Rendering Animation with Elements for Composition

[m_hinks]

Hi all,

Ive looked about for some info on this topic but not found exactly what I need.

Im rendering an animation to get comped into helicopter footage.

The camera is tracked and all ready to go, but I want to render out sequences of elements to have max control later.

Im planning on rendering out the following elements;

Diffuse
RawGI
RawLight
Specular
Reflection
Refraction
2 x material selects for control of certain materials later.

Am I missing anything to composite back together? I am using After effects 7.

I am currently assuming I should split out the elements and save as .exr's. But should I be saving a vrimg file and extracting later?

The same elements rendered through the vring file are all different sizes, but the split elements are all the same size?

And finally, if I am correct so far, I just need to comp it correctly in AE! I realise I need a comp setup for 32 bit. But just how do you layer the elements together?

I reaslise this is probably old hat to the pro's but Im not quite there yet.

I think this thread, if clear and agreed generally as correct, will be very useful for many peeps in the future.

Many thanks, have a good easter!

Mark

[RErender]

Have you read through this thread ?
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...er=asc&start=0

[m_hinks]

Yeah read it a few times!! It doesnt state the best method to save out the renders tho.

Ive come across a new problem now too! I can get the elements saved out and in to AE but when adding the reflection it totally blows out the image.

Should colour mapping be ticked on all the elements? It seems like diffuse should be off?

Thanks again

[DaForce]

Sounds pretty right so far.

In AE you should just be able to change the blending type of the layer to the appropriate mode as directed by the tut in that other thrad. (press F4 then change the mode).. but I believe you already know that.

Having not tried it myslef in AE im not able to offer much other help
Comping isnt on of my most knowledgable areas.

[digtlpete]

m_hinks,

I'm not sure with AE7 but I know Combustion does not handle .exr format correctly and I am pretty sure AE7 dosent either. Where you are going wrong in your composite is rendering out just the Reflection and Refraction pass. You need to render out the RawRefraction and RawReflection and multiply them over the ReflectionFilter and RefractionFilter and them add over the rest of the comp. I remember trying to get .exr's to work in AE7 with no success. I would render out 32bit .rpf's or .rla's. This format is nice because you can store velocity and z-depth info in the file for motion blur and depth effects like blurs or fog. I posted at the end of the above mentioned thread showing my comp structure. Hope that helps.

-Brian

[m_hinks]

Nice one, I had seen your post b4, and looks good. I thought AE7 could now handle .exr 32 ok, maybe im wrong and thats why its not matching. Im trying your method now. Ill let you know.

Thanks
[/code]

[dimo]

Hi,

I dont want to do advertising here, but you might want to check my multimatte renderelement.
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...ic.php?t=18711

This way you could render out some mattes for cc later on.

Best regards,

Dieter

[digtlpete]

dimo,

thanks alot man! this looks really awesome. I wish I'd always had this.

-Brian

[jacksc02]

m_hinks- the best way to comp a vray render together is with EXR format renders. AE7 doesnt work with full float images so your results might be different.

[m_hinks]

Thanks jacksc02,

I have done some tests with EXR and AE7 and they dont work! Thanks for the heads up.

Now the question is what is the best way to comp in AE7 with elements. I would assume rendering out to tga. I did a test and it all goes together well.

[gilicom]

ae also reads rla and rpf in case you need object, mat id, z buffer etc

[rivoli]

I have done some tests with EXR and AE7 and they dont work!

have you enabled liner blending in the project settings? I'm not sure, but I think it's off by default.

[m_hinks]

liner blending I saw that. But not sure what it did.

I am going to try and put together an AE file with a comp of a single frame, but with all the elements so others can learn or correct me.

If anyone else thinks they have the correct method, please do make me instead, its very likely I will get it wrong the first time!

Thanks

[stilgarna]

I have done some tests with EXR and AE7 and they dont work!

have you enabled liner blending in the project settings? I'm not sure, but I think it's off by default.

Rivoli is right...

It's off by default... No problem with AE7 and exr...

Look at File->Project Setting-> Linear Blending


The only problem is when you made compo with 32Bits per chanel... AE7 is very slow even on a Quad Core...


AE8 (AE CS3) will correct that. More multithread... 25% to 40% faster.


Best Regards.

[panthon]

As far as I know, If u are not using linear mapping, ur renderpasses will be incorrect and u will be unable to comp them properly, being especially noticeable all passes which are comped using Add, but also the ones using multiply.

On the other hand, if u use linear mapping, u will run into trouble when trying to recover the details from underexposed areas, even using 32 bit EXRs, since vray will not sample those areas thus creating heavy noise and unuseable renders.

I think color clamping should be OFF too for maximum precision. Unfortunately, doing so will create lots of aliasing problem on the highlights, so i generally turn it on.

I believe I read Vlado saying that newer version can deal with color mapping internally, so u could get the benefits of gamma correction (correct and faster sampling) but the output of linear mapping (correct composition of render passes). I would like to know more about it.

If u ignore these limitations, composition can still be done, but ull have to work to readjust layer properties (gamma, brigtness, etc) in order for them to work.