Poser 12 Basics: How to set up & use motion blur

May 19, 2021 at 10:00 am by Michelle Willard


When you shoot a photo of a fast-moving object, it appears blurry.

The amount of blur is directly related to the length of time that the camera’s shutter remains open while taking the shot. Similarly, Poser's Motion Blur feature lets you give your animations the illusion of motion.

Here's how you can enable and use Motion Blur to add a whole new dynamic and level of realism to your renderings.

There are a few setting that must be changed for motion blur to work.

First, set the Camera Parameters for each camera that you are using. Using the Shutter Open and Shutter Close dials, you can control how blurred by motion an image can be.

The Shutter Open value represents the shutter opening time in fractions of a frame, where 0.0 is the beginning of the frame and 1.0 is the end of the frame. The Shutter Close value represents the shutter closing time in fractions of a frame, where 0.0 is the beginning of the frame and 1.0 is the end of the frame. As the amount of time between Shutter Open and Shutter Close increases, the motion blur effect increases. The higher the number on Shutter Close, the more blurry an image will be.

Unlike a real camera shutter, both Shutter Open and Shutter Close open and close instantly with zero elapsed time. Regular camera shutters, while extremely fast, require a small interval to travel between the closed and open positions. For example, setting a beginning time of 0.0 and an ending time of 0.5 means the shutter would be open for the first half of a frame.

Next, you need to activate 3D Motion Blur in your Render Settings.

The Shutter Open and Shutter Close settings only result in a visible effect when 3D Motion Blur is activated.

FireFly and SuperFly have separate settings for motion blur, so you will need to enable Motion Blur on whichever render engine you wish to use.

In FireFly, you'll need to enable "3D Motion Blur," while in SuperFly, you'll check the "Motion Blue" box. With both render engines, selecting these checkboxes enable motion blurring for your scene when rendering. The main difference is that in SuperFly motion blur can also apply to shadows and the quality of the motion blur effect is controlled by the Pixel Samples setting.

Show us how you used Motion Blur in Poser by using the hashtag #CreateWithPoser on Twitter or Facebook.

Sections: Tutorials