How might I get post-composting like this in my Blender Internal renders?

See video here:

Mainly, I’m looking to get the grunge on the lens and the lens flares.

Well, as a photographer I despise both “dirty lenses” and “gratuitous lens flare.” But, both of these can be effectively simulated “in post.”

“Dirty lens” is simply a noise-textured plane, colored appropriately (which can also be done “in post”), mixed in with very low alpha. But it would be a little bit more complicated than it first appears.

When comping anything, “look at the light.” See what it does. In this case, the dirt does about three different things: it partially occludes what’s behind it; it changes the hue and saturation of what’s behind it; and it injects a certain color of its own.

You are also simulating underexposure, and the color-cast that results from that. These are muddy, unsaturated colors throughout the scene, and blown-out lights. (If he’s shooting with a video camera, his white-balance settings suck.)

Lens flare can be simulated with a plane with dots on it … probably several copies rendered at different magnifications or lens settings.

In each case, these start with separate, small renders to produce the source material that is required.

Now, I would not seek to copy most of this example, because it is decidedly unrealistic. :mad:

https://www.google.com/search?q=blender+lens+flare&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=le0DVvq_EsnXar2OqIgE&fg=1

Sorry guys. I should have clarified. I was looking to replicate the effects in the video more specifically and not just general lens flare. For example, when the one of the balls are off-screen, they cast light onto the camera lens as a streak on the side, and when one of those balls is in direct view, you can see a lit dirt/reflection texture specifically on that portion of the screen that reacts appropriately to the source of the light.

I was hoping Blender had a quick solution for this - but it looks like it would require a bit of manual tinkering.

I’m starting to get the feeling this would be easier for me (and safer) if I just did it in After Effects, where the effect can also be subtle and not over-done like in the video.

I know it’s not realistic either - but like I said, I intend to make this an immensely subtle effect, if I am to use it.

Thanks for your help.

Have you looked at using the glare node at all (it has a number of different effects and as usual with node editing, you can use as many as needed)?

Over at the Blend Swap site, cfirwin3 has two collections of lens flares for download, and a lot of them have a dirt/dust layer. Perhaps you can deconstruct one of his and modify it to your needs.

I found a tutorial he did on how to make them…

Steve S