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Blender Compositing and Post Processing
Blender Compositing and Post Processing

Blender Compositing and Post Processing: From basic grading techniques through to advanced lighting and camera effects, this guide to compositing with Blender teaches digital CG artists the way to bring a new level of dynamism and realism to their footage.

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Blender Compositing and Post Processing

Chapter 2. Working with Blender Compositor

This chapter explains the node-based architecture of Blender Compositor, linear workflow, and user interface panels. Following is the list of topics covered in this chapter:

  • Node-based architecture

  • Types of compositing nodes

  • Node Editor

  • UV / Image Editor

  • Color management and linear workspace

Architecture


Blender Compositor is built on an efficient node-based architecture. Every transformation tool in Blender Compositor is defined as a node, building a directed acyclic graph (DAG) from source input to output image. This process of building graphs using individual transformation tools is termed as node-based workflow. This architecture provides flexibility to tweak parameters procedurally. The connectors that connect these individual nodes are called noodles.

Composite node types

Every individual node performs a specific operation, and many such nodes are linked progressively to form a compositing flow. These nodes can be classified into three categories based on the functional similarities:

  • Input nodes: These nodes are used to get the image's information into Blender Compositor's workspace

  • Output nodes: These nodes save or display the result of the node graph

  • Transformation nodes: These nodes are used to modify or combine the input media

Getting familiar with the compositing user interface


Blender Compositor UI is very intuitive yet powerful. Layout switcher, shown in following screenshot, can be used to switch to the compositing workspace. This UI primarily consists of two modules:

  • Node Editor: This is the workspace where the node graph can be built

  • UV Image Editor: This is to view the result of a complete node graph or part of it

Alternatively, the UI can be customized by splitting or joining the layout as per requirement, as shown in the following screenshot. Moving the pointer to any edge of the panel turns the pointer into a two-sided arrow. Then, right-clicking will show you options to split or merge the panel as per your requirement. The customized layout can be saved as a scene preset in layout switcher.

The following screenshot shows a typical compositing environment with all the relevant panels:

Node Editor

The Node Editor has a menu panel and workspace area as shown in following screenshot. The menu panel has all the...

Color management and linear workspace


Display devices don't display the images exactly as they get them but rather display them with reduced gamma values, as represented in the following screenshot.

Tip

Gamma is a unit that describes the relationship between the voltage input and the brightness of the image on your display screen. It defines the relation between the numerical value of a pixel and its actual luminance.

All digital image-processing software saves images with increased gamma values to counter the loss in display, thereby providing an accurate picture to the user. All this happens behind the UI and doesn't provide any control to the user. So, any modifications attempted on these images with baked gamma will not provide expected results.

Color management will help in creating a workflow that allows the user to work on the actual image instead of the gamma-corrected image. The following screenshot shows Blender's Color Management options:

When color management is enabled, it introduces...

Handy shortcuts for Blender Compositor


Blender, by default, is equipped with shortcuts for most of the commonly used operations. The following list highlights shortcuts that will come in handy when working in Compositor:

  • Shift + A: This displays the Add menu at the pointer's location.

  • Ctrl + Shift + left mouse button: Applying this on any node connects its first output socket to the viewer node. Repeating this multiple times will cycle the connections on all the available output sockets.

  • Ctrl + left mouse button: This is used to cut the noodle connections.

  • X: This deletes the selected node.

  • Ctrl + X: This deletes the current node and connects the previous node to the next node.

  • Alt + middle mouse button: This pans the backdrop image.

  • Shift + D: This duplicates the selected node or noodle network.

  • Ctrl + left mouse button: This toggles between layout presets.

  • H: This collapses the node.

  • Shift + H: This hides/unhides the node preview.

  • Ctrl + H: This hides/unhides the unconnected sockets of a selected...

Summary


This chapter explained the Blender Compositor's node-based architecture, different types of nodes, and working in linear workspace using color management. The next chapter deals with the in-depth working procedures of input and output nodes available in Blender Compositor.

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What you will learn

  • Explore color spaces and grading techniques
  • Discover what goes in and out of Blender compositor
  • Understand generic render passes and layers
  • Work on advanced compositing techniques like relighting, texture mapping, and focusing
  • Get to grips with keying, masking, and filtering techniques
  • Grade using the Bezier curve
  • Make the image more realistic using camera effects
  • Import footage into the node editor

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jan 21, 2014
Length: 114 pages
Edition :
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782161127
Vendor :
Blender Foundation
Languages :
Tools :

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Product Details

Publication date : Jan 21, 2014
Length: 114 pages
Edition :
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782161127
Vendor :
Blender Foundation
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

6 Chapters
Blender Compositing – Overview Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Blender Compositor Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Input and Output Nodes Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Image Manipulation Techniques Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Beyond Grading Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Alpha Sports Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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(10 Ratings)
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Josh Feb 14, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is an excellent reasource for Blender users at any level. It is clear and concise for beginners, explains advanced techniques for intermediate users, and is a great reference for experienced users. The first few chapters are particularly valuable due to the fact that they explain much about the fundamentals of digital graphics, including things like blending modes, and color grading. It's great to be able to have a book that can give a quick reference on those fundamentals, and at the same time, stretch your brain with more complex tasks like masking, and post-render texture mapping. I will continue to use it as a resource for increasing my efficiency, and broading my knowledge of Blender, compositing, and digital graphics.
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SUNNY DAYAL Mar 22, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Good for beginners.
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Amazon Customer Nov 01, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Nice
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Sean Kennedy Feb 25, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Mythravarun has written a great reference book for anyone doing compositing work in Blender. In it, rather than blandly explain every single node Blender has, he covers the most used ones, the ones you are going to be using if you will be doing real production work in Blender. There are no real compositing exercises here, no projects to work through, only detailed explanations of how compositing functions work and which nodes perform the tasks.Early in the book there's a short and simple explanation of color space and how it works. This is a very confusing and complex topic for compositing artists, and Mythravarun is very good at explaining it in a very clear way.When discussing blending modes (the different ways you can merge two images together), he goes so far as to list the formulas each mode uses. This is wonderful reference to have if you've ever wondered what was going on under the hood when you combine images.There is an especially good explanation of alpha channels and how to use them effectively for layering, essential things every compositor needs to understand completely. There is also a nice round up of how each keying node works. However, the relatively new "Keying" node is oddly absent.The book has great pictures throughout, some of the most informative of any computer book I have seen. They also provide a great reference for the different types of filters, blurs, and other effects where the author has shown an example of every option.As I said earlier, there are no actual projects to work through in this book, which makes it more of a compositing reference book in my opinion. But it is indispensable as such. Mythravarun does a great job explaining many of the more cyptic node functions and buttons. While it lacks general compositing techniques like lightwrap and color matching, it does a spectacular job of really explaining the tools available to you in Blender, which lets you use them to their maximum potential. This book will always be within reach of my computer while I'm working.
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Lucas Falcao Mar 06, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Blender Compositing and Post Processing it's a great e-book for begginner and intermediate Blender users who wants to have a better understanding of how Blender Compositor works. The book covers all the details of the technical part that an post processing artist needs to know, like image formats, color modes, color spaces, passing through all render passes and their functions, color management, etc. After explain all the structure to a better comprehension of the compositor and how it works, the book begin to covering a more pratical part, explaining image manipulation and grading techniques. It's a very didactic book, easy to read and to understand.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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