How to Add Rain to a Poser Render Using GIMP

Adding special effects to Poser renders is one of the ways in which you can make them look more realistic. My favorite special effect--particularly when I'm trying to create a picture that depicts darkness both literally and figuratively--is rain. Adding rain is relatively easy with any photo editing/paint program. My personal favorite is GIMP, a free photo editing/paint program with all the same bells and whistles as Photoshop but without the high price tag. This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of photo editing/paint programs.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• GIMP software
• Poser render saved as a jpeg

1. Open your Poser render in GIMP. This will open your Poser render in a new window.

2. Go to the Layers drop-down menu and choose Add a New Layer. Then name that layer "Rain." Hit enter or select OK. In order to see the Layers box, you will need to go to the Dialogs drop-down menu and and choose Layers.

3. In the Layers box, you will notice there is an eye to the left of each layer. Click on the eye next to the one labeled Background, which is the one with your Poser render. This will make your Background layer invisible, and you will see that the Rain layer is just a white-and-gray checkered box. This is normal.

4. Go back to the main GIMP page and select the picture of the paint bucket. Underneath and to the right of it are two squares, one on top of the other. Click on the first one (the one on top); this will bring up a color wheel, from which you will choose a color to apply to the rain layer.

5. Select white from the color wheel, then go back to the rain layer and add the color so the square is now white.

6. Go to the Filters drop-down menu and select Noise, then Scatter RGB. Make sure your Red, Green and Blue settings are at 0.63 and your Alpha setting is 0. Select OK.

7. Go back to the Filters drop-down menu and select Blur and Motion. Select Linear for your Blur Type and set the Length at 10 and the Angle at 135. Select OK.

8. Go back to the Layers box and reselect Background where your Poser render is.

9. In the Layers box, change the rain layer's mode to Mulitiply. This will allow you to see the rain in your Poser render.

10. Save your image with a new name so you don't save over your original Poser render, to which you might want to add other effects later.

Tips & Warnings

• Choose a Poser render that has darker lighting.
• It's wise to add rain to Poser renders in which your 3-D human figures are expressing a less-than-happy emotional state, or to renders that have Gothic or horror themes.
• It's not a good idea to add rain to Poser renders that are positive and happy, or ones in which the lighting is very bright, because it takes away from the realism of the render.