For those of you unaware, Pepper's Ghost is a special effect that has it's roots in the carnival, but more recently has been used in major theme parks and attractions. Even though it's a simple effect, it's amazed millions. If you've ever gone to a Disney theme park and visited the Haunted Mansion (Phantom Manor as it's called in Paris), you've seen Pepper's in action. The ballroom scene and the hitchhiking ghosts at the end of the ride are prime examples of this technique. The effect is done with glass and lighting. Disney uses a special glass for this purpose that is more reflective while still being see through, but it can be done without this expensive glass. Fortunately for us, we can simulate the glass that we want right in Vue and we don't even have to worry about hiding lighting and camera mounts.

This how to guide is based after the one I did for Bryce. It was created because I had not seen many people use full color ghosts in renders. Many have asked me "Why not use Transparency instead of this effect?" That would seem to make sense, only they are assuming, as I did originally, that you could just make a Poser figure transparent and he would look like a ghost. Unfortunately, they don't wind up looking like ghosts, but bad x-rays. Poser does not create one mesh that is only comprised of the surface that you see. For instance, if the hair and the head are transparent, the hair shows the outline of the head rather than just the wall behind it. This holds true for the eyeballs, the mouth cavity, and layers of clothing, some of which cannot be fixed with making part of the figure invisible. So I came up with this technique in order to do the ghostly figures I wanted and to share it with you.

Rather than a formal tutorial, it's an explanation of the process that I go through to create the ghost images. Since there is so much variables that can be created in your own scene, I thought it best to use this technique rather than a straight out tutorial that won't mean a whole lot when you do your own images.

This how to guide assumes a working knowledge of Vue D'Esprit and is intended for intermediate to advanced users. It requires being able to set up a scene and import Poser objects into that scene (if you will be using Poser objects), both of which are beyond the scope of this tutorial.

And away we go into the smoldering sanctum of the Vue supernatural...

STEP 1: CREATING THE GLASS.

The Pepper's Ghost glass is the most important element of the effect and the simplest to create. It will basically be put between the solid and ghost objects, so when the camera sees it, the reflection will show the ghost objects and the solid objects behind the glass.

In Vue, after you've created a new document, you will want to create a plane that sits such that it is 90 degrees perpendicular to the ground plane (IE Standing straight up) and that it covers the entire field of view of the camera. This is important because the trick is that the glass will not show up at all during render.

The material I used is the default Impossible Glass with the Global Reflection turned all the way up.

STEP 2: POSING AND EXPORTING FROM POSER

While not really a step, a few hints. The pose that you create for the ghost will be mirrored by this technique. In other words, if the ghost is extending a right hand in Poser, he will be extending a left hand in this technique. This is important to keep in mind when posing to interact with the environment.

Scenes involving interaction such as a ghost with it's arms on the arm rest of a chair should be posed prior to exporting so that it will be able to interact once in Vue.

When exporting, the ghost MUST be saved as a separate PZ3 file than the rest of the scene of solid objects. This can be done by saving the entire scene, deleting the ghost figure(s), saving as a separate file, and then reloading the whole scene and deleting the backdrop leaving just the ghost and again saving under a different file. This is inportant because in Vue, they won't be in the same location.

You can have as many ghosts as you need. I prefer to save each ghost individually to make it easier to place, but that's just a suggestion.

STEP 3: PLACING OBJECTS

This is probably the most difficult part of the concept to explain, though it will make sense...

A typical object placement looks like this (from the top)...

Solid objects are placed on one side of the glass. These are objects you want to appear in their full form. This can be anything from walls to chairs to torches, etc. In our scene, these solid objects will appear as if the glass was not there. Be sure to place all solid objects on the same side of the glass, otherwise reflection and ghosting will occur.

Now the objects you want to be transparent or ghosted will be on the opposite side of the glass plane facing the opposite direction of the environment they are in (on the solid side). You'll note that the girl is faced toward the glass as well as the chair on the solid side is also faced toward the glass. The ghosted objects are not seen directly by the camera, but only as a reflection in the glass. The camera is also placed on the ghost side of the glass so that it can pick up the reflection of the glass. Incidently, we in CG are lucky that we don't have to deal with trying to hide the camera's mass unlike in the real world.

It isn't quite that simple though. One has to consider depth as well as just one side of the glass or the other. For instance, in the example picture above, the girl seems to be sitting on the chair. This is because she is basically the same distance from the glass on one side as the chair as on the other side. This is important to give the 3D the required depth.

You may also have to alter the size of the ghost and or scene elements to get the proper size relationships.

Now onto lighting...