Today i found a nice thing about fog, that thing being that you can create masks with it, from the title. The method i’m about to show here is probably much better than just doing green screens. Here’s an example:
Cool right? Here’s how to do this.
[DISCLAIMER THIS TRICK DOES NOT WORK WITH TRANSPARENT OBJECTS]
Also, please don’t get discouraged by the length
– HOWTO –
I’ll assume first you have a scene done. I’ve made a scene with a dummy. I know it’s not good. Thats not the point please dont judge me please plea
Our mask has to be black [0,0,0] and white [255,255,255]. White being the mask.
-STEP 1-
Make a normal screenshot/image/etc. This will be what will be shown.
-STEP 2 [the trick]-
Set FogStart in lighting to 0 and FogEnd to 0 or anything below 0 and FogColor to 255,255,255. I also reccomend setting enviromentdiffusescale and specularscale to 0 just incase.
Your scene should look like this now.
Now set your skybox to pitch black. Remove any celestial body. As i said, it has to be a white sillhouette against a black background. And now…
We have our mask. Now, the sillhouette isnt exactly white[255,255,255] , so you’ll have to make it white [255,255,255] yourself.
The next step is for those who don’t know how to use this as a mask in photoshop, and for those who dont know how to make it white. If you know how to do these things, the next step probably might just indicate what to do.
–STEP 3 [making the mask white]–
Open your mask image in any image editing software. I’ll use paint.net
Go to adjustments - black and white to make it black and white.
Its time to make our sillhoute exactly white and bg exactly black.
Go to adjustments - Auto level and click on it. [IF ANYONE FINDS A BETTER SOLUTION PLEASE TELL ME]
Click on your sillhouette with the eyedropper tool
Expand your colors tab and it now should be like this.
R:255
G:255
B:255
Opactiy: 255
Export the image. This will be our mask now.
If you plan out to also add particles to your mask, i have come up with a solution
– ADDING PARTICLES –
Make your particles white, as white as necesary, then make the same thing you did with the mask screenshot.
Insert the image, along with the mask image into any picture editing app and merge the images using the additive blend method, and use that as the mask from now on
–STEP 4 [applying the mask]–
Paint.net dosen’t have a mask feature like Photoshop has, as far as i know, so now i’ll switch to photoshop. Again, use any image editing software as long as it has the features i have now.
Open the original image [ not the mask one] in photoshop.
Open the mask image in photoshop.
Select the layer that has the image, then do ctrl+a to select all
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819840167958544404/983668158814625834/photoshop_I3MVN2CUfM.png
Ctrl+c to copy the selection, and then switch to the tab with the original image
Select the layer with the original image and create a new mask for it.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819840167958544404/983668393045540864/7XdcKomFio.png
Hold down alt and click on the layer mask. Paste the image onto the layer mask.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819840167958544404/983668804750028800/photoshop_8wh0A69Onb.png
Click on the original image, and now we finally have our product.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819840167958544404/983669273270550538/photoshop_p3X1dRs3LY.png
Here’s how the final image looks
-STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW-
In some cases, masks need retouching. No, i’m not going to make a step about retouching. Do it yourself. sjfkgj
You can also do this trick using highlights,wich might be a better way to do this. I’ve realized this 5 hours after uploading this. There might be even more ways to do something like this. You can get creative you know…
I hope this helped you help us help all. I made this tutorial look way harder than it should be, but i promise it’s easy and the result is worth it.
