Benefits of additive blending.

jacob thomas

I was wondering if anyone could help me out here.
Specifically I am after why/how it works.

Any help would be ace, unfortunately I couldn't find much on by searching other than "why isn't my additive blending working" posts.

Cheers,
j.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

Use it for particle systems, usually. It's good for effects where you want to add something on top

Here's a quick example for a fire effect. You take some particles (left two) and use additive blending to add them to the scene. As they overlay, rather than getting rid of information in the scene, they add their brightness. This means the bright regions only get brighter.



It's best used for any effect where you want something that gets lighter. Lasers, fire, sparks, explosions (the fire part, anyway) are good candidates for additive blends. If you want to simulate the effect in Photoshop, just set a layer to Linear Dodge.

jacob thomas

Kurt Russell Fan Club, thanks. That's a great summary.