Motion Effects

When using a camera to film fast-moving objects, these objects are often blurry. This is because they continue moving while the shutter of the camera is open. It is this feature that LightWave aims to replicate with Motion Blur.

Motion blur becomes essential when animating, especially for use with live action. It prevents the crisp quality that normally pervades computer-generated animation and helps an animation appear more fluid.

Use a camera view and see a preview of your depth of field and/or motion blur by choosing DOF/MBlur Preview from the Viewport Options menu.

LightWave’s motion blur system takes everything that can change over time into account. From shadows, to surfaces, from light intensities to object or camera movement. It accounts for curved motion and does not blur in a linear fashion, but rather following the path that the motion is taking.

Motion Blur is now only a checkbox where there used to be a dropdown menu. The motion blur now proposed is Photoreal, first introduced in LightWave v9.2. Photoreal Motion Blur allows for multiple samples within each render pass.

Left: a Particle explosion, Right: Rendered with Particle Blur 

  • Particle Blur - is for giving particles a motion blur effect. If it is not needed then keep it switched off for speed.
  • Blur Length - Blur Length sets the time that the simulated camera shutter will be open during a frame. 100% would mean that the shutter is open for the entire frame. 50% would mean that the shutter is open for half the frame and is a more typical setting. Increasing this value increases the length of the motion blur streaks. It is possible to enter values larger than 1.0 if you wish to capture more than one frame worth of action. The quality of the streaks is determined by the antialiasing settings.
  • Subframes - Each subframe will be anti-aliased with the settings described above. These subframes are blended together to produce the final image. This is the same way the the classic motion blur has worked in earlier versions of LightWave with the addition that each subframe can now be anti-aliased. If your scene contains object deformations, you should use multiple Subframe Passes when using Motion Blur . This will save you a lot of rendering time and produce more precise motion blur streaks.
  • Shutter Open - Lets you shift the time of the frame, up to one frame forward or backward, for the purpose of controlling whether the motion blur covers the first half of the frame, the last half, middle, etc., in order to match motion blur from other applications.
  • Shutter Efficiency - determines the amount of time, per frame, the shutter will be open. A value of 100% means the shutter is open 100% of the frame time, so the light exposure is equal for the entire frame. A value of 50% means the shutter does not open fully until midway of the frame, so the beginning and end of the light exposure are darker.
  • Rolling Shutter - Is for a Rolling Shutter effect detailed here.

Motion Blur and its Alpha

Deformation Motion Blur

LightWave will perform motion blur on deformed objects (animated characters for instance) in both F9/F10 renders and final quality VPR.