Cmposite images and animation

[tricky]

Is it possible to render a dining room scene, firstly without furniture, but with the sun streaming through the windows across the floor, but then render just the furniture and drop in the furniture renders in such a way that they seamlessly blend with the original rendering?

I guess that to do it properly I would need to split each of the rendered images ('room without furniture' and 'just the furniture') into various elements, and do clever things with combinations of these elements to isolate/combine the furniture seamlessly with the empty room.

Have I lost you yet? I think I have lost myself!!!

[joconnell]

Yes it is - I'll run up a quick example when I get home - it's all just matte objects and very little else.

[percydaman]

yup. As joconnell said, its all about using the right settings on the matte/shadow on all the objects that you dont want to show up. Where it can get difficult though, is that you want all the 'matte' geometry to contribute to the GI shading of the furniture, so there needs to be geometry there for the GI to see. So unless there's a really good reason to do it this way, its better to just have it all there. Less headache.