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Chapter 13: Composite and Rendering: TutorialBy Colin Litster Why Composite?You have reached the point where you have created a good mesh and designed a great material to shade it.You have applied lights to illuminate your scene for maximum effect. Surely, you only need to press therender button to be finished!Although your render might seem to be done, in a real production environment you would almost certainlyhave to color correct or composite the render with a pre-created background, or possibly even put it together with several different renders, building a final image in layers. While it is possible to add all the potentialelements of a completely finished scene into a single render, it is an inefficient and time consumingapproach to a production.Figure RCT.1: A stormy ocean scene composited from several images.The process of combining different elements into a single image is called “compositing.”Blender has a Compositor and post-production facility built in. It can be used to finely control the look of thefinished render while drastically reducing render times in animations. More importantly, it gives you completecontrol over the end result.Figure RCT.02: The only difference between the images is that the one on the left is a raw render, while theone on the right has gone through the compositor.The Production PipelineYou probably have heard this phrase in relation to the motion picture or graphic still production industry. Itrefers to the workflow that begins with the organization of 3D objects, materials, textures, scenes andanimation, proceeds through the rendering of these elements, and ends up by combining all of these assetsinto finished images.Blender gives artists the ability to do all of these things in one package, while allowing the integration of content from other sources and giving the opportunity to produce images and files that are useful in thescheme of a larger pipeline.While a complete understanding of the Blender render pipeline can help you make even more efficient useof the Compositor, you can start to use this versatile tool with only a little knowledge. In this chapter, we willintroduce compositing techniques to produce effects that would not be possible otherwise. With only a fewtools, you can subtly or even radically improve your renders.Rather than bog you down with too much detail at this early stage, we'll have you do a simple compositeeffect to learn some core facts about the system. Later, you'll do a more complex exercise that teaches moreabout individual node types, as well as some common techniques like bloom, color correction and vector-based motion blur. These later exercises will also show how the composite system can save youconsiderable time in the render process.A Beginning Compositor ExerciseLet’s use the Compositor to apply a sort of background shadow to a simple mesh model.Figure RCT.4: A raw render beside the composited version.
 
Run Blender and start a new scene (Ctrl-X). You should have a default cube in the center of your view. If you want to match our example exactly, you can use the spacebar Toolbox to add a sphere and monkey.As the compositor needs a render to work with, render the scene now by pressing F12.Sidebar: A Screen Layout for CompositingAlthough Blender comes with a default screen for many tasks, it does not come with one that is optimized for compositing.The screen layout used in this chapter is as follows:Figure RCT.3: A good compositing layout.If you're comfortable with the interface modification tools from Chapter 2, you should be able to recreate thislayout from the illustration. Also, this setup can be found as the "composite_screen.blend" file from the“examples” folder on the accompanying CD.End Sidebar The default render setup has the Compositor turned off. You need to tell the renderer to send its output tothe Compositor, and also to create a window in which to set up your composite effect.In the Anim panel of the Render buttons (F10), enable the “Do Composite” button. From now on, any render will send its result to the compositor in order to achieve a final image.If you are not using the compositing screen shown earlier, you will need to change one of your windows intoa Node Editor. Select “Node Editor” from the Window Type popup on the left side of the main 3D view’sheader.Figure RCT.5: Select the "Node Editor" Window Type.In the Node Editor’s header, click on the face icon to tell the window to work with composite nodes (it canalso create node-based materials), and on the “Use Nodes” button, which tells the scene to calculate thecurrent node configuration. When node trees become very complex, it can sometimes take several secondsto calculate when you make a change. If you plan to make several minor adjustments and don't feel likewaiting each time, turning off the "Use Nodes" button temporarily disables recalculation.Figure RCT.06: Both the Composite and Use Nodes buttons must be enabled.A default node system will be created for you, consisting of an input node called “Render Layer” and anOutput Node called “Composite.”NodesThe process of compositing usually involves taking an input (like a render), applying filters or other modifications, and specifying an output, which is often a render result. This type of process can be illustratedvery well by a diagram in which each process, like input, filters and output, is represented by a panel and isconnected to other panels by lines that indicate their relationships. These panels are the nodes.Use the mouse’s scroll wheel to zoom in on the Node Editor window.A node consists of:• input and/or output connectors;• a title bar 
 
with:• a down arrow to collapse the entire node;• the node’s title;• a plus sign toggle that will hide unused input/output connectors to clean up the display;• a “double bar” button that hides and shows the node's controls;• and a round preview toggle that hides or shows the node’s preview.Figure RCT.07: The default nodes.A line that represents the connection between the nodes is shown in the above illustration. Lines that joinnodes are called “connectors.” This connector is flexible, and will grow, shrink and change shape to maintainthe connection regardless of where the individual nodes are moved.Basic Node TasksYou already know the standard Blender methods of adding, moving and deleting objects. Blender usesmany of the same interface conventions for mesh and object manipulation as for node editing, and gives youa few extra shortcuts.Arranging NodesNodes may be selected with the standard RMB click, either on the node’s title bar, or on any non-controlspace within the node. As there is no 3D cursor in the Node Editor, a LMB click will also work as a selectiontool.Nodes can be moved with the Grab (G-key) tool, or simply LMB clicked and dragged.Move the Composite node to the far right of the view to make some extra room between the nodes. You willnotice that when you select a node, its title is highlighted and the part of the connector nearest the selectednode turns white.With the Composite node still selected, press the X-key to delete it. If you ever delete a node by mistake,remember that you can Undo (Ctrl-Z).Adding a NodeNew nodes are added in the same fashion as objects in the 3D view: the spacebar toolbox. Bring up thetoolbox with the spacebar, and choose Add->Output->Composite. A new composite node appears. If it isn’talready there, move it to the right side of the view.Making ConnectionsThe labeled dots on the sides of the node panels are sockets. Sockets that appear on the right side of apanel are outputs. They have some kind of information to offer: usually an image or a value. Sockets on theleft side of a panel are inputs. They accept information sent by output sockets. To join an output from onenode to the input of another, LMB click and drag on the output socket toward the desired input socket onanother node. When you are near enough to an input socket, the connector will snap to it.LMB drag from the “Image” output socket on the “RenderLayer” node to the “Image” input socket on the“Composite” node. When you successfully connect them, the Composite node will show a small version of the render in its preview window. If nothing is showing in the nodes at this point, you probably forgot torender the scene originally. If that's the case, do it now (F12).Deleting a Connection
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