CG Compositing Series – 2.5 Material AOVs – Refractions & Reflections

April 2, 2024

Refraction & Reflection Passes (Exceptions)

In this video we aim to understanding the problem with refraction (transmission) and reflections (indirect specular) explore potential solutions. The problem with Indirect Specular (Mirror Reflections) and Transmission (or Refraction) passes is they reflect or refract the entire beauty of the environment, locking that information into 1 pass. There often seems there is not much we can do as compositors to separate those passes further.

Here we have a nightmare scenario from a AOV rebuild point of view: A glass jar full of balloons, that is also reflected in a mirror surface. Everything in the mirror Reflection shows up only in the Specular Indirect Pass, and everything seen through the glass jar shows up only in the Transmission (refraction) Pass.

We notice as well that objects that end up in the Transmission (Refraction) pass are missing from the Diffuse Pass.

Mirror Reflections, for example ground plane reflections for our subjects, are also limited to the Indirect Specular pass:

What is Transparency?

Transparency is the ability to see – through an object or surface to what’s behind
It’s as if the object or material is ignored or nonexistent and does not have to do with Light interacting with the material.
The light passing through is not Distorted (Refract), nor does Scatter or change Color (which could be the case with Translucency or Transmission)

Transparency basically has only 1 setting: Amount – or “How much can i see through this”

What is Transmission?

Transmission is the passing of light completely through a material
Refractive, Transparent, and Translucent materials all transmit light, but Opaque materials do not.
If light is not transmitted, it may have been reflected (specular) or absorbed.

_{https://abnercabuang.wordpress.com/2017/11/19/reflection-refraction-transmission-and-absorption-of-light/}

Transmission can sometimes cause the light to inherit a color tint as it passes through and interacts with the material. Think of colored liquids or tinted glass.

https://documentation.3delightcloud.com/display/SFRP/3Delight+Glass

What is Refraction?

Refraction is the change in direction and speed of a light ray as it travels through or “Transmits” through different mediums, ie. from Air to Glass or Water or Plastic

The 2 more important characteristics of Refraction are:

1.) The Light passes through the material

2.) The Light changes direction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction

The amount of distortion, “bending”, or change in direction of a light’s path while passing through the material, depends on factor’s like:
Thickness of the material, Angle of View, and the material’s Index of Refraction

https://lightcolourvision.org/dictionary/definition/index-of-refraction/

drinking-straw-in-a-glass-of-water-refraction_congerdesign_Pixabay

Refractions vs Transmission?

Transmission is only referring to Light passing through an object
Refraction is requiring the light to have changed direction, and to pass through
The render pass is doing both things, so some Render Engines decided to call the pass Transmission, because it’s referring to light passing through the material
Other renderers call the pass Refraction, referring to the Change of Direction, “bending” or distortion of the light
Both terms in this case are referring to the same phenomena, just focusing on different aspects of the light’s behaviour
Transmission might even be a more accurate label, because technically a material could have a Refraction index of 1.0, meaning no refraction/distortion is occurring, but the light is still Transmitting.
All Refractions require Transmission
Not all Transmissions require Refraction

Why is Light Redirected during Refraction?

Light travels through different mediums at different speeds, depending on the density and make up of the medium.
Examples of Mediums: Vacuum (space), Air, Glass, Plastic, Water, gases, etc.
The change of light speed while passing from 1 medium into the next, causes the light to change direction when entering the 2nd medium.

https://stoplearn.com/refraction-of-light/

Light Wave “Turning” or “Bending”

Light is a Wave:

One side of the wave hits the new medium and slows down first, turning/bending/redirecting the light wave towards a new direction.

https://www.telescope-optics.net/reflection.htm

https://blog.soton.ac.uk/soundwaves/wave-interaction/3-refraction/

Color Light Wave Frequencies

Remember that Different Frequencies of Light Spectrum show up as different colors

Different frequencies of light refract at slightly different angles, causing the colors to separate. This is what happens with Color Prisms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersive_prism

https://sciencenotes.org/refraction-definition-refractive-index-snells-law/

Refraction / Reflection in Rainbows

A Combination of this Refraction Color Separation and Reflections within water droplets is what allows us to see Rainbows.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-high-humidity-required-for-the-formation-of-rainbow

https://www.quora.com/Are-specific-conditions-needed-for-Rainbow-to-occur

https://www.quora.com/If-light-travel-at-the-same-speed-in-rainbows-as-it-travels-in-air-would-we-still-have-rainbows

Index of Refraction

Different materials have different densities and make ups and will cause light waves to move through at different speeds
This is measured with an Index of Refraction, which measures how fast light moves through that medium, and therefore how much it refracts
An Index of 1.0 is light’s speed in a Vacuum – or no change in direction
Higher numbers mean light travels through the medium slower and light bends more

https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/lightandcolor/refraction.html

https://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-rendering/introduction-to-shading/reflection-refraction-fresnel.html

In CG, this Index of Refraction is an attribute setting on Materials that will make it more or less refractive

Refraction Re-Entering Original Medium

When the Light goes from a fast medium, to slower medium, and back into the fast medium on the other side, it has another refraction turn
This time, instead of one side of the light wavelength slowing first, one side speeds up first
If the exit angle is the same as the entrance angle, it will reverse the lightwave back to the original direction, and is parallel to the orginal light direction, just offset

https://www.quora.com/Will-the-angle-of-refraction-of-a-ray-of-light-passing-from-glass-to-air-be-equal-to-the-angle-of-incidence-greater-than-the-angle-of-incidence-smaller-than-the-angle-of-incidence-or-45-What-are-the-reasons-for-your

Refraction Angle

The Angle that the light wave hits the surface also matters
If the light hits the material exactly perpendicular to the surface normal then it will pass through and the light does not bend at all
The more extreme the angle, the more refraction. This is why light appears most warped at the edges of curved surfaces.

This is exactly what causes lens distortion to be more extreme at the edges of frame vs the center of frame

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheye_lens

https://help.shopmoment.com/article/181-superfish-distortion-correction

Chromatic Aberration

Combining the more extreme distortion with the Color separation is why we get Chromatic Abberation more in the edges of frame as well.

http://www.tlc-systems.com/artzen2-0047.htm

Caustics

Light Refracting through complex shaped objects, changes direction, and concentrate towards certain areas more than others and create Caustics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caustic_(optics)

Complex shapes create complex caustics, and moving surfaces, like water, create dynamic and organic moving Caustic patterns.

What is Translucency?

Transmissive materials have a Roughness or Glossiness setting that works in the same way as it does on Specular Highlights
Increasing the Transmission Roughness causes the light rays traveling through to scatter / “diffuse” or blur together. Think of Frosted Glass or Plastics.
This effect of “Blurring” or Scattering the Transmitted light is called Translucency

https://medium.com/@stevesi/on-bigco-leaks-transparency-and-disclosure-6d7812e227a0

https://sitelikeet.life/product_details/15285792.html

https://slideplayer.com/slide/8349700/ – Light and Color Presentation – by Elijah Dixon

Roughness Blurs Everything Together

Specular Roughness Setting:

Transmission Roughness Setting:

Recap

Transparency – You can see through to BG, as if the material or object is not visible or ignored

Transmission – Light allowed to pass through the surface / material

Refraction – Light changes direction as it passes through the material / surface

Translucency – Light passes through material and gets scattered / blurred

Virtual Images / Worlds

When looking at fully reflective and refractive objects, we are seeing a distorted representation of our surroundings.

Concave/Convex Reflections

When looking at curved mirrors, it is very obvious that the object we are looking at, is a redirected and distorted view of our surrounding environment

https://www.simply.science/images/content/physics/waves_optics/reflection/Concept_map/Convexconcave_mirrors.html

https://wbbsesolutions.guru/wbbse-solutions-for-class-10-physical-science-and-environment-chapter-5/

Convex Reflections

With Reflections, light bounces off the material and, depending on the surface shape, changes direction upon reflecting
Convex shapes cause the light to Diverge – spread apart

https://www.shokabo.co.jp/sp_e/optical/labo/lens/lens.htm

Concave Reflections

Concave shapes cause the light to Converge – come together

Concave / Convex Refractions

When looking at curved glass, or lenses, light that we are looking seeing through the glass, is a redirected and distorted view of our surrounding environment

Concave Refractions

With Refractions, light passing through the material and, depending on the surface shape, changes direction upon refracting
Concave shapes cause the refracted light to Diverge – spread apart

https://www.britannica.com/technology/lens-optics

Convex Refractions

Convex shapes cause the light to Converge – come together

Looking at them all next to each other, we can see Reflections and Refractions are both re-directing the light rays from another part of the scene. The biggest difference is Reflect = Light Bounces off, Refract = Light passes through.

There is No Spoon

There is No Glass Either…

https://wifflegif.com/gifs/490974-pouring-water-reverses-arrow-gif

https://www.cleverpatch.com.au/ideas/by-product-type/paper-and-card/refraction-in-action

Diffuse – Specular – Transmission (New Category)

Diffuse – All Light Interaction with Material / Object

Specular – All Surface Reflections (Bounces)

Transmission – All Pass Through Refractions

Here is an Example Scene with 1 sided Glass on the left, and 2 sided Glass on the right:

We can see the Direct Transmission shows the Light Source through only the 1 sided glass, but not the 2 sided glass

Almost all information in the 2 sided glass is stored in the Indirect Transmission:

Almost all objects that contain glass in 3D are supposed to be modelled with a thickness, meaning 2 or more sides. So more often than not, your Direct Transmission Pass will be empty and all information will go to the Indirect Transmission. This is also why very often it is not even split up and is just rendered combined as Overall Transmission.

Recap #2

Transmission – Light passes through
Refraction – Light redirects.
The CG pass could be named either or but is often referring to the same phenomenon.
Specular and Transmission are both similar in that they are capturing light redirecting and showing a virtual image of the distorted surroundings

Emission is the light source
Diffuse describes the object itself
Specular Events captures light bouncing off the object’s surface
Transmission Events capture light passing through an object.
These all get separated into their own categories.

Both Specular and Transmission have:
A Direct pass that show the first reflection or first transmission of light
An Indirect pass showing all subsequent bounces or pass throughs
An Albedo Filter (mask)

Transmissive surfaces like glass are often modelled with 2 sides
Therefore the light usually passes through 2+ sides and ends up in the indirect pass, and the direct Transmission shows up empty
Often rendered as just an overall combined Transmission pass, for convenience.

Incorporating Transmission (Refraction) Into AOV Template

Since most of the Refraction is in the Indirect, there is no need for space for splitting up and adjusting separate direct and indirect, like we do with the diffuse or spec. I recommend combining and keeping the Transmission Section Slim for Space Saving in the Template. I also recommend the layering to go: Diffuse, Transmission, Specular, Emission, Other. To me this was the clearest Layering.

I updated the Material AOV Rebuild Templates in the FruitBowl Renders for Arnold, RedShift and Octane incorporating the new Transmission / Refraction Section.

See the Downloads Section at the bottom for links to the whole nuke scripts for learning and template scripts updated per render engine, arnold, octane, redshift.

Handling Planar Mirror Reflections

One approach to rendering Planar Reflections with AOVs is flipping the Camera along the Mirror Plane

Flipping the Camera along the normal of the Mirror Plane will produce a Virtual camera for you to render the Mirrored Virtual Image from the right perspective

If your Object is sitting on top of the 3D origin ground plane, this can be as easy as making an Axis Node, Scaling the Y to -1 and plugging your camera Axis Input into this Axis Node.

This will view your scene from the perspective of your Mirror. In the above image, you can see after flipping the Camera in -Y, the Nuke rendered result is aligned with the rendered indirect Specular pass. We’ll need to do this method in the Render Application on Lighting side, or pass this camera back to the lighter in order to render the reflection with full AOVs.

Here is the re-rendered Mirror Camera Perspective of the Armored Mech, with full AOVs, matching the original reflection angle:

What about non-ground plane mirrors?

For all oriented mirror planes, the same concept applies, you want to flip the world from the pivot point and orientation of that card along it’s normal facing angle. This is easier to do in 3D applications, but can be done in nuke with a little Matrix Inversion.

I’ve made a tool called MirrorDimension to make this Camera Mirroring super easy. Just stick this node between the Mirror Card in nuke (must have it’s transformations and rotations) and the Camera node. The gizmo is acting as an Axis Node and is just flipping the world along the orientation of the Card input.

No Settings on the node, just the following instructions:

1.) Plug in the MirrorCard input to the Card or Axis node you would like to be the mirror.

– The scale of Card Does not matter as long as the orientation (translation/rotation) are correct.

– The Card’s +Z access is the front of mirror, point that towards subject / camera. This is the blue Z arrow in 3D viewer.

2.) Duplicate your Camera, and plug in the “axis” input of this new Camera to the output of this node.

3.) Your new Camera will be Mirrored according to the plane / card / axis.

4.) Render using this New Camera Setup to get the mirrored CG output.

Before MirrorDimension Node – Original Camera Position:

After Mirror Dimension Node Applied –

You would either do this in your 3D scene and render the AOVs or pass this camera to a Lighter to render from this mirror perspective.

Faking Reflections in Comp

If you suddenly need reflections but have no renders, you can use some of the above techniques to fake your reflections.

If you have your Geometry of the object, try projecting the rgba onto the geometry, and rendering it in nuke from the mirror dimension:

If you have no Geometry, but have a Position Pass. Try using a PositionToPoints node, plugged into your render and Position input plugged into your shuffled out Position pass (or select in the dropdown). You can render your rgb 3D point cloud of the object with the mirror camera and fake some reflections. It won’t be perfect, but perhaps in a pinch, it can save your ass and add more realism:

So the next question becomes, what can we do if it’s not a Planar Reflection? or if it’s multiple planar reflection, or surface is curved, or what about Refractions (Transmission) ?

Getting Help from Lighters

There is a serious limit to how much we can do in comp when encountering Indirect Specular or Refraction (Transmission) passes. Many times, if this is something that is a big feature of are shot and requires a lot of comp tweaks, we’ll need some help from our Lighting Department.

Julius Ihle – Head of Lighting and LookDev at Trixter

We talk to Julius Ihle – Head of Lighting and LookDev at Trixter for potential Lighting Solutions to these problems.

Julius is super knowledgeable, and introduces us to Light Path Expressions and Open Shading Language where lighters can help Build Additional AOVs and help us when the situation calls for it.

Julius is also an online educator and keeps a Lighting Blog discussing exactly these topics, check these tutorials out for more details:

Julius’ Blog:
https://julius-ihle.de/?page_id=346

Light Path Expressions

Julius’ Tutorial: LPE Quick Tip #1: Light Path Splitting for Transmission
https://julius-ihle.de/?p=2619

Here is an illustration of the drawing Julius used to explain how renderers are handling Reflection and Refraction Events

In a nutshell, the render engine keeps track of the light ray path and all the events that it undertakes on it’s journey from Camera back towards the Light

Lighters can create new AOVs with custom expressions telling the render engine exactly what parts and what events they want to see in the outputted pass.

Here is a link to the Light Path Expression community GitHub:
https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/OpenShadingLanguage/wiki/OSL-Light-Path-Expressions

And here is the Arnold User Guide that Julius Mentions in the video to check out for more education:
https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_user_guide_ac_output_aovs_ac_expression_aovs_html

LPE’s are supported by many renderers so check if the one you are using supports them.

Open Shading Language

Julius’ Tutorial: Playing with OSL #5: Arnold Reflection Alpha + Utilities
https://julius-ihle.de/?p=2788

There are also Shaders that have been written that can Reflect various AOVs, such as Utility passes and Alpha channel so that reflections can be more useful for us in comp. Julius has written his own shader to do just that, download it from GitHub:

https://github.com/julsVFX/osl

Downloads:

If you haven’t downloaded the FruitBowl Renders already yet, you can do so now:

You can Choose to either download all 3 FruitBowls at once:
FruitBowl_All_Renders_Redshift_Arnold_Octane.zip (1.61 GB)

Or Each FruitBowl Render Individually for faster downloads:

FruitBowl_Redshift_Render.zip (569.1 MB)

FruitBowl_Arnold_Render.zip (562.8 MB)

FruitBowl_Octane_Render.zip (515.4 MB)

The project files and the Renders are separate downloads, so if you have already downloaded 1.1 What and Why files or the Fruitbowl Renders, there are a couple ways to combine them to work.

Either add the .nk script to the previous package (in the folder above SourceImages, with the other .nk scripts)
Or simply drop the Render files into the SourceImages folder of the new 1.2 project folder

Project Files for this Video:

Along with the fruitbowl renders above, here are the nuke script and project files from this video, so you can follow along:

All Nuke Project Files and template scripts:
CG_Compositing_Series_MaterialAOVs_RefractionsReflections_AllScripts.zip (88 KB)

Nuke scripts included in the above download, but can downloaded individually are:

CG_Compositing_Series_2_5_Material_AOVs_RefractionsReflections_DemoScript.nk

CG_Compositing_Series_2_5_Material_AOVs_ArmorMech_ReflectionsMirror_Demo.nk

CG_Compositing_Series_2_5_Material_AOVs_Updated_Transmission_Templates.nk

I have also updated these Individual AOV Rebuild Templates scripts for specific render engines to include a Transmission Section:

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Arnold_Template.nk

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Redshift_Template .nk

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Octane_Template.nk

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Blender_Template.nk

Glass Balloons (Houdini Solaris)

GlassBalloons_Renders.zip (2 EXRs – 101.4MB)

Armor Mech (Rendered in Blender):

Original model by Numata3D_98 on turbosquid:
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-attack-mecha-quadpod-1993489

4 EXR Renders and Geo (for nuke geo projection demo):

ArmorMech_RendersAndGeo.zip (179.4MB)

MirrorDimension

I am linking to the gizmo on the Nuke Survival Toolkit github, where you can download the raw file or copy/paste the RAW source code from your browser into nuke:

MirrorDimension gizmo

Or download the .nk file here:
MirrorDimension.nk

Or on Nukepedia:

https://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/3d/mirrordimension

Blender JunkYard Scene:

Scene from https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

JunkShop_v01.exr (144.7MB )

Blender ClassRoom Scene:

Scene from https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

3 Render Files:

BlenderClassRoom_All_Renders.zip (213.6MB)

VRay Room Render:

Vray Room – Can be downloaded from this website, look for “download example scene” (36.6MB):

https://www.chaos.com/blog/how-to-use-cryptomatte-render-elements-in-v-ray-for-sketchup

Since I am using Stamps in the script, all renders can be swapped out at the top of the script where the “SourceImages” Backdrop is, and the rest of the script will get populated correctly.

Slide show PDF

Here is a PDF version of my slideshow in case you would like to save for future research or review:

cg_compositing_series_2_5_materialaovs_refractionsreflections_compressed Download

References / Research

Light Path Expression Doc:
Github Wiki: OSL Light Path Expressions

Arnold Light Path Expression Help and Examples:
Arnold Help: Light Path Expression AOVs – Arnold User Guide

Julius Ihle Blog
Julius Ihle’s Github page : julsVFX/osl
Playing with OSL #5: Arnold Reflection Alpha + Utilities
LPE Quick Tip #1: Light Path Splitting for Transmission

Websites:

Refraction Wikipedia

Transparency_and_translucency – Wikipedia

https://notes.thatother.dev/physics/refraction

https://help.maxon.net/r3d/cinema/en-us/Content/html/Integrated+AOVs.html

https://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-rendering/introduction-to-shading/reflection-refraction-fresnel.html

https://abnercabuang.wordpress.com/2017/11/19/reflection-refraction-transmission-and-absorption-of-light

https://study.com/learn/lesson/transmission-light-wave-examples.html

Basics of creating glass materials in Corona renderer and 3Ds Max

V-Ray Materials

3Delight Glass – Storage for referenced pages – 3DL Docs

https://macdesignstudio.wordpress.com/tag/reflection

Light Pipe Design: How TIR & Refraction Come into Play

Light and color. – ppt video online download

On BigCo Leaks: Transparency and disclosure

Can You See Through Me? | Lesson Plan

https://wbbsesolutions.guru/wbbse-solutions-for-class-10-physical-science-and-environment-chapter-5

FAQ/Combining 3D Passes – VFXPedia

Refraction – Definition, Refractive Index, Snell’s Law

The Physics Behind Rainbow Formation

Refraction | Sound Waves

Refraction Of Light – 2023

https://www.geocities.ws/rmackrell509/4thSpring.html

What are the uses of refraction in our daily life?

What is the Index of Refraction? Measurement, Definition & More –

Autodesk – arnold – Help

View topic – Help understanding Refraction, SSS and Transmission passes?

PPT – The Basics of Refraction PowerPoint Presentation, free download – ID:2558034

Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics, and You: Light and Color – Refraction of Light

https://slideplayer.com/slide/16831983

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Distortions-of-the-light-field-generated-by-refractive-a-and-reflective-b-convex_fig1_308768656

https://global.canon/en/technology/s_labo/light/003/02.html

Delivering VR in Perfect Focus With Nanostructure Meta-lenses

https://osa.magnet.fsu.edu/teachersparents/articles/lensesgeometricaloptics.html

https://www.simply.science/images/content/physics/waves_optics/reflection/Concept_map/Convexconcave_mirrors.html

What is the difference between Translucency and Transparency?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transparency-vs-translucency-whats-difference-between-archie-blake-3acne

Transparent vs Translucent

YouTube Links:

Light Absorption, Reflection, and Transmission

How is Light Absorbed, Reflected and Refracted

Why does light bend when it enters glass?

Refraction of Light

Reflection, Refraction and Absorption

Opacity Maps – PixPlant

Refractive index of water

How To Demonstrate Light Bending or Refraction

How Lenses Function (CanonOfficial)

Refraction Explained

Compositing/Render layers in Blender

CG Compositing Series – 2.4 Material AOVs – Albedo & RAW Lighting

January 12, 2024

Albedo & RAW Lighting (Complex) Passes

In this tutorial, we go further down the levels of complexity into the most complex category, which includes Albedo and RAW Lighting. These are the smallest components of AOVS, the building blocks, and unveil how lights, textures, and materials come together to produce the beauty render.

What is Albedo?

An Albedo Map is the base color or texture map that defines either the diffuse color or specular tint of the surface.
Remember that in Physically Based Rendering (PBR) depending on whether a material is Metallic or Dielectric (non metallic), determines whether the albedo color is used as Diffuse Color or Specular Color.
It knows what to use the albedo for based off of a black and white metallic map

https://meshlogic.github.io/posts/blender/materials/nodes-pbr-basic-shader/

What’s the difference between Albedo and Diffuse?

Diffuse contains lighting and shading information such as highlights, shadow and light color. It’s object’s color / texture in the lit scene.

An Albedo Map is basically the object’s texture as it would appear under uniform lighting, without the influence of shadows or highlights.

https://bryanray.name/2015/05/24/blackmagic-fusion-the-texture-node/

Other names for Albedo

Texture
Color
Base Color
Diffuse Map
RAW Diffuse Color
Diffuse Filter

Common terms:

“Map”
“Filter”

What is RAW Lighting?

RAW Lighting is the pure lighting information of the scene, without any specular, object colors, or textures.
A pass that describes how light is affecting in the scene.
This multiplied with the Albedo makes up the Diffuse Pass.

How are they combined?

Albedo and RAW Lighting are always multiplied together, not plussed

Diffuse = Albedo * RAW Lighting

What is RAW Specular and Specular Filter?

The RAW Specular pass is that objects in the scene would look like if they had a 100% reflective chrome shader on. It renders everything uniformly reflective.

Specular Filter is like a mask or a albedo multiplier, that limits the visibility of the RAW specular reflective pass to certain areas. The thought process is: Might as well render everything reflective, and then decide where and how much it is needed.

Just like the albedo and the RAW Lighting, RAW Specular and Specular Filter are multiplied together to form the final Specular pass

Specular = RAW Specular * Specular Filter

What is RAW Reflection and Reflection Filter?

RAW Reflection and Reflection filter is essentially the same thing at RAW Specular and Specular filter. You might see this term depending on the renderer. Sometimes Specular is referring to Direct Specular and Reflection is referring to Indirect Specular.

The more important take away is you want pair the “RAW” pass with it’s “Filter” or “Albedo” pass. They get combined and multiplied together to equal the final pass

Reflection = RAW Reflection * Reflection Filter

RAW Direct Diffuse & RAW Indirect Diffuse

Just like the normal Diffuse pass, RAW Lighting passes can also be split into Direct and Indirect Lighting. So you can end up with the RAW Direct Lighting and the RAW Indirect Lighting. Both passes are using the same Diffuse Albedo, so it is only the lighting that is split, not the albedo.

Total RAW Diffuse = RAW Direct Diffuse + RAW Indirect Diffuse

RAW Direct Specular & RAW Indirect Specular

And just like the Diffuse RAW passes, we can also break up the RAW Specular passes into RAW Direct Specular and RAW Indirect Specular.

Again both Direct and Indirect Specular will use the same Specular Filter pass.

Total RAW Specular = RAW Direct Specular + RAW Indirect Specular

Diffuse Equation

Knowing the diffuse equation will help us understand how it is built, and more importantly, the math behind splitting the Diffuse pass into it’s individual components of Albedo and RAW Lighting. Let’s go over a basic equation and reinforce some math concepts:

x = Albedo
y = RAW Light
Diffuse = ( Albedo * RAW Light )
Diffuse = ( x * y )

In math, certain operations cancel each other out. Just like Subtraction cancels out Addition, Division cancels out Multiplication

( x + y ) - y = x
( x ^* y ) ÷ y = x

We can take the Diffuse pass, and dividing by the component we do not want, we can get the component we do want.

What that means is if you have the Diffuse pass and 1 other component, albedo or RAW Lighting, we can always generate the remaining missing pass.


x = Albedo
y = RAW Light

Diffuse = ( Albedo * RAW Light )
Diffuse = ( x * y )

( x ^* y ) ÷ y = x
( x ^* y ) ÷ x = y

Diffuse ÷ Albedo = RAW Light
Diffuse ÷ RAW Light = Albedo

Division Problems

You can divide 0 by any number and you get the result of 0. But if you try to do the reverse, you run into a classic math problem. You cannot divide by 0, the result is undefined… Not possible.

0 ÷ x = 0
x ÷ 0 = undefined

This can cause serious problems in nuke when dividing, and we need to be careful.

Using Expression node to test math in nuke

If we use an expression node we can enter the following equation:

0/r
0/g
0/b
0/a

The nuke Expression node has some predefined variable for using the channels. So it will carry out this math on a per pixel basis for each channel.

r = red channel
g = green channel
b = green channel
a = alpha channel

we can see that once we start dividing by 0 value pixels, we are getting issues. Nuke’s answer for an undefined result is nan pixels

nan stands for “Not A Number”

inf stands for Infinity

Testing for nan or inf pixels

We can use another expression node to write a little tcl expression that will show 1.0 (white) for any illegal value pixels. If it’s a normal number, it will display at 0.0 or black. This can easily and visibly test if we are having “problem pixels” in our image such as nan and inf

isnan() tests for nan (not a number) pixels. You need to enter which channel you want to check inside of the parenthesis, for example isnan(g) and it will display 1.0 for nan values and 0.0 for normal values

isinf() tests for infinity value pixels. You need to enter which channel you want to check inside of the parenthesis, for example isinf(g) and it will display 1.0 for inf values and 0.0 for normal values

We can just add them together to get a full mapping of “illegal values” to warn us

isnan(r) + isinf(r)
isnan(g) + isinf(g)
isnan(b) + isinf(b)
isnan(a) + isinf(a)

So dividing by 0 in nuke can give you illegal values. Luckily, the Merge(divide) operation in the Merge node avoids these issues. It has built in protections so that 0/0 = 0 and any other number divided by 0 is bypassed, or skipped, and it does nothing. it will just show you in the A input value and not do any math at all.

There is a limitation to the Merge node however. There is only 1 operation for divide, and that is A/B

We know that when we disable nodes in nuke, it defaults to the B input. But if we switch the inputs, we do not get the same result. Meaning we are locked in to our inputs based on whatever image we need to divide by the other image.

So there is no B/A operation, we’ll need to recreate it ourselves

MergeExpression Node

We can use a MergeExpression node, which is basically a combination of a Merge node and an Expression no, in fact the properties look identical to an Expression node.

The Merge Expression has access to the same variables at the normal expression, namely the r,g,b,a variables representing the different channels:

r = red channel
g = green channel
b = green channel
a = alpha channel

But the MergeExpression also has 2 inputs, and we can choose what input we are sourcing from in our equations with capital letters A and B

A = A input
B = B input

Because we need to specify which red channel we are grabbing from, A or B red channel, we need to be more specific. Therefore:

Ar = A input red channel
Bg = B input green channel

So we specify which input first and then the channel we want.

So now we can do a simple equation of B input divided by A input:

Br/Ar
Bg/Ag
Bb/Ab
Ba/Aa

Fixing the MergeExpression

Unfortunately, the MergeExpression is pure math, and does not have the built in protections that the normal Merge node does when it comes to dividing. So if we end up dividing by 0 using the MergeExpression, we will end up with nan and inf pixel values. And that is very dangerous, because this will break the image, as you cannot do further math with those values, they get corrupted.

But it’s ok, we can implement the fix ourselves, so that we can have safe values just like the Merge node

The solution is to enter a little tcl expression into the node

Ar == 0 ? Br : Br/Ar
Ag == 0 ? Bg : Bg/Ag
Ab == 0 ? Bb : Bb/Ab
Aa == 0 ? Ba : Ba/Aa

This code basically reads as follows:

First we need to check if the A input has 0 values, since that is what we are dividing with. and if we divide with a 0 then we get a problem.

so the first part is does the A input pixel equal 0 ? if yes, just skip, bypass, and revert to B input pixel. Don’t even do any math. If the A input pixel is not 0, then it will proceed to do the operation B/A and give the result.

This will fix the issue as all the zero pixels will be skipped. This result is identical to the Merge node set to divide

Except now it is B/A and when we disable the node, it will revert to the B stream that we want.

you can just copy/paste the code below into your nuke to get the MergeDivide that I created:


MergeExpression {
 inputs 2
 expr0 "Ar == 0 ? Br : Br/Ar"
 expr1 "Ag == 0 ? Bg : Bg/Ag"
 expr2 "Ab == 0 ? Bb : Bb/Ab"
 expr3 "Aa == 0 ? Ba : Ba/Aa"
 name MergeDivide
 label "( B / A )"
 note_font_color 0xffffffff
 selected true
}

Otherwise you can download the nuke tool here and add it to your toolsets:

MergeDivide.nk

Multiply / Divide Concepts

Think of Multiply like combining, fusing, mixing, linking, joining, locking
Think of Divide like separating, splitting, unlinking, disjoining, unlocking

Start with the combined pass
Separate with division
Change individual component
Recombine with multiplication

How can we use Albedo and RAW Lighting as Compositors?

1.) The first reason to separate albedo and RAW lighting would be to make an adjustment to only the texture and not the RAW Lighting or vice versa.

if you desaturate the diffuse pass, you risk desaturating the lighting and the texture at the same time. but if you wanted to just desaturate the object, but keep the tinting of the lighting, you would need to separate them first

Here is an example of the Blender Room where we one side desarating the entire diffuse pas, and another where we only desaturated the albedo pass. You will notice on the right side, the light is still warmer and maintaining the warmth of the sunlight. This is what a gray object would look in that environment

left side: desaturating entire diffuse pass
right side: desaturating the albedo only

Here is the same example on the VRAY scene, where you can see the desaturation affecting the bounce lighting:

2.)There are many non linear Color Corrections or operations that you might also specifically want to do while these passes are separated, to get better or cleaner results.

Whether it is to remove light / shadow from a texture CC, or removing texture info so that you can adjust specific lighting. Operations such as:

keying
despilling / desaturating
gamma
ColorCorrect nodes
HueCorrects
HSV node – to pull color keys

3.) The next big reason would be to alter or change the texture in the scene and not need to go back to the CG department.

In this example we replace the picture on the wall with a checkerboard, but it still maintains the lighting of the scene. So you could add noise or blood textures, change billboard ads, etc, and they would still appear to live inside your shot.

left side: original painting
right side: replacing the albedo with another image

Different ways to rebuild AOVs at complex level

Variation 01:

Add the direct, indirect, SSS passes together first, generating your diffuse pass. then do a divide / multiply with the albedo pass afterwards at a second step.

Variation 02

We could do the albedo divide multiply on a per pass basis. so basically we are having the RAW direct and RAW indirect split out first. We could do changes to the albedo and return to normal, and then add the direct and indirect and SSS together as a second step.

Variation 03

Similar to variation 02, we do the albedo changes on a per pass basis first. but instead of immediately reverting back to normal, and then plussing the direct, indirect and SSS together. We could instead plus them at the RAW level. The final step would just to multiply the albedo back.

Basically, variation 02 was 3 divide, 3 multiply and 2 plus

and variation 03 is 3 divide, 2 plus, and 1 multiply

Realistic Proposal for CG AOV Rebuild

The above setups are more for learning, with labels and backdrops to help break down the workflow and structure.

Below is the setup that I gravitate towards when settings up CG Templates. I try my best to apply logical flow and convenience. Maximizing organization and flexibility, while still being clean and fast. I have space for albedo / RAW Lighting change, but I keep it off by default and allow to turn it on when needed.

We see all levels of complexity being implemented:

Basic : Diffuse, Specular, Emission

Intermediate: Direct, Indirect, SubSurface Scattering

Complex: Albedo and RAW Lighting

You can find these realistic template nuke scripts of these setups for each renderer below in the downloads section. I exported the individual templates for Arnold, Redshift, Octane, and Blender.

I would recommend waiting for future videos where I will keep expanding on the template and making it more robust. But if you are eager to download and try it out, feel free to give it a try and modify it for your needs. More and better additions will come in the future posts.

Downloads:

If you haven’t downloaded the FruitBowl Renders already yet, you can do so now:

You can Choose to either download all 3 FruitBowls at once:
FruitBowl_All_Renders_Redshift_Arnold_Octane.zip (1.61 GB)

Or Each FruitBowl Render Individually for faster downloads:

FruitBowl_Redshift_Render.zip (569.1 MB)

FruitBowl_Arnold_Render.zip (562.8 MB)

FruitBowl_Octane_Render.zip (515.4 MB)

The project files and the Renders are separate downloads, so if you have already downloaded 1.1 What and Why files or the Fruitbowl Renders, there are a couple ways to combine them to work.

Either add the .nk script to the previous package (in the folder above SourceImages, with the other .nk scripts)
Or simply drop the Render files into the SourceImages folder of the new 1.2 project folder

Project Files for this Video:

Along with the fruitbowl renders above, here are the nuke script and project files from this video, so you can follow along:

All Nuke Project Files and template scripts:
CG_Compositing_Series_MaterialAOVs_Albedos_RAW_Lighting_nkscripts.zip (155 KB)

Individual Template scripts for specific renderers:

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Arnold_Template.nk

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Redshift_Template .nk

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Octane_Template.nk

Realistic_AOV_Bebuild_Blender_Template.nk

Blender Cube Room Render

Blender Cube Room Diorama zip ( ~ 70MB)

original cube diorama blender files from blender demo file site:
https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

VRay Room Render:

Vray Room – Can be downloaded from this website, look for “download example scene” (36.6MB):

https://www.chaos.com/blog/how-to-use-cryptomatte-render-elements-in-v-ray-for-sketchup

Since I am using Stamps in the script, all renders can be swapped out at the top of the script where the “SourceImages” Backdrop is, and the rest of the script will get populated correctly.

Slide show PDF

Here is a PDF version of my slideshow in case you would like to save for future research or review:

cg_compositing_series_2_4_materialaovs_albedosrawlighting_compressed Download

References

VNTANA – What Are Texture Maps And Why Do They Matter For 3D Fashion?

A23D – Difference between Albedo and Diffuse map

cgdirector – What is an Albedo Map and How to use it?

Youtube – TorQueMoD - WTF are Albedo textures and how do I make them?

Youtube – Zeracheil – Texture Maps Explained – PBR Workflow

DIGITAL COMPOSITING IN THE VFX PIPELINE – PDF

steakunderwater – FAQ/Combining 3D Passes – VFXPedia

xuan prada – RAW LIGHTING AND ALBEDO AOVS IN ARNOLD

photoshop essentials – The Overlay Blend Mode in Photoshop

Bryan Ray – Blackmagic Fusion: The Texture Node

Youtube – 3DAS – 3ds Max Export Multiple Render Passes (EXR) into Photoshop Extended

Adam Lindsey – Nuke Notes

Youtube – Hugo’s Desk – How to use the VRay AOVs in Nuke (render passes)

CG Compositing Series – 2.3 Material AOVs – Direct, Indirect, SSS

December 31, 2023

Direct, Indirect, SSS (intermediate) passes

In this tutorial, we move down the levels of complexity into the Intermediate category and explore breaking apart diffuse, specular further into Direct Lighting, Indirect Lighting, and SubSurface Scattering

What is Direct Lighting?

Direct Lighting is when the Light Source directly illuminates a surface. This could be considered the “first bounce” or the first time the light ray is hitting a surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_illumination

What is Indirect Lighting?

Indirect Lighting is all subsequent bounces of the Light. This can be known as “Bounce Lighting”. Light is often diffused throughout the scene, and also will pick up some of the surface colors.

Direct and Indirect Passes as rendered / calculated separately and combined to equal the beauty render. Direct is only the “first bounce” or whatever is directly in view of a light source. Indirect is all bounces after the first hit (excluding the first bounce).

https://sinmantyx.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/perfect-clamp-1/

Direct and Indirect Lighting in the real world is used to describe a harsh lightsource, directly hitting a room or object and casting harsh shadows, verses indirect or “bounce lighting” which the light is aimed at a wall or ceiling or bounce card, and diffused throughout the scene, creating a more ambient lit environment.

https://www.olamled.com/direct-lighting-vs-indirect-lighting-which-is-better/

https://www.unitopledstrip.com/ru/direct-vs-indirect-lighting/

https://vcut.co.uk/the-advantages-of-contemporary-indirect-lighting-coving-for-residential-and-commercial-environments/

Raytracing – Direct Lighting

https://developer.nvidia.com/discover/ray-tracing

Ray tracing is a render calculation used to find Direct Lighting, shadows, and specular highlights.
Instead of calculating from the Light Source outwards and every direction in the scene, it saves time by going from the Render Camera backwards, only needing to calculate light rays hitting the camera, and necessary for the creating the final image.
It starts from a pixel on the final render and follows the light path until it reflects off or through a surface/material. It then asks “Am I directly illuminated by a light source?” and if so follows the path back to the light source, and determines the distance, intensity, and color of light hitting the surface.
If the area is not hit by direct light, it renders as black. This calculation ends after the “first bounce”.

https://www.dualshockers.com/xbox-one-exclusive-quantum-breaks-wip-screenshots-show-advanced-effects-and-comparisons/

Global Illumination “GI” – Indirect Lighting

https://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-rendering/global-illumination-path-tracing/introduction-global-illumination-path-tracing.html

Global Illumination or “GI” involves various techniques to calculate the indirect lighting that occurs when light bounces around in a scene.
This process helps to subtly illuminate shadowed areas and contributes to the overall color and intensity of the scene, especially around areas that are hit by direct lighting.
There are often many number of bounces allowed, depending on render time and settings. Each bounce inherits color from objects and materials and further distributes light into the scene.
The result is a more realistic and natural-looking shot, as it mimics the complex ways light interacts in the real world.

I mention this amazing Raytracing video from Josh’s Channel that breaks down how raytracing is working in the renderer with amazing visuals. The video itself is amazing, and entertaining. I highly recommend watching the whole video if you want to know about state of the art raytracing techniques.

The section I clipped from Josh’s video is between 1:24 and 2:14

Direct + Indirect = Total Lighting

Image Property of DreamWorks – SIGGRAPH 2010

Real Time Raytracing / Global Illumination – RTX Graphics

Real Time Global Illumination, is becoming the new normal in Real Time Renderers such as Unreal Engine and Unity. More powerful Graphics cards are being upgraded to handle these immense calculations, such as Nvidia’s RTX 3090 or 4090 series graphics cards. These are allowing for real time bounce lighting and reflections, instead of traditionally baked lighting in environments. This all adds significant realism to the scenes and games, and shows just how important this process is to photo realism.

Reallusion – iClone 7 Tutorial – Global Illumination

How can we use Direct & Indirect Passes in Compositing?

1.) Contrast / Color Correction

Individual control of the mids/lows and highlights. Gives more flexibility over the color correction in order to increase or decrease contrast and better match CG to plate.

2.) Filters and FX

Adding glow filters to Direct Lighting pass to “punch” the lighting and adding some realistic camera lens fx. Using direct or indirect lighting passes to drive other FX and filters.

3.) Denoising CG

Indirect passes (and Sub Surface Scattering) are very expensive renders, and often arrive with some unwanted render noise and chattering. Instead of applying denoise techniques to the whole beauty render, applying denoise to only necessary passes can help preserve details and improve final quality of your renders in comp.

CG Denoising Techniques in Nuke

1.) Nuke’s Denoiser

We can simply use Nuke’s built in denoiser, it is the easiest to test and doesn’t do a bad job after some settings adjustments. No plugin or external tool required

2.) Neat Video Denoise Plugin

https://www.neatvideo.com/
Neat Video is the best denoiser on the market. It is fairly affordable, and chances are your studio already has a license. It can be a bit heavy, I would recommend pre-rendering the results instead of leaving them live in your comp script.

3.) Motion Vector Denoise

This technique involves using the Motion Vector Utility pass to distort the previous frame and next frame’s pixels, back into the position of the current frame. Usually you see a 3 frame average, or 5 frame average, (current frame, +2 frames ahead, -2 frames before).

It’s also common to use a TemporalMedian Node to help smooth out noise chattering over pixels that are not changing that much frame to frame.

It’s important to note that we should always try to minimise artifacting and quality loss by isolating degrain techniques to only the problematic render passes, and not every layer or the beauty overall. Typically most of the problematic CG noise is occurring on the Indirect and SubSurface Scattering Passes.

Some Great tools for Motion Vector Denoising:

Vector Median:

https://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/filter/vectormedian

Deflicker Velocity:

https://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/time/deflicker-with-velocity-pass

I do believe more tools could be made using these techniques and shared with the community. If you want to have a go at using this technique to come up with different tools that reduce grainy CG while minimizing artifacting, I am sure the Nuke community would be grateful!

Downloads:

If you haven’t downloaded the FruitBowl Renders already yet, you can do so now:

You can Choose to either download all 3 FruitBowls at once:
FruitBowl_All_Renders_Redshift_Arnold_Octane.zip (1.61 GB)

Or Each FruitBowl Render Individually for faster downloads:

FruitBowl_Redshift_Render.zip (569.1 MB)

FruitBowl_Arnold_Render.zip (562.8 MB)

FruitBowl_Octane_Render.zip (515.4 MB)

The project files and the Renders are separate downloads, so if you have already downloaded 1.1 What and Why files or the Fruitbowl Renders, there are a couple ways to combine them to work.

Either add the .nk script to the previous package (in the folder above SourceImages, with the other .nk scripts)
Or simply drop the Render files into the SourceImages folder of the new 1.2 project folder

Project Files for this Video:

Along with the fruitbowl renders above, here are the nuke script and project files from this video, so you can follow along:

Nuke Project File:
CG_Compositing_Series_MaterialAOVs_Intermediate_DirectAndIndirect.nk

Blender Cube Room Diorama zip ( 3 renders ~ 70MB each, zip file total 204.4MB)

original cube diorama blender files from blender demo file site:
https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

Cornell Box noisy Render zip (1.55GB) exr img seq

Special thanks to Valentin Nicolini for providing the cornell box render

Please note the render is using ACES colorspace, so you’ll need to set your nuke OCIO settings to ACES to view this render correctly.

Vray Room – Can be downloaded from this website, look for “download example scene” (36.6MB):

https://www.chaos.com/blog/how-to-use-cryptomatte-render-elements-in-v-ray-for-sketchup

Vray Teapots can be downloaded from this website ~35MB:

https://www.lucamignardi.com/2-5d-relighting-nuke/

The Foundry spheres examples can be downloaded here:

https://learn.foundry.com/nuke/content/reference_guide/toolsets_nodes/toolsets_nodes.html

Since I am using Stamps in the script, all renders can be swapped out at the top of the script where the “SourceImages” Backdrop is, and the rest of the script will get populated correctly

Finally here is a PDF version of my slideshow in case you would like to save for future research or review:

cg_compositing_series_2_3_materialaovs_direct_indirect_combined Download

Research links:

https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/understanding-global-illumination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_illumination

https://www.ledyilighting.com/direct-lighting-vs-indirect-lighting/

https://manual.reallusion.com/iClone_7/ENU/Content/iClone_7/Pro_7.4/27_GI/GI_Basic_Intro_and_Benefits.htm

https://sinmantyx.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/perfect-clamp-1/

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/direct-indirect-lighting/

https://lightingdistinctions.com/direct-light-vs-indirect-light-how-to-make-the-most-of-both/

https://3dheven.com/what-is-global-illumination-and-how-does-it-differ-from-other-rendering-techniques/

https://cg.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/course_notes/graphics2_09_pathTracing.pdf

Thank you for all your patience, I’m hoping to publish more tutorials in this series soon.
Best,
-Tony

VFX Nomads Podcast: Episode 001

July 4, 2023

Following the well received VFX Community Nuke webinar hosted by the Foundry a couple months ago, link here, Josh Parks, Tony Lyons, and Adrián Pueyo wanted to do more. So we decided to start recording more of our conversations.

We’re excited to introduce the VFX Nomads Podcast

Along side us is Senior Compositor/Compositing Supervisor and good friend, Gautama Murcho, who shares his wealth of knowledge, offering insights into his experiences in the VFX Industry.

The podcast is also on Spotify if you prefer!

Please Subscribe if you’d like to have new episodes on your radar. Feel free to post comments, feedback, or questions for us to talk about in the future. We hope you enjoy the first episode!

Why Join the VFX Community? Foundry YouTube Live Panel with Josh Parks and Adrian Pueyo

March 21, 2023

I recently had the pleasure of teaming up with Josh Parks and Adrian Pueyo in a Foundry Live Panel event on YouTube Live. We talk about advice for people starting in the industry, getting into teaching, how to keep learning, and the importance of networking and community.

Josh, Adrian, and I are friends and former colleagues. I couldn’t be more proud and excited to see them evolve in their careers and see their various contributions to the VFX Compositing Community over the years. It was an honor to talk alongside them in what felt like a typical chat we might have if we all met up in person over lunch.

Back in December we decided to create a space on LinkedIn to be a place for folks to share cool nuke and compositing posts. The LinkedIn news feed can be a little bit of a fire hose of information, and if you don’t save something, it can quickly disappear into the ether. If you’d like to be part of the nuke community there, for articles, tutorials, news, and questions, we’d be happy to have you.

Foundry Nuke Compositors LinkedIn Group

I had an absolute blast speaking alongside Adrian and Josh, and in my opinion, it went by too fast! I hope you enjoy the talk and maybe get a little inspiration out of it. I really hope to chat with them again in the future.

If you’re interested in checking out Josh or Adrian’s websites and courses, here are some links:

Josh Parks:
https://www.compositingpro.com/
https://www.nukecompositingtutorials.com/

Check out Josh’s newsletter, Training Courses, and Masterclass series

Adrian Pueyo:
https://adrianpueyo.com/

Adrian just released a brand new Python Course tailored for nuke compositors on his new training platform. Check out his courses page for more info.

CG Compositing Series – 2.2 Material AOVs (Bonus) – Cross Polarization Photography

March 10, 2023

cg_compositing_series_2_2_materialaovs_crosspolarization_pdf Download

Download the PDF here ^

Cross Polarization Photography

In this Bonus video on Material AOVs, I cover Cross Polarization photography, which is a technique that allows us to separate diffuse and specular components of everyday objects. I go into detail about the lighting concepts that allows this separation to occur, and how it’s used to gather reference and textures to recreate objects in 3D.

Electromagnetic Spectrum

Visible Light is a section of the Electromagnetic Spectrum
Light / Color is represented in 2D as a Sine Wave with a specific frequency

3D Light Wave Representation

The 2D representation looks a bit different in 3D space, since the light waves could be oriented in any and all directions along it’s forward axis
A light beam with randomly oriented Light Waves is referred to as an Unpolarized Light

Linear Polarization of Light

Linear Polarization isolates one specific angle of the light wavelength, only allowing a portion of the light waves that were oriented in the that direction, through the filter

Cross Polarization of Light

Cross Polarization uses 2 Polarizers that are perpendicular to each other, effectively eliminating the light wave passing through.
The first polarizer isolates the light wave to only one orientation
The second polarizer, if parallel to the first, continues to allow the polarized light through, but as it becomes more perpendicular, the light gets dimmer, and eventually blocked entirely

Polarization Upon Reflection

When unpolarized light hits a reflective surface (with a refractive index different than the surrounding medium, such as glass, snow, or water) the specular reflection is polarized or partially polarized to the angle perpendicular to the plane of incidence. (along the surface)
How polarized the Reflection depends on many factors; angle of incidence, material type, etc.

Brewster’s Angle

At a specific angle, the specular reflection is completely polarized to the angle perpendicular to the plane of incidence.
This angle is known as Brewster’s Angle.

Unpolarized Diffuse Component

Only the Specular Reflection has the effect of the Brewster’s Angle Polarization
The Diffuse Component is Unpolarized, because they are newly emitted photons from excited atoms
This phenomenon only happens when the light is reflected off dielectric materials such as water or glass.
When reflection occurs on a metallic surface, no Brewster Angle nor refracted light exist

Polarized Specular Reflections

Placing a Linear Polarizer filter in front of the observer will Cross Polarize some Specular Reflections if angled correctly. It blocks the polarized reflection light wave from shining through it
This is how Polarized Sunglasses are able to eliminate harsh glares and reflections from dielectric surfaces such as glass, water, snow, etc.

Cross Polarized Photography

If you polarize the light source, the Specular Reflection is also polarized (because it’s a mirror reflection of the light wave).
The Diffuse Component is unpolarized light because it is newly created lightwaves oriented randomly. Adding a second polarizer on the Camera, means we can block the Specular Component entirely depending on the angle of the Polarizers. When the 2 polarizers are parallel, we see Specular + Diffuse , and when they are perpendicular we will see only Diffuse.

The Parallel Polarized image gives use the Specular and Partial Diffuse (only Diffuse Component of that orientation)
The Cross Polarized image, negates the Specular, and only shows the other half of the Diffuse Component
To isolate the Specular Component, take Parallel Polarized image (Specular + Partial Diffuse) and minus the Cross Polarized image (Partial Diffuse). The Diffuse Components cancel out, and all that is left is the Specular Component

This Cross Polarization Photography allows CG Artists to collect photogrammetry data of everyday objects, and allows them to recreate these objects in 3D with accurate Diffuse and Specular Maps for Physically Based Rendering
What seems just like theoretical Diffuse/Specular Render Pass separation in CG is actually a lighting phenomenon that can be separated into Diffuse and Specular Components in the real world

Notice that Metallic Materials have no real Diffuse Color to them, They show up as completely black in the Cross Polarized result. Metals are entirely surface level Specular Reflections

Occasionally, the Diffuse Components of the Parallel Polarized and Cross Polarized Images are slightly different, (brighter or a shift in color for example)
In this case, when we minus the Cross Polarized result from the Parallel Polarized result, we are left with leftover color information or artifacts. The Specular Component can be desaturated to compensate for those color artifacts
Remember that in Dielectric Materials the Specular Component is the same color as the light source, but Metals can sometimes tint the Specular color depending on the type of Metal

Light Stage: Cross Polarization

The light stage used in films is capturing evenly lit, cross polarized textures of various facial expressions.
This helps separate Diffuse and Specular and aids in tracking features of the face

References:

Here are some great websites that go into more detail about polarizations:

Reflection and Polarization of light in machine vision – Toshiba Teli Corporation

FilmicWorlds – How to Split Specular and Diffuse in Real Images

Polarization Explained: The Sony Polarized Sensor

Youtube – Cross Polarization Tutorial: Removing Specular Highlights and Reflections – Classy Dog Studios

Youtube – Cross Polarisation Explained by Grzegorz Baran

Youtube – The Key to Cleaner 3D Scans: Cross-Polarization – William Faucher

PetaPixel – Cross Polarization: What It Is and Why It Matters

optometryzone – How do Polarised glasses work?

Youtube – ScholarSwing – 16 – Class 12 – Physics – Wave Optics – Polarisation

Youtube – Khan Academy Polarization of light, linear and circular | Light waves | Physics

Youtube – xmtutor – What is Polarisation?

Youtube – xmtutor – Third Polariser

The Light Stages and Their Applications to Photoreal Digital Actors – PDF

Light Stages https://vgl.ict.usc.edu/

CG Compositing Series – 2.1 Material AOVs – Diffuse, Specular, Emission

January 27, 2023

Material AOVs

In this post we are going to be focusing in on the Material AOVs Category.

Levels of Complexity

There are different levels of complexity to rebuilding Material AOVs into the beauty, and it all depends on how much flexibility and control you want with the cost of complexity and speed.

Simple

Diffuse
Specular
Emission
Other – Refraction / True Reflection

Intermediate

Diffuse
- Direct Diffuse
- Indirect Diffuse
- Sub Surface Scattering
Specular
- Direct Specular
- Indirect Specular
- Reflection
- Coat
- Sheen
Emission
Other – Refraction / True Reflection

Complex

Diffuse
- Direct Diffuse
- Indirect Diffuse
- Sub Surface Scattering
  - Raw Diffuse
  - Albedo / Color / Texture
Specular
- Direct Specular
- Indirect Specular
- Reflection
- Coat
- Sheen
  - Raw Specular
  - Albedo / Filter / Texture
Emission
Other – Refraction / True Reflection

Diffuse, Specular, and Emission are the Foundational Categories, and the complexities are subdivisions of the Diffuse and Specular Categories

So let’s first focus on the Simple category of Diffuse, Specular, and Emission and really break those down and understand them fully. This will make the future subdivisions easier, familiarise us with terms and concepts, and help us have a grounded foundation of knowledge for what we are adjusting when using these passes.

The full presentation from the video can be downloaded here in pdf format, for those who want to keep or study it offline:

cg_comp_series_2_1_material_aovs_lightingconcepts_compressed Download

Adjectives of Specular, Diffuse, and Emission

Specular

Reflection
Mirror
Shiny
Glossy
Wet
Metallic
Highlights
Pings
Crisp
Sharp
Polished

Diffuse

Soft
Flat
Ambient
Natural
Rough
Earthy
Organic
Matte
Weathered
Dull

Emission

Bright
Radiant
Luminescent
Glowing
Self-Illuminating
Incandescent
Electric
Beaming
Shining
Luminous
Illuminated

Emission

Emission is any object, material, or texture that is actively emitting light into the scene
This includes any Lights, Super-heated metals, or Elemental FX like fire/ sparks / lightning / magic etc
Neon Lights, Screens, Monitors are all examples of real life Emission objects

Diffuse vs Specular

Specular – Surface Level Reflections

Diffuse – Light passes through surface and interacts with the material at a molecular level, Scattering and Absorption allow certain colors to re-exit and scatter into scene

Let’s talk about Specular first andSurface level Reflections

Specular

Law of Reflection

The angles of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection

Smooth Surface – Specular Reflections

Light Beam = a bundle of parallel light rays
Light Beam remains parallel on incidence and parallel on reflection

Planar Mirror and Virtual Image

An Image created by planar specular reflection that does not actually exist as a physical object is referred to as a Virtual Image.
The Virtual Image appears to be located “behind” the mirror
Virtual Image distance = Object to Mirror + Mirror to Observer.
Speculum is the Latin word for “mirror”, which is where “Specular” derives from

The people are witnessing a virtual image of themselves looking back, that is double the distance from them to the mirror. The light travels from them -> to the mirror, and then from the mirror -> back to their eye

Notice the reflected virtual image of the chess piece is in focus, even though the real piece (in the foreground) is out of focus. The camera lens is respecting the mirror’s virtual image distance, even though the mirror itself is out of focus.

Here you can see a ground plane mirror appearing to invert the tree in it’s virtual image

Rough Surface – Diffused Reflection

The uneven surface causes the Incidence Rays to hit at different angles
The outgoing reflection rays scatter in different directions

View post on imgur.com

Here you see some examples of different CG materials along the Roughness / Glossiness spectrum

Wet Surface Reflections

When a surface is wet, the water fills the gaps and flattens the surface and causes more a specular reflection

Microscopic Surface Details

In these slides and examples we are discussing surfaces at a microscopic level. You might think a piece of paper looks smooth, but under a microscope it has quite a bit of roughness to it, which is what makes it so evenly lit and diffuse.

Metallic vs Dielectric Surfaces

The diffuse and specular terms describe two distinct effects going on. The Light interacts with materials differently depending on if the material is a metal, or a non-metal (Dielectric)

Dielectric – Absorbs and Scatters light

Metallic – Does not Absorb light. Only Reflects

Dielectric (Non-Metal)

Light penetrates the surface level and the molecules of the material absorb and scatter the light within
The light photons excite the atoms they hit below the surface. Some of the light is absorbed, and this energy is converted to heat. Then new light rays (photons) are emitted from the excited atoms. Those might excite nearby atoms or exit the surface as new photons. These new photons are same color as our material.
The Base Color Texture (Albedo Map) – determines the color of the diffusely scattered photons from excited atoms. It’s the color that is scattered back out and not absorbed by the material

Metallic

Does not Allow light to penetrate the surface and does not Absorb light. They only Reflect light on the surface
Metals can be thought of as positively charged ions suspended in a “sea of electrons” or “electron gas”. Attractions hold electrons near the ions, but not so tightly as to impede the electrons flow. This explains many of the properties of metals, like conductivity of heat and electricity
The incoming photon does not excite the atoms, but bounces directly off the electron gas
The Base Color (Albedo) is used to describe the color tint of the specular reflection

Notice the Specular Reflections are tinted a certain color depending on the metal type:

On Dielectric Plastic balls, the material color changes, but notice the specular highlights are the same color, maintaining the color of the light or surrounding environment.

Comparison of a Metallic vs Dielectric Material in CG

Chrome Sphere and Diffuse Ball

Used as a reference to see what something 100% Smooth and Metal (Specular) and 100% Rough and Dielectric (Diffuse) looks like in the scene.

Resources:

DAIWTONG824@OUTLOOK.COM

10" 50/50 Chrome and Grey VFX Ball

Diffuse

The diffuse component includes light that penetrates the surface and interacts with the materials molecules. This happens in different ways in the real world

Transmission

Light passing through the material / surface
Can be thought of as “transparency”

Refraction

when light changes angles as it goes through different materials or mediums

Absorption

When certain wavelength colors of light get absorbed by the material

Scattering

when light is dispersed in many directions when it comes into contact with small particles or structures in the material

Simplified Diffuse Calculation

When the distance that light travels beneath the surface is insignificant and negligible, the calculation can be simplified by the renderer and just calculated at the surface point where the light hits. It uses the Base Color Texture (Albedo) as the Diffuse Color that will scatter.

Sub Surface Scattering

When the distance the light travels beneath the surface of the material is significant, the interior scattering must be calculated. This is referred to as Sub Surface Scattering (SSS)

Physically Based Rendering Terminology

Albedo

Base Color Texture Map
On Dielectrics (non-metal) refers to color of material
On Metals, refers to the color tint of the specular reflection
Texture map is without highlights, shadows, or ambient occlusion

Metalness Map

What area is metallic or not. (will use Albedo Color differently). Usually Black or White

Roughness (Glossiness) Map

How blurry or how sharp the reflection will be

Real life objects often have a diffuse and a specular component

Diffuse describes the color of the billard balls, but the specular highlights are all the same color (reflecting the color of the light above the table)

Iridescence

There is also Iridescent materials that change specular color depending on viewing angle.
Iridescence is a kind of structural coloration due to wave interference of light in microstructures or thin films.

Nuke – Simple Material AOV setup

We can break our fruit bowl render into the 3 simple components, Diffuse, Specular, and Emission. They layers look like this:

You can download the nuke script shown in the Tutorial. I created the mini setups for the 3 different types of renderers, Arnold, RedShift, and Octane. Dividing the Beauty render up into their 3 Diffuse, Specular, Emission Components, and Recombining them.

Download nuke script project file

If you haven’t downloaded the FruitBowl Renders already yet, you can do so now:

You can Choose to either download all 3 FruitBowls at once:
FruitBowl_All_Renders_Redshift_Arnold_Octane.zip (1.61 GB)

Or Each FruitBowl Render Individually for faster downloads:

FruitBowl_Redshift_Render.zip (569.1 MB)

FruitBowl_Arnold_Render.zip (562.8 MB)

FruitBowl_Octane_Render.zip (515.4 MB)

The project files and the Renders are separate downloads, so if you have already downloaded 1.1 What and Why files or the Fruitbowl Renders, there are a couple ways to combine them to work.

Either add the .nk script to the previous package (in the folder above SourceImages, with the other .nk scripts)
Or simply drop the Render files into the SourceImages folder of the new 1.2 project folder

This will help the Read nodes auto-reconnect to the sourceImages for you.

Recap

Emission / Illumination materials emit light
Specular and Diffuse can be separated by Surface Level Reflections and below surface Material Interactions
Each individual light ray follows the Law of Reflection.
The smoother a surface is, the more mirror-like the specular reflection will be.
The roughness of a surface will cause the reflected rays to scatter, and reflection to be blurred.
Metallic materials do not allow light to enter the surface. They only reflect light
Dielectric materials allow light to enter the surface. Light rays are refracted, absorbed, scattered by the materials molecules. Certain color wavelengths re-exit the surface in random directions, which is what we perceive as the materials color
Albedo – Base Color Texture. On Dielectrics – color of material | On Metals – color tint of the specular reflection.
Sub Surface Scattering is when light below the surface travels a significant distance before re-exiting
Iridescent materials tint the color of the specular reflection depending on viewing angle.

References, Resources, Credits

Firstly, Thanks to Pexels for providing such a good resource for stock reference images

I did a hell of a lot of research on this topic before creating the video, I really encourage you to dig a little further and explore the topics more using these great resources:

Naty Hoffman

Youtube – 2015 Siggraph Presentation – Naty Hoffman – Physics and Math of Shading | SIGGRAPH Courses

2015 Siggraph Presentation – Naty Hoffman PDF Paper:

Khan Academy

Video – Specular and diffuse reflection

Video – Specular and diffuse reflection 2

Video – Virtual Mirror

Scientific websites:

Website – The Physics Classroom – Specular vs Diffuse Reflection

Youtube – The Physics Classroom – Specular vs Diffuse Reflection

Website – Olympus LS – Interactive Explanation of Diffuse and Specular

Youtube – Specular vs. Diffuse Reflection, Incident and Reflected Angles | Geometric Optics | Doc Physics

Website – Erika Jame Site – Reflection of Light

Youtube – Specular vs Diffuse Reflection | Physics with Professor Matt Anderson | M27-05

Youtube – Physics with Professor Matt Anderson | Physics with Professor Matt Anderson

Youtube – Reflection of Light Explained Clearly – MooMooMath and Science

CGI Blog Posts

Master of Light – Vector Perez Mindmap

Website – CG Learn – Physically Based Shading

Website – PBR Texture Conversion – Marmoset

Website – Basic Theory of Physically-Based Rendering – Marmoset

Website – JORGEN HDRI Explained

Website – THE PBR GUIDE – PART 1 – Adobe Substance 3D

Website – Material physics in context of PBR texturing – HandlesPixels

Website – PHYSICALLY BASED RENDERING ENCYCLOPEDIA

Website – Tutorial: Blender – Quixel/Substance – Sketchfab: A Proper PBR Workflow

Website – Omniverse MDL Materials

Website – What is an Albedo Map and How to use it ? by Alex Glawion

Website – to buy chrome sphere and diffuse balls – VFX Super Store

Wesbite – Physics Stack Exchange – Why don’t dielectric materials have coloured reflections like conductors?

As always thank you for watching, hope you learned something. More videos to come.

The Foundry Nuke: Gizmo Creation – Tips and Tricks

June 7, 2022

Hi everyone,

The Foundry has recently published a video I created for them earlier this year, Gizmo Creation: Tips and Tricks. Let me know if you found them useful, hopefully there will be more parts in the future. Thanks!

I will just grab the great description from the video the Foundry has provided:

Gizmos are user-created super-tools in Nuke, which are an easy way to package up parts of your node graph into a single group – or Gizmo – so that it can be shared across projects, teams, and Nuke Scripts.

In this video, Tony Lyons gives an insight into how he creates Gizmos in Nuke.

He starts with the User Knob Interface and how it’s been revamped, making Gizmo creation more straightforward and faster than ever before.

Tony then looks at how we can elevate the flexibility and versatility of our Gizmos by adding multiple inputs and a switch node so you can switch between inputs easily.

He also touches on how parameters from nodes within your Gizmos can be added to the Gizmo itself, allowing you to adjust things from the node graph without needing to dive into your tools to find a specific knob tweak.

Want to know more about Gizmos? Check out

https://learn.foundry.com/course/1023…
https://learn.foundry.com/course/6585…

Want to see more of Tony Lyons? Check out https://www.creativelyons.com/

Interested in Nuke? Try it for free here! https://www.foundry.com/products/nuke…

Chapters 0:00
Introduction 0:31
User Knob Editing Toolbar 1:29
Linking Parameters Between Nodes 3:27
Changing Knob Properties 4:28
Speed Up Gizmo Creation 5:13
Customising Input Names 8:01
Changing the Default Input 10:50
Switching Between Multiple Inputs 14:52
Adding Mix and Mask Options 20:13
Adding Channel Options

About Us: We are the creators of industry-standard visual effects, computer graphics and 3D design software for the Digital Design, Media and Entertainment industries. Since 1996, Foundry has strived to bring artists and studios the best tools for their workflows so they can battle industry constraints whilst staying creative. Subscribe to our channel and get the latest news, tutorials, webinars and updates from the Foundry team.

CG Compositing Series – 1.2 Categories of Passes

December 2, 2021

Download the project files for this video here to follow along:

1.2 Categories of Passes Files – Nuke scripts and slides only (2.8 MB)

If you haven’t downloaded the FruitBowl Renders already yet, you can do so now:

You can Choose to either download all 3 FruitBowls at once:
FruitBowl_All_Renders_Redshift_Arnold_Octane.zip (1.61 GB)

Or Each FruitBowl Render Individually for faster downloads:

FruitBowl_Redshift_Render.zip (569.1 MB)

FruitBowl_Arnold_Render.zip (562.8 MB)

FruitBowl_Octane_Render.zip (515.4 MB)

The project files and the Renders are separate downloads, so if you have already downloaded 1.1 What and Why files or the Fruitbowl Renders, there are a couple ways to combine them to work.

Either add the .nk script to the previous package (in the folder above SourceImages, with the other .nk scripts)
Or simply drop the Render files into the SourceImages folder of the new 1.2 project folder

This will help the Read nodes auto-reconnect to the sourceImages for you.

Often there are a lot of renders passes to sort, and it’s useful to divide them into categories based on their functions. We can divide up all the render passes by how they are used.

There are 2 Overarching Types of CG Passes:

Beauty Rebuild Passes – Will recreate the Beauty Render
Data Passes – Helper passes

There are 4 Main Categories of CG Render Passes

Material AOVs
Light Groups
Utilities
IDs

Material AOVs

Used to adjust the Material Attributes (Shader) of objects in the scene

Examples:

Diffuse, Specular, Reflection, Sub-Surface Scattering, Refraction, Texture/Color, Emission, Raw Lighting, etc.

The passes in this category should add up to recreate the beauty render, as demonstrated in the previous video

From now on in the series, if I only say “AOVs”, I am referring to this category here. I will try my best to say Material AOVs, but I am so used to it being in my terminology and don’t find the AOV “all render pass” definition very useful.

Material AOVs are passes related to the shader or material from the 3D application. When we use these passes, we are wanting to manipulate the material or the shader of the object

Extra Research on Materials:

Material Attributes & Properties | 3D Wombat

Textures, Shaders, and Materials | Working with Models, Materials, and Textures in Unity Game Development | InformIT

Sources for Material images:

Everyday Material Collection for C4D – Greyscalegorilla

Realistic Vray Materials I by AlexCom | 3DOcean

Light Groups

Used to adjust the Individual lights in the scene

Examples:

Key, Rim, Fill, HDRI, Light-Emitting Objects, etc.

You can separate your lights however you like. Usually you see things like the 3 point lighting set up broken out into different lights. Along with HDRI and light emitting objects separated.

We are usually adjusting light attributes such as temperature and intensity

3 point lighting reference:

Types of Film Lights (and How to Use Them)

Color temperature – Wikipedia

In the fruitbowl renders, I have just named the lights LG01, LG02, etc

References, extra reading material on lights and light groups:

Setting Up Proper AOV’s and LightGroups With Arnold – Lesterbanks

The Basics of Three Point Lighting for Portraits

Three Point Lighting – Morgan Adams Next Gen Blog

Utilities

Used in combination with tools to achieve various effects like defocus, motion blur, re-lighting, etc

Examples:

Depth, Motion Vectors, Normals, Position, Ambient Occlusion, UVs, etc

These do not add up to the Beauty Render

References:

Render Elements – V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max – Chaos Help

VRayNormals – V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max – Chaos Help

IDs

Used to create alphas or mattes for different areas of the render

Examples:

RGB IDs, Object IDs, Texture IDs, Cryptomattes, etc

The ID category could probably live under the Utilities Category, but I do think the separation of these 2 categories is useful.

ID’s sole purpose is to pull out an alpha or matte channel, whereas Utilities can have many use cases beyond just that.

Many times a texture artist working on characters will make custom texture matte passes that can be rendered out as Texture RGB IDs to help isolate those important parts of the texture for adjustment in comp.

These also do not add up to the Beauty Render

Nuke Script: Breaking out Categories of the Renderers

Nuke script is a node graph representation of the slides table we looked at and I’ve broken out the passes in the categories for each of the 3 render engines.

In order for the LayerContactSheet node to display just the passes for each category, I am removing all layers from the other categories.

Useful Unlimited Remove tool:
K_Remove – Nicolas Gauthier
http://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/channel/k_remove

I’ve also broken out all of the Category’s Layers into shuffles when a text of the layer name into a contact sheet. The main difference would be that this contact sheet would be renderable, and the UI text on the layerContactSheet is not.

In the Beauty Rebuild Passes Section, underneath we have a Material AOV rebuild and a Light Group Rebuild, showing that these passes add up to equal the Beauty.

Please look through the different categories and different Render Engines to familiarise yourself.

Tips and Tricks for making contact sheets

Split Layers

Here are some links to some various Split out layers / shuffle layers python scripts found on nukepedia:

http://www.nukepedia.com/python/misc/split-layers
http://www.nukepedia.com/python/nodegraph/shufflechannels
http://www.nukepedia.com/python/nodegraph/multichannelsplit_v03

Display Postage Stamps in node Graph

You can turn on the Shuffle Node’s postage stamp in the node graph with
alt + P for a more visual overview

Make a Text node auto display a Shuffle’s layer name

If you use a Text Node, you can display the layer name of the Shuffle it is connected to by entering the following:

For Old Shuffle Nodes:

[value input.in]

For New Shuffle Nodes:

[value input.in1]

Multi-Paste to Selection

Paste to Selection python script by Frank Rueter on Nukepedia:
http://www.nukepedia.com/python/nodegraph/pastetoselected

W_Hotbox by Wouter Gilsing – which also contains paste to selection button:
http://www.nukepedia.com/python/ui/w_hotbox

Nicer Contact Sheet

ContactSheetAuto tool by Tony Lyons on Nukepedia:
http://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/merge/contactsheetauto

Multi-connect inputs

To multi-connect inputs on the contactSheetAuto node:

Select the contactSheetAuto node first
Next select the inputs in exactly which order you want the inputs to appear
click the Y key and nuke will connect the inputs

Also works on a Merge node, or any node in nuke.

CG Compositing Series – 1.1 What And Why

November 3, 2021

Download the project files here to follow along:

1.1 Wha t and Why Project Files – Nuke scripts and slides only (1.2 MB)

You can Choose to either download all 3 FruitBowls at once:
FruitBowl_All_Renders_Redshift_Arnold_Octane.zip (1.61 GB)

Or Each FruitBowl Render Individually for faster downloads:

FruitBowl_Redshift_Render.zip (569.1 MB)

FruitBowl_Arnold_Render.zip (562.8 MB)

FruitBowl_Octane_Render.zip (515.4 MB)

Place the FruitBowl renders files into the /SourceImages/ folder of the project files and nuke will reconnect the read nodes.

What is a CG multi-pass Render?

A CG Render with multiple extra layers or passes that are to be used to recreate the Beauty Render and to aid in further manipulation while Compositing.

Why do we need it?

Renders are Expensive, and Changes are often necessary. It can take too long to make tweaks and hit notes if you have to re-render the image.

Sometimes it’s faster to find the “look” you are going for in Comp, rather than waiting for the Render results.

Some effects are better achieved in Comp and need additional passes to help achieve the effect in Compositing.

Terms and Definitions

Here are some useful Terms and Definitions that I will be using in this series. They are commonly used in the industry, but sometimes they can be confusing or interchangeable, so I will try and define them for us to help while discussing CG Compositing

Render – The output image or final result of the export calculation from the CG software.
Renderer – The Render Engine or algorithm used to produce the render.
Render Passes – A general term for additional layers exported by the CG renderer meant to be used alongside the main render. These might come contained within a multi-pass EXR or be rendered as separate images.

SourceImages and Stamps

All of the read nodes and source images in the nuke scripts will be located at the top of each nuke script under a “Source Images” Backdrop
You will need to re-link the files in this area if you are following along

We will be using Adrian Pueyo’s “Stamps” add-on to nuke in order to populate our nuke script with the files in the source image folder.

You can download Adrian Pueyo’s Stamps from Nukepedia:
https://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/other/stamps

or from GitHub:
https://github.com/adrianpueyo/Stamps

Here is a direct link to the Stamps Online Documentation:
http://www.adrianpueyo.com/Stamps_v1.0.pdf

Different Types of Renderers

Common Renderers

Arnold
Redshift
Octane
V-Ray
Cycles/Eevee
Mantra
Renderman
Maxwell

Reference Websites

Websites:
Tool Farm | In Depth: Which 3D Renderer is best?
https://www.toolfarm.com/tutorial/in_depth_3d_renderers/

Render Pool | 10 Best Rendering Software by Price
https://renderpool.net/blog/best-rendering-software/

Blender Guru | Render Engine Comparison: Cycles vs The Rest
https://www.blenderguru.com/articles/render-engine-comparison-cycles-vs-giants

ActionVFX | Which 3D Render Engine Should I Use for VFX?
https://www.actionvfx.com/blog/which-3d-render-engine-should-i-use-for-vfx

Radar Render | Redshift vs Octane Comparison
https://radarrender.com/redshift-vs-octane-comparison/

Ace5 Studios | Render engine comparison – Redshift, Arnold, Octane, Cycles 4D
https://ace5studios.com/render-engine/

Thesis Paper:
Konstantin Holl | A Comparison of Render Engines in Nuke – Thesis
https://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/vfx/alumni/bamathesis/Holl

Videos:
Art Cafe | Grant Warwick about Bias and Differences of 3D Rendering Engines – Youtube
https://youtu.be/UwjVbRYoDZ0

Andrey Lebrov | About RENDER ENGINES – Youtube
https://youtu.be/fAKCwAwIPMg

Default Application Renderers

AutoDesk Maya – Arnold
Cinema4D – Redshift
Blender – Cycles / Eevee
Houdini – Mantra

Third party plugins

Octane
V-Ray
Renderman
Maxwell

Most Common Renderers in 2021

Arnold
Redshift
Octane
V-Ray
Cycles / Eevee

Renderers used and provided in this series

Rendered from Cinema4D

Arnold
Redshift
Octane

Credits and Inspiration

Inspiration for FruitBowl render:

El Profesor | Research: Blender 2.83 CYCLES vs Maya 2020.2 ARNOLD
https://youtu.be/jyqTAvfC7GI

The still life scene was originally set up in Blender 2.79 with photogrammetry models by Oliver Harries:

ArtStation – Oliver Harries
https://www.artstation.com/olyandros

Oliver Harries Portfolio
https://oliverharries.myportfolio.com/

GumRoad | Free FruitBowl Photogrammetry Model Collection
https://oliver-harries.gumroad.com/l/CZNAS

Chase Bickel provided us with our Fruitbowl Render Scene and AOV renders for Redshift, Arnold, and Octane

Chase Bickel’s Portfolio
https://www.chasebickel.com/

Additional Downloadable Renders

V-Ray Architectural Scene:

Chaos Group | Cryptomattes post with render
https://www.chaosgroup.com/blog/how-to-use-cryptomatte-render-elements-in-v-ray-for-sketchup

Download link:
https://static.chaosgroup.com/documents/assets/000/000/152/original/Cryptomatte.zip?1581515323

The Foundry Toolset Examples – Renderman Example Render

Link to the 2GB download package for nukes toolsets content, there you can find the Renderman Example file
http://thefoundry.s3.amazonaws.com/products/nuke/toolsets/toolset_examples.zip

Ways to View Render Passes

LayerContactSheet node

Shows a grid of all the layers in the input
LayerContactSheet is the easiest, fastest, and most convenient way to get a visual overview of all the passes contained in your render.
Turn on Show Layer Names to get UI labels of each pass name. This is only a GUI overlay, so you cannot render it out, it’s just for viewing purposes, but it’s great for identifying the pass names we are looking at

The Viewer

The Viewer shows an alphabetical dropdown list of channels of the stream where the viewer is plugged into.
Remember to set the viewer back to RBGA when you are done viewing that layer
You can use the PageUp PageDown hotkeys to cycle through layers in the Viewer
Along the bottom left of the viewer, it also lists all the channels separated by commas. It’s good to occasionally look at this part of the viewer to keep track of if you’ve lost your layers from the stream, or you are accidentally carrying layers that you do not need anymore in the stream.

Shuffle node

The Old Shuffle node will show a list of all layers in the stream which it is plugged into if you use the “in 1” dropdown
Good way to quickly check what layers are in your stream, but not as visual as layerContactSheet

ShuffleCycleLayers python script:

I wrote a tool called “ShuffleCycleLayers” which you can use hotkeys like Page Up, Page Down or + , – to cycle through the layers of the selected shuffle node, just like the viewer layer cycler. Maybe some people will find this handy if they don’t like to changed the viewer channel dropdown and would prefer to cycle through Shuffle node layers

http://www.nukepedia.com/python/nodegraph/shufflecyclelayers

Difference between Old Shuffle and New Shuffle:

Old shuffle only displays list of layers within the stream the input is plugged into
New shuffle displays list of every layer in the nuke script

If you’d like to exclusively use the old shuffle node instead of the new shuffle node, you can add this line of code to your menu.py in your User/.nuke/ folder

nuke.toolbar(‘Nodes’).addCommand(‘Channel/Shuffle’, ‘nuke.createNode(“Shuffle”)’, icon=‘Shuffle.png’)

Or, simply type X in the nodegraph and type

Shuffle

hit enter to get the old shuffle

Splitting or Shuffling out Layers

Split Layers is a python script that shuffles out all available layers from a selected node
This will make 1 shuffle per layer all connected to the source.
You can then just view and toggle between all the layers in the nodegraph
selecting all and hitting the hotkey alt + p will toggle on the postage stamp feature in all the shuffles, and if you visual thumbnails for all the passes. This can be useful for grouping and organising the passes.

Here are some links to some various Split out layers / shuffle layers python scripts found on nukepedia:

http://www.nukepedia.com/python/misc/split-layers
http://www.nukepedia.com/python/nodegraph/shufflechannels
http://www.nukepedia.com/python/nodegraph/multichannelsplit_v03

Layers vs Channels

Channels are the individual pieces that make up a Layer, or Channel Set. The most common example is red, green, blue and alpha, channels that make up the rgba layer
A layer must contain at least 1 channel, but often has multiple channels.
Nuke prefers layers to have a maximum of 4 Channels per layer, any more and it has difficulty displaying them in the GUI interface
It becomes significantly more difficult to see the channels beyond 4 that are in 1 layer. Nuke’s interface is built around displaying 4 channels.
An individual channel in nuke is written as LayerName.ChannelName, to let you know what layer it belongs to
Depth.Z for example, in which Depth is the LayerName, and Z is the ChannelName
Whenever there is only 1 Channel, this displays in the viewer as the red channel, since it’s the first channel visible in rgba
There are also many cases where someone will just refer to it as “The Depth Channel”, where they are recalling referring to the Layer, but since it commonly has only 1 Channel, they are talking about the same thing.
Some nodes in nuke deal with layers and channel differently, or prefer to deal with one vs the other
A shuffle dropdown displays LayerNames for example whereas a Copy node displays Channels, and therefore the list is much bigger since it is displaying the individual pieces of the layer
Blur node “channels” dropdown actually lists layers, and then you can toggle the channels of that layer on/off
Basically any node with a mask input is dealing with channels since it only needs 1 channel to function
The first 4 channels of a layer are mapped to, and will display as Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha in the viewer, regardless the actual name of the layer. Any more than 4 channels in a layer and nuke has a hard time displaying them
A motion pass for example, is describing motion in XY directions. Left-Right and Up-Down. So only 2 channels are needed in the Layer and they display as Red and Green
A position pass, for example, is usually describing XYZ – 3D space coordinates, and sometimes the channels are actually named x, y, and z. So Position.x, Position.y, Position.z
Since X, Y, and Z are taking up the first 3 channels in this layer, they will display as red, green, blue

AOVs

AOVs stand for Arbitrary Output Variables
Arbitrary output variables (AOVs) allow data from a shader or renderer to be output during render calculations to provide additional options during compositing. This is usually data that is being calculated as part of the beauty pass, so comes with very little extra processing cost.

https://learn.foundry.com/katana/3.6/Content/ug/rendering_scene/define_aov_output.html

They can be considered ”checkpoints” or “steps” in the rendering process. The render engine splits up many calculations while making the final image (Beauty) and is exporting these smaller steps out to disk so we can combine them and manipulate them in Comp.
The important thing to take away is the renderer takes these “pieces, these AOVs, and combines them together to form the final Beauty render. We are essentially trying to recreate this process with our CG rebuild, while retaining control over the individual pieces.
One of the best things about AOVs is we get them “for free” since the renderer was going to calculate them anyway.
AOVs can sometimes be just a “catch all term” for all layers/passes you will render out
“What AOVs are you exporting” is a common question, and many 3D applications will use the term AOVs to define any render passes (even though some of them require extra work to get, like ID’s or custom passes)

Differences in the Render AOVs

All the renderers are essentially doing the same thing. They are crunching the numbers, using different algorithms, and coming up with the math needed to produce the final renders.
Since all the renders are basically doing the same steps / calculations, you just have to get used to what that renderer chooses to name these AOVs or lighting passes. All the passes will combine together and add up to the final Beauty output.
There are certain similarities or patterns between all the renderers.
Sometimes we’ll be looking at 1 renderer while explaining concepts, but they often translate over to the other renderers in some way. So keep an eye out for the patterns described and apply what is being taught to your renderer’s output.
Our renders have differences in amount of AOVs exported and differences in naming conventions for the AOVs

Rebuild Equations per Renderer

Arnold AOV Rebuild:

Beauty = diffuse_direct, diffuse_indirect, specular_direct, specular_indirect, coat, sheen, sss, transmission, emission

https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/AOVs#AOVs-AOVs

Redshift AOV Rebuild:

Beauty = DiffuseLighting, GI, SpecularLighting, Reflections, SSS, Refractions, Emission

https://docs.redshift3d.com/display/RSDOCS/AOV+Tutorial?product=cinema4d#AOVTutorial-HowtheAOVsshouldberecombined

Octane AOV Rebuild:

Beauty = Diffuse_direct, Diffuse_indirect, Reflection_direct, Reflection_indirect, Subsurface_scattering, Refraction, Emitters

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For those striving to learn as much about compositing as possible

Refraction & Reflection Passes (Exceptions)

What is Transparency?

What is Transmission?

What is Refraction?

Refractions vs Transmission?

Why is Light Redirected during Refraction?

Light Wave “Turning” or “Bending”

Color Light Wave Frequencies

Refraction / Reflection in Rainbows

Index of Refraction

Refraction Re-Entering Original Medium

Refraction Angle

Chromatic Aberration

Caustics

What is Translucency?

Roughness Blurs Everything Together

Recap

Virtual Images / Worlds

Concave/Convex Reflections

Convex Reflections

Concave Reflections

Concave / Convex Refractions

Concave Refractions

Convex Refractions

There is No Spoon

There is No Glass Either…

Diffuse – Specular – Transmission (New Category)

Recap #2

Incorporating Transmission (Refraction) Into AOV Template

Handling Planar Mirror Reflections

What about non-ground plane mirrors?

Faking Reflections in Comp

Getting Help from Lighters

Julius Ihle – Head of Lighting and LookDev at Trixter

Light Path Expressions

Open Shading Language

Downloads:

Project Files for this Video:

MirrorDimension

VRay Room Render:

Slide show PDF

References / Research

Albedo & RAW Lighting (Complex) Passes

What is Albedo?

What’s the difference between Albedo and Diffuse?

Other names for Albedo

What is RAW Lighting?

How are they combined?

What is RAW Specular and Specular Filter?

What is RAW Reflection and Reflection Filter?

RAW Direct Diffuse & RAW Indirect Diffuse

RAW Direct Specular & RAW Indirect Specular

Diffuse Equation

Division Problems

Using Expression node to test math in nuke

Testing for nan or inf pixels

MergeExpression Node

Fixing the MergeExpression

Multiply / Divide Concepts

How can we use Albedo and RAW Lighting as Compositors?

1.) The first reason to separate albedo and RAW lighting would be to make an adjustment to only the texture and not the RAW Lighting or vice versa.

2.)There are many non linear Color Corrections or operations that you might also specifically want to do while these passes are separated, to get better or cleaner results.

3.) The next big reason would be to alter or change the texture in the scene and not need to go back to the CG department.

Different ways to rebuild AOVs at complex level

Variation 01:

Variation 02

Variation 03

Realistic Proposal for CG AOV Rebuild

Downloads:

Project Files for this Video:

Blender Cube Room Render

VRay Room Render:

Slide show PDF

References

Direct, Indirect, SSS (intermediate) passes

What is Direct Lighting?

What is Indirect Lighting?

Raytracing – Direct Lighting

Global Illumination “GI” – Indirect Lighting