha to the transparency value of the material, essentially cutting the person out of the plane. At that point, all you have left is your person. Then it should just be a matter of adjusting the alpha gain value in the "file" node lower, essentially making the person more transparent... somethin' like that.

--
Peter Srinivasan
Producer

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"Simple" Ghost image

Ghost sample

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