Lens Flare/Sun in Background help?

I’m making an “alien” scene for an animation with a purple “sun” in the background, but I don’t know how to make the sun without it looking like a big purple blob in the background. Besides the sun, I also want to add a lens flare to make it seem more realistic. I’m using a defocus node in compositing so it won’t be seen too much but it’ll still be there, so I want it to look good. I’m really good with blender but would still be considered a “noob” in some areas. One being Cycles so I’m using Blender nernal, so if you could help, that’d be amazing! Thanks!

Just do a search on “Blender Lens flare tutorial”, or watch the tutorial on Grunge Intro/Sleek God Rays on BlenderDiplom.

I was working on making a fairly realistic lens flare setup in Blender a while ago, with dozens of different types/effects. I was going to release it to the public, but I figured there wouldn’t be any interest. Here’s a quick test I made a while back. This one is not strictly realistic, but get’s the job done.

This appears to be more of a support thread.

Moved from “Jobs > Volunteer Work” to “Support > Lighting and Rendering”