foggy

[Ihop]

how do you make a night scene look foggy without shooting n the fog

[Arcburn]

what are you shooting? What editing/compositing software do you use? etc.

The abosulte easiest way is just to overlay a filmed or cg fog in your editor. Overlay it or perhaps screen it. This is very simple and wont give much depth but it may work for your needs.

After that it becomes a case of rendering multiple layers of fog and masking out elements in your shot based on their depth in the shot. This could be time consuming and tricky, but will give you a far better look.

[BLUESPIDER]

how do you make a night scene look foggy without shooting n the fog

Have several barbques on the set. Make sure all the smoke blows on screen. You can try a 3d app like max,lightwave or find a particles program.

[Ihop]

Thxs u guys. I'll try it

[Reel Magician]

Why not use real fog? Get a cheap consumer fog machine and make a fog chiller to make the fog "low lying".
http://www.gotfog.com

[Robert Eldon]

Yeah, I like the fog machine idea and they're not too expensive. The other cool thing about that is at night, with the right lighting, you can get some real neat 'shadow' effects and if their are people moving through the fog, the fog moves in real interesting patterns (think vortex). Then, you can add additional fog layers in post.

[Daniel Skubal]

Good timing, IHOP! I've got a similar question and was going to make a post about it, but figured I'd just do it here instead.

I know you can do compositing of fog, but what's the best program to do it? I've got a shoot coming up where I am going to need really thick fog in a 3d environment. Any suggestions?

I've got maya, 3dstudio max, after effects and combustion on the comps on campus so, I'm essentially limited to those programs.