Hello and welcome to this Compositing in Blender Tutorial Series!
In this compositing in Blender tutorial series we give you an introduction for using Blender’s compositing nodes. This series will take you through all the basics of using and understanding compositing in Blender with the node system. After this series you should have a thorough understanding of compositing basics; including Render Layers, available nodes, blending modes, and much, much more. You will also learn how to do color adjustments, tweak curves, composite multiple images, and even adjust the lighting and color of your complete scene.
What You’ll Learn in this Tutorial
In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we introduce you to the compositing nodes. This first introduction, examines using the individual render passes; allowing you to gain fine-tuned control over each aspect of your final image by layering the different passes of the render over each other.
Note: As Sebastian Koenig kindly pointed out, one thing to remember is that spec should be added after the shadows. Or in general, always put the multiply passes before the add passes, so as to avoid darkening highlights.
What’s up next?
In part 02 of this compositing in blender tutorial series Bartek Skorupa will explain what happens under the surface with blending modes. He will also explain in more detail the basics of compositing.
Great Tutorial, Introduction to Compositing Nodes
DDDD
Great tutorial !
I really hope there will be a lots of tutorials on compositing nodes.
Thanks
Looking forward to more compositing. Could you introduce the object index pass next time?
Absolutely!
-Jonathan
You should apply shadow passes (shadow,AO) before illumination ones (Spec,Reflect).
Great tutorial about nodes! I was looking for something like this.
Amazing tutorial!
Very interesting.
I think I’ll be dedicating a day each week for playing around in the compositor.
Round two … *ding ding*
Great, tutorial! And by the way, I love your book Jonathan.
Thank you
-Jonathan
Which book?
This one: http://www.amazon.com/Character-Development-Blender-Jonathan-Williamson/dp/1435456254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330097148&sr=8-1
very interesting – thanks a bunch !
Cool features, very clear as always. Thanks Johnatan.
super cool. will you be talking about controlling lights individually with the compositing nodes?
this is what i was searching for a long time.
there’s a lack of general node tutorials, great!
Great tutorial
you should do a color nodes tutorial
nice work!
Great tut
Now, I have a couple of questions. The first is, what would you do if there were several models in the scene, add in another render layer?
The second is how do I know if I have to use add or multiply etc. I guess it is just a question of playing a little around with it?
You have to think about plain number addition/multiplication, except the numbers are color values (calculated for each individual pixel). black = 0 and white is 1, everything in between is grey. So if you multiply 2 images, the result becomes darker because you always multiply with 1 or less than 1. If you add 2 images together, the result will likely be brighter because you always add 0 or more than 0.
for example: If you multiply with a complete white image, the result is the same (multiplying with 1). If you add a complete black image, the result is also the same (adding 0).
Mixing is just taking the average of the 2 images.
and for colors: each channel, RGB, has it’s own range from 0 to 1.
Andrew Price is not going to be happy about this :/
Andrew Price never introduced us to specularity, normal, shadow ao ect. passes.
Is Jonathan Williams coming out for Round II against Compositing Node or has his corner thrown towel in
Jonathan Williamson is in the red corner ans not Jonathan Williams
Can we have an edit function so i can correct my mistakes
Um.. how would i save the work i did in the node editor as an image file?
Connect your final node to the Output node and then go to the UV/Image Editor and save the image from Image > Save.
-Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for yet another great tutorial.
I have a question regarding compositing. It’s not covered in you tutorial, maybe in the next coming rounds?
Imagine I have 2 cubes, 1 small in the foreground, 1 big in the background, they overlap from the camera point of view but not in 3d space. Each one is on a separate render layer. I want to apply a glare effect to the small cube only and then recombine the layers. How do I do that? Mix or alpha over nodes do not work for this. I tried a Z-Combine node with as input : 1) the Z and image from the big cube layer 2) the z from the small cube layer and the image from the glare node.
It works to some extent but the glare effect is toned down a lot, making the small cube just soft, but not glowy.
Any idea?
can’t find the AO or specular in 2.62. Also the difuse has 3 options, indirect, direct, and some other. What am I doing wrong?
You have Cycles up in the Render selection. Change it to Blender Internal.
Why was this video taken down?
Hi Neuro, the video is still up. Please ensure any flash/ad blockers you might have installed isn’t restricting the video.
I’ve verified that NoScript is off, but the video still doesn’t show. Parts 2 & 3 I have no trouble with. I think it has something to do with the video being on Vimeo rather than YouTube.