Making the Cheddar Warrior - the hazy bits

I needed to put some haze - the suggestion of rain - into the background. Most decent 3D software packages allow you to create very clever 3-dimensional fog and haze effects. It's very impressive and you appreciate that power when you create an animation. But I didn't need that much power, and I had other things to spend my time on. Here's how I saved some time and still got the effect I wanted.

One of the really nice things about 3D software is that it doesn't mind if you cheat!

For example, if I were to hang a huge screen over a real ocean, that screen would cast a shadow. In my illustration I wanted to see the screen but not the shadow. So I tell the software to do exactly that. In the picture below left you'll see how easy it is to make those settings.

It was easy to make a screen with a grey middle area. When the camera 'looked' through it I had my haze effect. Can you see how the haze has softened the appearance of the horizon?

You'd be surprised how often 3D artists fool us with tricks like this one.

Making the Cheddar Warrior

• The foreground leaves
• The background tree
• Making a mouse
• The hairy bits
• The cheesy bits
• Looking through the water
• Sticking it all together

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