Introduction to Compositing in Blender – round 2

by Bartek Skorupa

Hello and welcome to this Compositing in Blender 2.6 Tutorial Series!

In this compositing in Blender tutorial series we give you an introduction for using the compositing nodes. This series will take you through all the basics of using and understanding the node system for compositing in Blender. 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 part 02 of this compositing tutorial series we follow up what we learned in the part 01 of this compositing tutorial series by introducing more nodes and explaining in more detail how compositing works in general. One of the key focus points is understanding the basic math behind blending modes so that you know which mode to use for the result you are trying to achieve.

Introduction to Compositing in Blender

What’s up next?

In part 03 of this compositing tutorial series we will be looking adjusting the colors, lighting and shading of a car render.

Introduction to Compositing<>

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Discussion

50 Responses to “Introduction to Compositing in Blender – round 2”
  1. Miguel Alvarez
    Posts: 8

    Nice, :-) looking forward to dig into this one, there are many things about compositing that are still in the dark for me. Thank you. Miguel

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    1
     Jan 30, 2012 at 8:27 am
  2. raffa
    Posts: 3

    Nice, a może cos po polsku by dało rade zrobic? :D własnie robie model samochodu. Pzdr.

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    2
     Jan 30, 2012 at 10:06 am
    • Monkey D. Luffy
      Posts: 1

      Eh… Po co Tobie Tut po polskiemu?

      #
      2.1
       Feb 5, 2012 at 5:11 am
    • Aga
      Posts: 2

      Bartek Great Job, czekam na kolejne Tutoriale

      #
      2.2
       Aug 4, 2012 at 3:14 pm
  3. Robert Hunecke
    Posts: 8

    Fantastic! You did an awesome job explaining the functionality of the Compositor. Looking forward to Round 3!

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    3
     Jan 30, 2012 at 10:24 am
  4. Jerry Yoder
    Posts: 2

    This probably would be a good tutorial if it had sound with it. As it is, it is kind of useless.

    jjyoder

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    4
     Jan 30, 2012 at 10:30 am
  5. Bernard Hugueville
    Posts: 71

    Great! I like it so much when I feel from the start that you really know what you’re explaining ;-)

    #
    5
     Jan 30, 2012 at 10:48 am
  6. Jeremy Deighan
    Posts: 263

    Bookmarked! :D

    Jeremy

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    6
     Jan 30, 2012 at 11:14 am
  7. Jeremy Deighan
    Posts: 263

    Bookmarked! :D

    Jeremy

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    7
     Jan 30, 2012 at 11:14 am
  8. Andrew Pace
    Posts: 59

    Stellar tutorial. Can’t wait for round 3. Great job, and thank you!

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    8
     Jan 30, 2012 at 11:31 am
  9. John D Smith II
    Posts: 234

    Great Scott!! Thank you for such an in-depth tutorial. I feel 10 IQ points higher for having watched this. I’m taking a guess, but I think you just taught most all of us a thing or two here. I’m chomping my digital, 3D bit waiting for part 3! Talk about substance and alacrity, structure and clarity… whew! Thanks Bartek!

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    9
     Jan 30, 2012 at 11:56 am
  10. Edward Casey
    Posts: 7

    Wow, I really learned a lot from this tutorial. I didn’t realize compositing gave so much control over the rendering process!

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    10
     Jan 30, 2012 at 1:09 pm
  11. alec farai
    Posts: 146

    i like but i cant do it :) thanks

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    11
     Jan 30, 2012 at 1:43 pm
  12. Przemek Poznysz
    Posts: 2

    Thank you Bartek for such and informative tutorial, hope to see more.
    Miło jest widzieć Polaka prowadzącego tutoriale z Blendera na takiej stronie :)
    Pozdrowienia z Legnicy.

    #
    12
     Jan 30, 2012 at 2:42 pm
  13. Filip Ostrowski
    Posts: 23

    @Bartek: Bardzo fajny tutorial. Czekam z niecerpliwoscia na 3 czesc.
    Great job! Waitng for part 3.

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    13
     Jan 30, 2012 at 3:10 pm
  14. Jerry Doherty
    Posts: 42

    What kind of tomfoolery is this.. You chould chage the main video image..

    I thought it was on compositing a beetle.. not some weird head.. Well will
    have to wait for part 3.

    #
    14
     Jan 30, 2012 at 4:22 pm
  15. woodge
    Posts: 7

    Wow Bartek! You just blew my mind 3 different times in this tutorial! Great style. And thanks for getting into the math that others are so afraid of

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    15
     Jan 30, 2012 at 5:45 pm
  16. FxxKing
    Posts: 3

    Incredible teaching skill. Very focused and extremely well prepared. Thanks, Bartek!

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    16
     Jan 30, 2012 at 6:11 pm
  17. Crackrat
    Posts: 3

    WOW TY i learned a lot off of this

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    17
     Jan 30, 2012 at 8:23 pm
  18. RK
    Posts: 14

    Excellent tutorial!!!
    Way to much information for me to take in at once, but I’ll come back many times to absorb some more of this information.
    Looking forward to round 3!

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    18
     Jan 31, 2012 at 2:19 am
  19. JM
    Posts: 1

    Fast, funny and with a lot of background information. Best tutorial I have ever seen. You are really good man.

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    19
     Jan 31, 2012 at 5:00 am
  20. yankomeister
    Posts: 16

    Thanks Bartek. Excellent!, very usefull and very good axplaining Blender Cookie tuto!
    Waiting for round 3.

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    20
     Jan 31, 2012 at 6:41 am
  21. Bartek Skorupa
    Posts: 34

    Thank you very much for all the comments. I’m glad that at least few of you found something interesting in this video. I’ll do my best not to let you down in Round 3 :-)

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    21
     Jan 31, 2012 at 7:45 am
  22. Maui
    Posts: 2

    Great tutorial.
    how about adding cycles render passes into the 3rd round as well?

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    22
     Jan 31, 2012 at 9:23 am
    • Bartek Skorupa
      Posts: 34

      Not yet. I will still be focusing on internal engine, but as soon as I play a bit more with cycles passes – I will surely try to tell a few words about it.

      #
      22.1
       Feb 1, 2012 at 1:42 am
  23. jacopo greenslade
    Posts: 3

    Definitely the most useful and interesting tutorial I’ve seen in a while!!! Thanks!

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    23
     Jan 31, 2012 at 9:31 am
  24. Yo Roque
    Posts: 15

    Woah.. excellent tutorial

    i like your voice and accent XD

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    24
     Jan 31, 2012 at 12:02 pm
  25. chronox
    Posts: 2

    How do enable the straight-line connectors for the compositor node instead of curved-line connectors?

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    25
     Jan 31, 2012 at 7:36 pm
    • Bartek Skorupa
      Posts: 34

      Please watch the tutorial again :-) I’m explaining how to do it in 5min15sec.
      But here you go:
      Open User Preferences panel, go to Themes, select “Node Editor” section and you can adjust “Noodle Curving” :-)

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      25.1
       Feb 1, 2012 at 1:47 am
  26. trock
    Posts: 30

    You really have a special talent for teaching something that is so complicated. You show how things work without me even knowing how to ask the question. Great Job. Thanks so much.

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    26
     Jan 31, 2012 at 9:32 pm
  27. harleynut97
    Posts: 5

    Great tutorial, like someone else mentioned, I look forward to seeing future tutorials using the new cycles render passes. Looking forward to part 3. Some of you may not know this, but Bartek is the person responsible for the blender to after effects export option now in Blender.

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    27
     Feb 1, 2012 at 7:55 am
    • Maui
      Posts: 2

      he also made one of the best tutorials i’ve seen on multipass compositing using blender and afx over at ae tuts

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      27.1
       Feb 1, 2012 at 12:00 pm
  28. Alexandu Cobzas
    Posts: 1

    This is the best Blender tutorial I’ve ever seen! Don’t get me wrong Blendercookie, your tutorials are all awesome and you guys are all fantastic and generous, but this man has the GIFT! :) So clearly explained and full of joy and humour! Thank you, Bartek!

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    28
     Feb 1, 2012 at 10:36 am
  29. Timo Rychert
    Posts: 10

    Wow, great tutorial.
    The best Blender compositor overview I have seen yet. Very well explained. I think this will be a good compositor overview to revisit once in a while to refresh your knowledge.

    Only one question left for me: Why does the result of the material index of the iris not exactly match the shape of the iris? Does anybody know and could explain? Thanks!

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    29
     Feb 1, 2012 at 4:40 pm
    • Bartek Skorupa
      Posts: 34

      I know exactly why material and object indices work this way, but this is a little bit more complicated issue than it seems. In general the mask created by index is not antialiased. When you select “Smooth Mask” checkbox you most probably expect to get properly antialiased alpha, but unfortunately it doesn’t work this way. It doesn’t properly antialias the mask, but simply smoothes the jagged one. It is a post process of blurring the edges, so it will never give you proper result. There are ways around that, but none of them is perfect.
      I am right now working on Round 3 of this tutorial and I don’t yet know if I manage to include explanation of this issue there. I don’t want the tutorial to become 1.5 hours long, but we’ll see.

      #
      29.1
       Feb 2, 2012 at 4:40 am
      • Timo Rychert
        Posts: 10

        Thanks for your reply Bartek.
        So it looks like that is rather a bug or at least shortcoming of Blender. Hope it will be changed to work with antialiasing as well sometime in the future.

        Thanks again for the tutorial, looking forward to Round 3 (and hopefully some more tutorials by you on this site)!

        #
        29.1.1
         Feb 2, 2012 at 8:15 am
  30. stephen thomas
    Posts: 32

    Thanks for this great tutorial. Would there be any chance of a future tutorial looking at compositing vector blurs? I’m wrapping my head around this issue at the minute and would love to hear your thoughts on how’s best to deal with separating objects to get clean vectors, lighting, getting a shadow pass & how to composite everything back together again.

    All the best,
    Stephen.

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    30
     Feb 11, 2012 at 9:03 am
    • Bartek Skorupa
      Posts: 34

      I will certainly touch this subject, but please be patient. Round 3 should be online soon, but I didn’t yet cover vector blurs there. I will surely come back to it in Round 4.

      #
      30.1
       Feb 11, 2012 at 7:05 pm
      • stephen thomas
        Posts: 32

        No rush at all my good man, I’m just happy to have you sharing your knowledge with us. I’ve seen a couple of your tutorials posted around the Internet (creative cow etc) and I’m so glad blender cookie have brought you in to do a compositing series. Thanks again and I’m looking forward to part 3.

        #
        30.1.1
         Feb 13, 2012 at 4:54 am
  31. hetors
    Posts: 43

    Great tutorial Bartek!!, is ready the third round?… sorry I’m a little anxious.
    Greetings.

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    31
     Feb 12, 2012 at 6:37 am
  32. Jonathan Fluck
    Posts: 9

    What an amazing tutorial! I love how you explained what the math was for the mix nodes and the correct way to use it. I’ve never really understood it but am now a lot closer. This tutorial really showed off the power of the compositor. Everyone also said it was amazing but I never saw it in use. Simply fantastic! Can’t wait to watch the 3rd and play around!

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    32
     Feb 16, 2012 at 10:54 am
  33. Vince Redman
    Posts: 14

    Absolutely terrific!!! I keep going back over it and trying different things to get it to all sink in. One tiny item and it’s not really part of the exercise but how did you get the texture into the world settings for the reflection.

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    33
     Feb 20, 2012 at 4:27 pm
  34. Josh Clark
    Posts: 36

    I don’t know how to get the source files

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    34
     Feb 23, 2012 at 5:58 pm
  35. Claudio Grassi
    Posts: 2

    This is the single most valuable lesson I have ever seen. The explanation of the math nodes is simply fantastic! I have been using these “modes” on layers in Photoshop for quite some time, and even tho I knew what the effect would be I had no idea why they did what they did. thank you!

    I wish you would put all those images in a pdf for download that I may better study them slowly.

    Thanks again Bartek and CgCookie!

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    35
     Apr 11, 2012 at 2:40 pm
  36. Ferris Moritz
    Posts: 13

    Wow, this series is absolutely made out of gold…

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    36
     Apr 13, 2012 at 7:45 pm
  37. thomas speed
    Posts: 301

    great lesson, thank you
    for explaining the nodes, i am
    excited about round 3 and will
    put this info to good use mr. Bartek Skorupa..

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    37
     May 2, 2012 at 12:14 am
  38. Joel Godin
    Posts: 71

    Very well done. The only thing that threw me was for the AO pass, the AO in the ‘World’ settings had to be enabled for it to actually be at the AO node point.

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    38
     Sep 27, 2012 at 6:07 am
  39. Eddie D'Sa
    Posts: 2

    Fantastic tutorial.
    Instructive & rigorous.
    Bartek, you certainly know your stuff. YOur confidence shines through and you know how to pass on the know-how to others,
    I am quite new at Compositor and had to have the right tutorial to grasp the essentials.
    Your tutorial has done the trick.
    Thanks,

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    39
     Jan 3, 2013 at 12:10 pm
  40. josephkaulfers
    Posts: 70

    What do you recomend next?

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    40
     May 4, 2013 at 8:58 pm

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