Bloom+Transparency in Blender Eevee and Cycles +Export To .png

[@tallyman138]

I do the render with black background, open the image in GIMP and use the function 'color to alpha' (set to black). Ready. I'm totally satisfied with the result.

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Just tested it out, that's pretty cool! The only thing I see off about it is the bloom not adding brightness to the images below. I will definately keep this in mind if I don't want the additive effect, Thanks for sharing!

[@MindfulMusingsTome]

awesome!

[@okashusmani6773]

Tallyman this video is trash. The only thing that still works is your workaround.

[@franzmeier4472]

damn was about to post this.

[@rito202]

Ii would've tried the same thing on Krita: just render on black background run Color-to-Alpha on background color. Thanks for posting so that we could hear back the video author's comparison. Thank you to the author too. One of most dedicated and problem-solving video to those who are desperate.

[@f4ust85]

Jesus, the time it takes to articulate what every PS guy knew for years: just render it on black and blend it on Screen as a layer under the transparent version...

[@Daniel-nb3kk]

Thanks! :)

[@robinsquares]

11:38 to see the solution. Thank you for making a great explanation, but you're kinda dragging it out. Maybe put the solution at the start?

[@corujabiruta3732]

you took an astonishing amount of time in a lack of bloom rampage

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Glad you noticed, I had corona virus.

[@lelesinteri]

Oh my god you actually did it, this is the correct way to do it. I cant believe this, actually saved my half year long project and it was so simple and is part of the basic color theory. Thank you for being literally the only one to get this right! This also fixed the problem where i couldnt render volume with transparent background.

[@ИностранныйАгент-ъ7к]

Same problem , best solution 😊

[@Itschotsch]

LMAO I had read through every single artice and post you've mentioned in the video, my links were just as purple as yours. Quite funny to see someone else have the exact same experience. :D

[@_poppo]

I just want to say I really love the part that you literally clicked through EVERY SINGLE PAGE in the search results.

[@TheMastrBuilder]

THANK YOU SO MUCH MAN!! I didn't even search up my problem yet. I was just looking on youtube about bloom when I saw this and clicked on it. Who knew that this would fix my problem! I thought my compositor was not working, however, its just that bloom doesn't work with transparency. But you helped me fix that. You are a legend, you deserve 100 million subs!

[@adri.progression]

I really appreciate your thoroughness and the fact that you provided all of the necessary context and reasoning behind your decisions, so we can actually learn the process, why it works, and how we can expand upon it instead of us mindlessly copying your solution. Great humor, amazing narrative arc, and an extremely triumphant denouement to the Renderer's Struggle. 🙏🏽👏🏽

[@johnaquino7619]

Seconded. Getting everything clearly defined in an engaging way which still gets to the point without guessing? Excellent. 🙂 Please keep digging up more of these "mysteries" . Although, I think someone already did a thorough video on why pinches and puckers often show up on geometry and why this happens with tri's , quads and n-gons.

[@israelosilva]

the second options pleases me more as it makes the whole work in blender itself , that is what I think it should be able to do it first place without the need of opening any other editing software at all. Thank for your BRIILLIANT insight . pun intended.

[@captaincarl]

To do this without rendering twice, just set up a separate File Output node in the compositor and feed the Alpha channel into it. Uncheck 'Use alpha' in the main composite node. Then you'll get both separate files in one render process. Then just invert the alpha pass in your compositing app to make it black-on-transparent and use this method. This resulted in some white fringe so then just set the inverted alpha layer to Multiply.

[@yigitkizilay]

umm can you eleborate more i added another node but couldn't get two seperate pngs

[@GameAbuseStudios]

The output options are over to the right side of the compositor with the output node selected, but they’re possibly (probably) hidden by default. Pressing N on your keyboard should make the options pop up, in those options you can setup multiple file outputs which will make the node grow as many yellow input pins (color data) as desired. Whatever you plug in will output to the file location you specify for each output upon rendering. Edit: Forgot to mention that it's a node you have to add called "File output" and also after jumping into blender to make sure I'm accurate, it seems the options are in the top tab of those options (Tab called "Node") then hidden under a drop-down menu called "properties" where finally you can hit "Add input".

[@Vido89]

@@GameAbuseStudios can you please post picture of node setup, Im beginner

[@MikaBoMS]

What I did is I plugged the Alpha in a ColorRamp, defined the values as transparent and black, and did the rest of what the vid explains. So I can use Add in there, not Multiply.

[@Steedie]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is what I hate about these "help" forums. There's too many people there just to grind up their reply count, commenting "I found the answer in 30 seconds on Google" then linking a completely unhelpful or unrelated answer on another forum. It's just so demotivating trying to ask for help when you know you'll get this answer 99% of the time.

[@oeuvrehui]

this man is einstein in blender world. i use blender for 4 years and still have no idea how to render with bloom. thank you G.A.S

[@nirubansatchithanandakumar3266]

dude. This is freaking amazing. Love your process, its so methodical, and your analysis is superb. Some Sherlock Holmes level stuff! Thanks for this!

[@leucome]

I was thinking wtf is this. Bloom is not that hard to add. So I guess I already knew.

[@DPLawlorFilms]

holy mother of god, it worked. Your sarcastic frustrated tone is exactly what this fucking subject needed. Thank you for really taking the time to stop the madness.

[@NmMindstorm]

I liked this video so hard. Been spending hours on this Thank you

[@guilhermebento9227]

Man! I loved your video, this humor is treasure! You almost caugth me in that fake end LOL. Thank you so much for the tutorial I wanna try this soon in one of my works. Sending you good vibes from Brazil!

[@UmNãoSer]

I quoted you in an article as a possible answer and the response was "this solution is far-fetched and technically incorrect". I don't care lol. It works and it's amazing solution no matter what.

[@buddysadventuregame1255]

man I like the way you make your videos but GODDAMN you take your sweet time coming to the explanation

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm newish to KZbin and I'm trying to get away from doing that.

[@iskullyi910]

Using additive is wonderful, I use it all the time for particles that I want to have similar glow effect. The issue I run into is when a customer wants a cutout transparent image, with the bloom effects. I recently did a render of a starship for someone's book, they asked me to make it a fully transparent image so they could simply apply it onto the page. I did explain to them the issues surrounding that, and how using a black image with additive applied would work even better. They insisted on having the image already be transparent and were happier with the awful bloom I had to mix in myself through photoshop. It's unfortunate that we can only have the two options, but that's how the programming and rendering works, can't change that.

[@grigorescustelian6012]

aaaaa, have you watched the solution actually? That's what this clip is about. You have to combine them in PS or something

[@mytopcomics]

I watched this a year ago, but I completely forgot about this trick... now it's like a lifesaver ;)

[@spaderkungskuk]

I went through the same stages of rage seeing all other solutions just copying one flawed solution. This works great with two images layered. But there has to be a way to make one single png, and have the outside bloom with alpha. Seems like a lot of work to add a bloom icon to videos or images otherwise. And now I see the pinned comment about gimp almost answers this.

[@GameAbuseStudios]

I don't really know how other video editing programs handle it but Davinci Resolve is just drag and drop. To me, doing all this image or video wise is not a lot of work, but figuring it out was. I noticed yesterday that it seems to be a much harder thing to achieve than I had first thought when I saw the loading screen on Monster Hunter World using the flawed solution. I'm going to have to look into this a bit more and see what programs can handle using this method because without additive it won't add and with additive it won't look good without the second layer.

[@spaderkungskuk]

The second layer made black becomes a mask to prevent the object itself to be added twice i realised, resembling the other solutions... I hobby use blender, but was sure that creating bloomed mpegs for animated overlays would be industry standard in vfx.

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Yeah probably, I just have some kind of complex that tells me I have to have the best so I steer clear of using anything with lossy compression until I have to use it😅 Edit: figured out a few days ago that blender can't export transparent video files, so exporting to Mpeg won't work at all for this. Edit of Edit: Actually after some testing it looks like it can (Internet lied to me again) however it's forced to be in standard color space (just like how OpenEXR forces it to be standard) so the bloom is off color (Since it's standard) and it looks fuzzy.

[@temtor]

My man just went all game theory on this one your everything is perfect for this wth

[@InLightVFX]

Just turn on the bloom pass, export with openEXRMultilayer, then just use an 'add' operation to add the bloom pass over the image. If you want to stick with exporting in png, you can use the compositor and connect the bloom pass to a file output node.

[@TheAverageJoeBro]

Alpha Add and Alpha Subtract are very common in the VFX, Film and Motion industry. I think taking a look or poking around in film and video forums you might have found the answer sooner. We use black, screens, white screens, green screens, and blue screens all for various reasons. I’m newish to 3D animation, but my training in the film industry has me default to black screening for any transparent bloom effects I need outside of blender.

[@chillegaming1837]

YOU ARE FREKIN UNDERRATED !!! The way you make tutorials is actually very creative ,I really want you to have more than a Million subscribers !!!!!!

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Thanks!

[@aintzanewilma1269]

you're literally a lifesaver!! couldn't imagine where would i be hadn't i watched this tutorial

[@RuniRiot]

I have been searching for an answer to my problem because I've been trying to render something all day and it came out wrong everytime. Seeing all the places I went to and then saw again in your video was really funny. I'm used to making things with Cycles but for this particular project I needed Eevee. I came across your comment on another video on how to fix this issue and I AM SO HAPPY I DID! Your video needs more views, man

[@MarkStead]

Same applies with volumetrics. I needed to apply the alpha only to the foreground layer, and composite over the background. Then finally add the volumetrics over top of everything. This just seemed to work automatically in Blender with Alpha Over, however took me ages to figure out in Davinci Resolve.

[@lintg4822]

This yt channel is underrated af. Your vids are really entertaining

[@linjianru]

Sometimes you google for a problem and find no one knows the solution. And finally, when you figure it out, you are the first one. So remarkable, man, you saved us!

[@VortexTheBreadMan]

4:50 this is actually correct open EXR does support storing these effects. It just depends on whether the program you are using really supports it. Which if you are using blender then all you have to do is overlay the EXR in the compositor using the alpha over node and the bloom carries properly.

[@emimeemio]

EXR didn't work in After Effects tho.. or am I missing something.

[@eliserwiedemann5221]

Wow, this was something I've been trying to solve for so long but wasn't ambitious enough. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, this is really valuable knowledge.

[@DerekGoveDesign]

Good video. I love it when old techniques are rediscovered. Back before using transparent PNGs for compositing, I pretty much copied the method pioneered by ILM when optically compositing shots for Star Wars. They filmed against a blue screen which was used to create background and foreground mattes. This allowed them to create footage of the object against a black background, and a background with an object-shaped black area. When these two pieces of film are combined in the optical printer, you have your composited shot. In my 3D work, I duplicated this, using an inverse of my 8-bit alpha channel set to 'multiply' against the background, before using 'screen' or 'add' to 're-expose' that area with my object rendered against a black background and saved as a 24-bit image. Your video just goes to prove that a lot of the time, the old ways are still the best! 🙂

[@shaunscm]

Thank you! I tried all the other work arounds, and then started wonder why even in the multu-layer exr the bloom was still black, and came across your video. The "add" solution should have been obvious, but some how you are tge only one who figured it out!

[@KIDNOFACE]

damn you were really mad about bloom. glad im a beginner and your video was the first one I saw THNX

[@gabrielWachong]

Thanks for this explanation! Its frustrating there's no default way of just exporting the bloom/glow! 🙌🙌🔥🔥

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Yeah, I wish there was a better way. especially since I use this a lot for effects in my videos. I also wish that I could have made the video better, but I was angry and was held back by Davinci resolves many limitations. this was a very frustrating video for me.

[@gabrielWachong]

@@GameAbuseStudios Im glad you made it. Tbh Im doing some title animations that come off like crap when I bring them into post and for the life of me could not figure out what was going on until I saw this video.

[@adderallmannequin]

Dude your videos make me laugh so damn hard keep up the amazing work

[@headbanditkillian]

I found out how to get bloom to show up in OBS studio. Its similar to what you described. Place both videos in a group in one of your scenes. Place the one with no transparency on top and the one with transparency below. My initial mistake was to try using the Image Mask/Blend filter. Don't use this, as it won't work. What you do is right click the non transparency video that's on top, then go to Blending Mode, then choose Additive. Now to make sure both videos are in sync, in each of their properties, turn on Restart playback when source becomes active and leave both of them visible. When you want to turn them on and off, change the visibility of the group they are in. There didn't seem to be any need to apply any changes to the brightness to either video layer in OBS. I hope that helps others who were struggling with getting bloom to show up in OBS. 🙂 Thanks so much to Game Abuse Studios for figuring out how to do this in video/image editing software in the first place and sharing it. Definitely couldn't have figured this out without your video.

[@madcativ]

With all my heart, thank you very much!!! OuO, I've spent a lot of time searching for a solution and this is it

[@Vido89]

@Game Abuse Studios can you please post image of how to setup nodes and compositing so I get bloom + transparency in .png final render ?

[@dreadwinter]

Dude, im 5 minutes in and theres no indication of an incoming explanation yet.

[@notbad426]

Search for this solution for a whole night, thank you so much!

[@petrohands2406]

thanks for the great tutorial, I've tried it with fire on cycles, it got very bright and the other objects as well

[@Rocz3D]

I was searching for a solution and messing with nodes and cursing the gods trying to get glare/alpha to work. Apparently, I didn't understand the Add function well enough. Thanks for the explanation and solution.

[@Karzanius]

Thank you so much for this video!! Truly a time saver to get the best results

[@the_stray_cat]

man you really should do more vids, you got some really good info .

[@letsd0good]

ok so there is no way to actually save a png or exr with a transparent background with still maintaining the glare? with no backgrounds of videos or other images to composite it onto etc.

[@gordonbrinkmann]

It sounds like this in the video, but it is actually nonsense when he says it would not work with EXR. The question is only if the software you are using to open the EXR can handle it correctly.

[@FallOutBoyDon]

Thank you so much. The deadline today, last minute changes from client... you pulled me out of a whole i was many hours into 😂

[@AKAHatter]

I was yelling "Glare node!" the whole time lol

[@sadicus]

That was the most educational rant. vertices of the mind merged

[@surfacevision]

Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! At last after all these years the problem is finally solved! THANK YOU!!!

[@DJKoren]

I love this video so much! Great work! Thank you!

[@alexudalov-channel]

Man you're fucking awesome! You've literally smashed all other methods on this issue! I've been searching for the answer for hours and almost lost hope... but KZbin recommended your video))

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@alexudalov-channel]

@@GameAbuseStudios well I found an issue. When I combine black and transparent shots in AE and place any image below them - everything works well. But if I disable that "any" image below and export the result in png with alpha - there's no transparency any more. Just black background. Am I missing something?

[@GameAbuseStudios]

​@@alexudalov-channel Exporting from after effects as a single image? I've never used after effects but the results should be the same as long as it can composite correctly, which it should be able to. just make sure to keep both files until you're done compositing them on to the other image's

[@bigboss9150]

Thanks, Big G. You just saved my latest render.

[@MarcNewhard]

This guy blooms. Seriously, you saved us all a ton of time and effort. Also thank you to Tallyman for the GIMP shortcut.

[@ThePlanetCable]

Head's up: I know this video is two years old, so maaaaybeee this wasn't a thing back then, but as of today, OBS Studio _can_ blend properly, the method is just slightly different. You applied an "Image Mask/Blend" filter to the background image, and set the "Path" to the bloom image. The problem is that the black render isn't present with this method, so it only adds to the background. Instead, you can add both the black render and the bloom render as independent sources and set the bloom render source to appear on top of the black render source. Then, you can right-click on the bloom render source and set the "Blending Mode" to "Add". Should work flawlessly then! Hope this helps someone or maybe it won't idk I'm not your dad

[@masonbennett4095]

I saw 99 subs and made it a 100. Great video!

[@GameAbuseStudios]

lol, I watched it go up.😁

[@coolorochi]

I have a similar workflow, The only difference is I use black layer below transparent layer so I'm not changing bright to black. EDIT after test: Your method is far more flexible, My first test results in object is too dark for a bright background image. Usually I use curve to adjust it. By your method, adjusting the brightness of transparent layer make a fast and convenient composite! Awesome 👍👍👍

[@wigger4942]

Please do one for animation, this is top notch research

[@wyomingcreations8824]

You video has captured my interest and has introduced many cool ideas.

[@Kovek1988]

Your my life saver. Imagine the world without me with jedi lightsaber...Now im the faking jedi :P

[@umbreonben]

This is still the best video ever holy shit

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Thanks!

[@DerFinder]

this is still a workaround. All of the previous versions you showed are dumb, I agree xD Yours works well (personally I like to just render out a bloom layer with black background and set that to screen mode) but I was searching for a way to directly export the finished image

[@Mysticfox4]

I just started getting into 3d and this is Super applicable to just making artwork in general! I had this issue a long time ago and wasn't able to make effects in photoshop saved as png because of this similar issue, I'm super happy that now I'm able to do just that! Awesome Video!

[@lee2key]

Please give this guy a researcher award

[@NazarieMihai]

Many thanks! This really is the best method! I subbed! Can you make a video on how to import it in davinci? I struggled to merge them in the fusion tab but can't figure it out.

[@drguerrou417]

thank you for your kindness.however the black is always present around object in stead of transparency. for example when the background is yellow

[@XYZ-qh7rx]

I sure as hell am going to hit that like button. And subscribe, damn it.

[@marc-antoinegiguere6323]

Thats pretty freaking cool. Would love to see a video of how you got the 3D version (cube) at 6m49 (export, import, everything) since I'm pretty new to all of this and could use exactly this in a game I'm developing!

[@GameAbuseStudios]

I can do a video if you want me to. there's someone here in the comments who asked me about getting it set up and I went into detail for them. not sure if it's very understandable but you can find my replies to TwistedWizardy under his comment (He's the one with the big red logo with a thumbs down). I think that should get things working for you but if you have any questions or any problems with it please feel free to let me know. I will gladly do a video.

[@jonathanbenton6798]

Unfortunately this isn't a universal fix. If you render animations that have motion blur, then this causes a lot of issues. The moving object with bloom adds a blur around the edge for motion blur, and when you create an ADD blend mode in a compositor, the motion blur brightens up along with the bloom and doesn't look right. And if you use the black/white render as a mask to fix the motion blur, then you lose the bloom. And the top layer doesn't look right either, because you dont' have the premultiplication on the matte for the motion blur, so the motion blurred portions appear dark on a mid-tone background

[@danbreland3444]

That was cool! Thank you so much. This really helps. Thanks for taking the time to figure this out!

[@MikelKiriakos]

Great video! I had to rewatch a few times but got there in the end :) great result! well done!!!

[@sotiristriantoulis209]

The amount of edging in this video is extraordinary XD

[@herbiep.5837]

Not even halfway through the tutorial and already subscribed. Love the craft and the way you managed the narrative!

[@grigorescustelian6012]

8:21 - Dude, ok! We got the point just skip to your wonderful discovery.

[@maryelljazz]

you're a genius and. just saved my work thx a bunch 🥰

[@CKDesigner2525]

Wow, I am impressed with the great CG teacher talking about bloom and alpha, that's really great!! But I have a question, how can I saw the image transparent after editing the alpha channels in my image editor? Like I did the bloom filter using the ADD method, but I still don't want to add a background, I just want to save it transparent, how can I achieve this?

[@iNrelevante]

Same problem here, any discovery?

[@JuniorStreetCrew]

i dont understand why blender dont fix this problem like make it an easy function...

[@youlist]

Thank you, this is genius.

[@VfxBlender]

Bloom from blender to resolve is working with the add composite mode in the video tab in editing mode. Also no need to render a separate transparent layer just pop it over your video!

[@avalbono4829]

Thank you! I was struggling for weeks with this! Quick question: so how can I actually get a png with a transparent background? Ok I have now there layers in photoshop, it works perfectly, but how do I save it w/o background image? Sorry I feel that it is a very stupid question. Wondering how you do a transparent png sequence which you mentioned at the beginning of your tutorial

[@rito202]

This may solve your situation maybe. On Properties window / Render Properties / Film / Check Transparent checkbox. This renders the world as transparency. You still need to save image as PNG with transparency option enabled to not lose the alpha channel data.

[@okovii]

did you find a solution?

[@akhmadali5064]

I have same issue, did you find the solution?

[@Hey_PT3D]

This is insane. Great tutorial

[@yaaasmin6083]

You literally save my job, thanks u so much

[@Bananeisafree]

Welp. That was the answer I was looking for a bit. Thank you buddy.

[@Viluron]

Oh wow, i knew about the "Add" method before and already used it many many times for editing images and overlaying stuff to images but i never thought of that. And once you showed that the blooms suddenly disappears once the background is white it just clicked for me to and the black background and Add method immediately came into my head. Its amazing that apparently no one has thought of this before

[@KeishaDeniece]

Thankyou for this video!!! Very helpful! Can you please make a video about the same topic but for animation importing it in Premiere Pro?

[@RaffoVFX]

You are a true researcher! Thanks for sharing

[@northrain0462]

Thanks a lot, that was awesome. Unfortunately I need a transparent background too, so I need to find another method but now it's clear how eevee works!

[@descuddlebat]

Okay so to get what I wanted I made the transparency render and the black render like you did, used transparency render with wand tool to select where the image is meant to be transparent, hence where to apply the 'color to alpha' tool as mentioned in the pinned message!

[@aahritya_tv]

wtf bro, you arae genious! been using Add since years never thought it could be done this way!!

[@eminentstudios8644]

how would i go about exporting an animated 3D logo with bloom and transparent background? do i need to do this to every frame?

[@urickyo5370]

I’ve never wanted to hit the like button so badly like I did for this video :)

[@maayanon1247]

wow! i had this exact problem 2 months ago, THANKS!

[@shotgunkelly]

You're a legend for this.

[@WaddleQwacker]

I am quite shocked, this is presented as some form of secret nobody knows about. It you have ever used the Glare node in Fog glow (which is how you did bloom effects before Eevee), you clearly see how this works. If you have ever used the Mix RGB node in any way, you know how you can get the exact same result. The issue is always and has always been people trying to use transparency as a way to make data any time transparency is only the perceived final result instead of thinking about how digital colors works.

[@ap0kalyps3]

as you say in 12:26 for your method to work, you can only use it if your workflow continues with compositing in my case, I want to have a png file with the glow already useable, so without the black showing through... and if possible in 1 file and not having to go into another program to stitch 2 pngs together I'm wrecking my brain trying to figure that out...

[@GameAbuseStudios]

Tallyman's method seems to be the best alternative for that. I've pinned his comment to the top.

[@killeandroid98]

thanks a lot for this, almost every method i could find ignores completely the existence of cycles

[@CristianSCG]

I also found a solution, not the best, but for me worked. I added a green screen background that didn't affect the scene lighting and then i removed the greenscreen in After Effect. As long as the glow is not green it works fine and can be exported as a transparent png or video.