Subject: Motion Blur
From: [email-masked] (Bob Mueller)
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 94 09:05:37 PDT

Greetings...

I've been lurking in the shadows for about a month now, and I must say, as a
new Lightwave user, I've *really* appreciated the volumes of great advice
exchanged here.  I finally have a query I haven't seen answered already:

*** Would someone pleeeease be so kind as to quantify for me exactly what ***
***             Blur Length *does*, and how it works? 8-)                 ***

The bowling pin picture on page 48 in the layout section of the manual looks
really great.  The blur really looks like a blur.  However, in my attempts to
apply motion blur to one of my objects, the "blur" ended up looking more like
a series of *edges* of the object...each edge being less transparent, but each
being very >distinct<.  I set my blur lengths from 50 to 60%, my object covered
75% of the visible field, and moved across about 10% of the screen each frame.

The manual, though it describes Blur Length as "the amount of motion blur",
does not give any useful example (that I've found, anyway) of what actual
effect a change of Blur Length has on the final render.  Is Blur Length:

     1)  The amount of "Blurriness"?  (More blurry, less blurry)
     2)  The amplitude of Blur?       (10%  = short blurry "edges"
                                       100% = long  blurry "edges")
     3)  The % of the *difference* between frames which *gets* blurred?
         (i.e. 50% would *not* overlap, but 51% would slightly overlap from
         frame to frame)
     4)  The number of times the object is rendered in slightly different
         positions to simulate a blur?
  or 5)  Something completely different?

*** Also, does a larger Blur Length dramatically affect rendering time? ***

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
...and now for a short bit of whining...

The manual is *oftentimes* frustrating in that it doesn't give one any
background as to how or why something works, or the rendering repercus-
sions of using that something (and thus a basis for applying that particular
something) }:-(
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks,    {8-)

            bOB

                   *~                                    *~
   [email-masked] ~~~~~~~~~b~~ *~ [email-masked] ~~~~~~~~~b~~  *~
    ~~~~~~ /|  *~| ~~|  *~   |  ~~O~~    ~~~~~~  /|*~  | ~~|    *~ | ~~O~~
     ~~~~ (_|_  _|   |_*~ _  |_  ~~B~~    ~~~~  (_|_  _|   |_ *~_  |_ ~~B~~
    *~////  |~~(_| ~ !_)~(_)~!_) ||||||   *~||||  |~~(_| ~ !_)~(_)~!_) \\\\\\