Compositing Mentor

For a long time I wanted to release a CG compositing series. Many things stopped me in the past:

1. Time constraints
2. Access to good Render examples to work with
3. Not thinking I had too much to contribute to the subject matter

This series will be focused on answering the following question

How do I best rebuild my CG passes, for the most flexibility as a Compositor?

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Download the FruitBowl Renders for the Series

My Friend and fellow artist, Chase Bickel, has kindly provided us with some high quality renders of a FruitBowl to download for free and play around with.

Download the FruitBowl renders now, or I will always post the links at the top of each video and blog post for you to download later:

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)

You can place the FruitBowl renders files into the /SourceImages/ folder of the project files folder accompanying each video and nuke will reconnect the read nodes.

For Example:

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These Renders are full of common passes you would find in production, including:

1. AOVs
2. Lightgroups
3. IDs
4. Utility

Gameplan

Start with the Basics –> Build our way to more advanced topics –> End with a proposed template for your CG Rebuild

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I will go through different types of AOV passes you would typically find at a studio, what they are, how they are used, and how should think about them in relationship to one another. We will categorise and group different AOVs in order to define them better, and help us find the commonality and patterns between renderers.

This series aims to be useful no matter what renderer your CG comes from, as the principles are the same.

Topics Covered

1. Differences between Additive and Subtractive Workflows, and the pros and cons of both
2. Explaining the difference between Material AOVs and LightGroups and how to work with them together seamlessly
3. This includes an elegant solution to the infamous AOV – Lightgroup paradox
4. I will cover the importance of making Mattes and alphas, to help us isolate, and automate our CG manipulation. We will go over common utility passes and IDs and show how to do some cool things with them

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Using Full CG Render

• Will not cover how to integrate CG renders into a live-action plate
• Will focus on the CG rebuild and various methods of manipulation to get the most out of your CG renders

Something for everyone

• Juniors, Mids, Seniors, TDs, Comp Supervisors
• There will be knowledge to be learned across all levels
• Perhaps this will one day be a pre-requisite for a full CG Compositing into live-action plate course

This series will take some time to release all episodes, so please have patience

Thank you!

Tony