The Magic of Blurry Backgrounds
March 15th, 2007
Take a look at these screenshots from my in-progress cartoon “Beef and Stu”. To make the background really feel like it’s behind the characters I used some Photoshop blur effects. It’s exactly the look I was going for and was so easy to do… Too easy. It almost feels like cheating.


»
On March 15th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Yes I totally believe in the power of blurred bgs. I wish i had used some in Flavio. My next film will definitely make use of it.
On March 15th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I gotta say I like to blur BG’s as well. Rack focusing is another great trick to direct the viewer’s eye to a certain place. Cool stuff.
Mike, you did a rack focus in Flavio. Great job, by the way.
And Dan; it’s a great way to add richness and make characters really pop.
It’s one of those fun toys that needs to be used sparingly.
Take care and thanks!!!
Your Cartoon Pal……Jeff
On March 17th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Jeffy! Yeah we did do a rack focus in Flavio but actually not at the overseas studio. I asked for the scene to be exported as tga files and added it in later with Fusion mixed with Flash.
On March 16th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Blurred backgrounds are great in CG as well. You can save a lot of rendering time by rendering small, scale up the background, then blur it out.
On March 16th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Good to know I’m not the only one who digs the blur. By the way I forgot to mention, the original backgrounds here were created by my awesome intern Josh Jularbal.