CL_GLARE
Enhanced Lensflare & Bloom postprocessing effects for Blender.
Last updated
Enhanced Lensflare & Bloom postprocessing effects for Blender.
Last updated
Putting this beta out early for those who already switched to Blender 4.4 — some features broke and needed fixing. If you spot any bugs, drop them in the ! Full release is coming next month.
Currently only works in Blender 4.4.
Drag ZIP file into Blender to install or update.
If you activate the new Glare in a project where you’ve used a previous version of Glare, you will be prompted with a button that removes the old version and updates node groups for you.
Glare can now be found in the CHROMELABS tab.
UI
Effect headers have been improved.
Clicking on the effect icons might give you useful information about the effects.
Mute toggle disables all nodes related to the effect to improve performance.
Header Controls allows you to view all the power controls without having to dig through the menus. Extremely useful for balancing.
Discord & Documentation links added to top header.
Effects
Input — Threshold improved and Knee / Clamp controls added. You probably won’t need those unless you’re very serious about light values.
Colors — Added temperature & tint controls. Temperature is set to a cool tone by default.
Reflections — Similar to what was previously called Offset. Simulates lens reflections. This effect overlays copies of your image and allows you to manipulate it in multiple ways.
Glare — Add Star — Allows you to create more interesting star shapes. Angled in relation to the main glare by default. You can unlink the controls to set your own.
Glare — Add Dispersion — Layer another instance of dispersion on top.
Shimmer — Applies a moving shimmer texture to the input image, creating dynamic flicker and sparkle effects. Useful for adding life to static renders.
Fog — Adds a soft animated fog effect to the glare, simulating volumetrics. Works best when used in moderation and scenes with minimal camera movement.
Textures — Previously called Dirt. Now allows you to import your own textures like lens dirt, bokeh, or scratches to enhance realism and visual richness. Three textures are included.
Vignette — Completely reworked.
Fixes
Multipass Rendering - Inputs on the node group have been removed to allow you to duplicate the node group and use it for different passes. The configuration of each duplicated node group is synced automatically.
Activates in ALL viewports.
Viewer node is removed on activation.
Node is moved next to composite node on activation.
Most of the properties display useful tips when you hover your mouse over them.
Lensflare effects:
Glare: Star shaped glare Dispersion: Adds subtle variations in tones and chroma
Bloom: Simulates the glow around bright objects caused by light scattering in eyes and cameras
Streaks: Directional streaks
Ghosts: Lens flare
Rays: Faux volumetric lighting
Chromatic: Aberration & chroma lens flare
Offset: Faux lens reflections
Post-processing effects:
Dirt: Adds texture to your render
Noise: Smooths out the image and covers up denoising artifacts
Vignette: Darken the edges of your render to draw focus to the center
Color: Hue, saturation & colorize
Threshold: Pixels brighter than this value will be affected by the glare filter
Settings Compositor Device: Set to GPU for improved performance. Camera Passepartout: Darkens the outside area of the camera to improve the GLARE viewport experience.
Previews: Isolates the effect to easily preview the changes each control makes.
Known Issues:
Using languages other than English may cause problems activating the addon. If you're experiencing issues, use Blender in English.
Can’t see the effect?
Re-enable the addon by clicking the green button at the top
Make sure there is enough light in your scene & there are objects to reflect the light. Low roughness materials will react stronger to GLARE
Enable the Viewport & Render buttons, disable Pass
Hard to control the intensity?
Set your desired strength using the Global Power first, then tweak the modules using their power controls
Greyed out module?
This means the module’s power is set to 0. Open the module and crank it up
Red header / controls?
Disable preview at the bottom right of that module
Temporarily disable the addon?
Disable using the green button at the top
Performance
Camera view and making your viewport window smaller improves performance
The addon only works in Blender 4.2+.
Generally, the effects are applied in the order they appear in the node group. For example; the 'color' controls don't affect the 'chromatic' effects.
The post-processing effects only affect the GLARE output. However, the noise & chromatic effects can be switched to affect the whole render using the 'Global' controls.
The default values and limits of the controls are tuned to AGX colorspace and default Blender HDRIs
If the effects aren't strong enough, you should probably increase your light or HDRI intensity. Using a low roughness & metal for your material can also increase the intensity of the GLARE.
You can push the values of the controls past the limit by typing in your desired amount into the fields.
Hit backspace to revert values to default.
Transparent Background & Control in Post
Because of the way bloom & glare is applied to images, it's impossible to render the effect to a PNG or video with transparency.
However it is possible to render in passes (i.e. layers), which allows you to add backgrounds and even control the intensity of glare in the post-processing app of your choice (Photoshop, Davinci, AE etc.). It's quite simple once you understand how to set it up, and gives you a lot of control after render.
Set up the nodes in the compositor like below. The yellow nodes are called Mix Color. Add a File Output node and add three inputs in the N-panel on the right. Now connect the nodes to the inputs. Set the base path to wherever you want to save your render. It's important you choose a file output that supports transparency (i.e. PNG RGBA).
Set film to transparent under Render settings
Now render your image or animation as you always do. You'll find the passes in the location you picked on the File Output node.
In your post-processing app, add the layers in this order: glare, base, mask. Set glare and base passes to ADD or LIGHTEN blend mode. (Sometimes LIGHTEN looks more accurate)
Now you can add any background you want below these passes. You can also adjust the glare using any effect like curves, hue, gradient map etc.
Coming Soon:
The addon will take care of all the settings. Do not add the node group to the compositor yourself. It will override any old versions you have installed. You don't even need to open the compositor.
Find GLARE in the N-panel or Render Tab. Enable the addon by clicking the green icon at the top
Make sure there is enough light in your scene & there are objects to reflect the light. Low roughness materials will react stronger to GLARE
The addon might not connect properly if you have a viewer node in your compositor. Make sure your nodes look something like this, or remove your viewer node before activating the addon.
Effect not showing in Viewport. GLARE may not enable if you have more than one viewport open. You can manually enable it in the Viewport Shading settings at the top of your viewport.
Working with multiple scenes might break GLARE.
Make sure you have or higher installed
DO NOT unzip the file. Install the addon
