Foundation Blender Compositing

Book description

This book provides concise yet step-by-step examples on using all of the power of Blender to provide a complete post-production workbench.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWER
  4. ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE DESIGNER
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. INTRODUCTION
    1. Layout conventions
  7. 1. BLENDER OVERVIEW
    1. 1.1. What is Blender?
    2. 1.2. What is digital compositing?
      1. 1.2.1. Special effects
      2. 1.2.2. Compositing activities
        1. 1.2.2.1. Reformatting images and video
        2. 1.2.2.2. Adjusting images and video
        3. 1.2.2.3. Animating elements
        4. 1.2.2.4. Compositing elements
        5. 1.2.2.5. Sequencing video
    3. 1.3. Is Blender for you?
    4. 1.4. How does Blender support creativity?
    5. 1.5. What can you produce using Blender?
    6. 1.6. Trends in digital compositing
      1. 1.6.1. Music videos and movies
      2. 1.6.2. User-generated content
      3. 1.6.3. Convergence
    7. 1.7. Blender setup
      1. 1.7.1. Blender requirements
      2. 1.7.2. Generic vs. optimized versions
      3. 1.7.3. Notes on installing Blender
      4. 1.7.4. Blender is multilingual
      5. 1.7.5. The Verse server
    8. 1.8. Compositing tools in Blender
    9. 1.9. Working with Blender
      1. 1.9.1. Properties, actions, and tools
      2. 1.9.2. Window types
    10. 1.10. Summary
  8. 2. BLENDER IN THE PIPELINE
    1. 2.1. An overview of the media pipeline
      1. 2.1.1. Open source products in the pipeline
      2. 2.1.2. Work products
      3. 2.1.3. Interoperability
    2. 2.2. Digital rights management
    3. 2.3. Blender compositing pipeline
      1. 2.3.1. When does compositing start?
      2. 2.3.2. When does compositing end?
      3. 2.3.3. Blender work products
    4. 2.4. Practical digital asset management
      1. 2.4.1. Links to assets
      2. 2.4.2. Project folder organization
      3. 2.4.3. Library folders
      4. 2.4.4. Content and digital asset management systems
      5. 2.4.5. Image sources
      6. 2.4.6. Disk space
    5. 2.5. Summary
  9. 3. WELCOME TO BLENDER!
    1. 3.1. Starting Blender
      1. 3.1.1. Getting information from the console window
      2. 3.1.2. Working in the interface window
        1. 3.1.2.1. Window panes
        2. 3.1.2.2. Mice and input devices
    2. 3.2. Introducing Blender's core window types
      1. 3.2.1. User preferences window
        1. 3.2.1.1. Setting view and control preferences
        2. 3.2.1.2. Saving your preferences
      2. 3.2.2. 3D view window
        1. 3.2.2.1. Orientation and perspectives
        2. 3.2.2.2. View Properties panel
        3. 3.2.2.3. Transform Properties panel
        4. 3.2.2.4. Background Image panel
        5. 3.2.2.5. Render background buffer
      3. 3.2.3. File browser window
      4. 3.2.4. Buttons window
    3. 3.3. Getting organized
      1. 3.3.1. Reusable assets
        1. 3.3.1.1. Cloning assets
        2. 3.3.1.2. Appending and linking assets
      2. 3.3.2. Layers
      3. 3.3.3. Groups
      4. 3.3.4. Parenting
      5. 3.3.5. Scenes
        1. 3.3.5.1. Adding scenes
        2. 3.3.5.2. Linking scenes
      6. 3.3.6. Object visibility
    4. 3.4. Importing elements
      1. 3.4.1. Importing from the current blend file
      2. 3.4.2. Appending or linking from another blend file
        1. 3.4.2.1. Importing from another application
        2. 3.4.2.2. Importing images as elements
    5. 3.5. Your first composite in 30 minutes or less
    6. 3.6. Saving blend files
    7. 3.7. Summary
  10. 4. FORMATS
    1. 4.1. Asset file formats
    2. 4.2. Interchange file formats
    3. 4.3. Image file formats
      1. 4.3.1. BMP and color channels support
      2. 4.3.2. JPEG
      3. 4.3.3. PNG and the alpha channel
      4. 4.3.4. Targa and TIFF
      5. 4.3.5. OpenEXR, the Z-buffer, and multilayer
        1. 4.3.5.1. Z-depth pixel information
        2. 4.3.5.2. Multilayer format
    4. 4.4. Video formats
      1. 4.4.1. NTSC and PAL formats
      2. 4.4.2. HD formats
      3. 4.4.3. Frame sequences
      4. 4.4.4. Codecs
    5. 4.5. Audio file formats
    6. 4.6. Container formats
    7. 4.7. Players
    8. 4.8. Summary
  11. 5. 3D ELEMENTS
    1. 5.1. Working with objects
      1. 5.1.1. Object modes
      2. 5.1.2. Hotkey commands
      3. 5.1.3. Adding objects
      4. 5.1.4. Setting Edit Methods preferences
      5. 5.1.5. Editing 3D objects
    2. 5.2. Working with images
      1. 5.2.1. UV mapping
      2. 5.2.2. Changing image shapes (morphing)
      3. 5.2.3. Rotoscoping with shape keys
    3. 5.3. Layering elements in 3D space
    4. 5.4. Masking
      1. 5.4.1. Setting up the 3D view and camera for masking
      2. 5.4.2. Masking with Bezier curves
      3. 5.4.3. Creating elements from masked images
      4. 5.4.4. Masking with meshes
    5. 5.5. Using empty targets
    6. 5.6. Working with text
      1. 5.6.1. Setting text properties
      2. 5.6.2. Getting text files into Blender
      3. 5.6.3. Animating text
    7. 5.7. Summary
  12. 6. CAMERA AND WORLD
    1. 6.1. Blender cameras
      1. 6.1.1. Camera properties
      2. 6.1.2. Tracking the camera to an object
        1. 6.1.2.1. Parenting the camera
        2. 6.1.2.2. Using the Track To constraint
      3. 6.1.3. Perspectives and vanishing points
        1. 6.1.3.1. Matching vanishing points
        2. 6.1.3.2. Using two-point perspective
        3. 6.1.3.3. Using one-point perspective
        4. 6.1.3.4. Using zero-point perspective (orthogonal)
      4. 6.1.4. The rule of thirds
    2. 6.2. The Blender world
      1. 6.2.1. World colors
      2. 6.2.2. Exposure and dynamic range
      3. 6.2.3. Mist and stars
      4. 6.2.4. World textures
        1. 6.2.4.1. Sphere maps
        2. 6.2.4.2. Angular maps
    3. 6.3. A Big Buck Bunny world compositing example
      1. 6.3.1. Examining the world textures
      2. 6.3.2. Using matte paintings
    4. 6.4. Summary
  13. 7. SHADING
    1. 7.1. Shading categories
    2. 7.2. Materials
      1. 7.2.1. Adding a material
      2. 7.2.2. Defining a material
        1. 7.2.2.1. Material colors
        2. 7.2.2.2. Shader algorithms
      3. 7.2.3. Shading a solid material
        1. 7.2.3.1. Shadeless materials
        2. 7.2.3.2. Only shadows materials
        3. 7.2.3.3. Halo material
        4. 7.2.3.4. Wire material
        5. 7.2.3.5. OnlyCast material
    3. 7.3. Textures
      1. 7.3.1. Adding a texture
      2. 7.3.2. Mapping textures
        1. 7.3.2.1. Orienting a texture
        2. 7.3.2.2. Mapping to a material aspect
      3. 7.3.3. Mixing textures
      4. 7.3.4. Working with image textures
        1. 7.3.4.1. Recoloring image elements
        2. 7.3.4.2. Interpolating image texture
        3. 7.3.4.3. Stretching an image
        4. 7.3.4.4. Blending computer-generated elements into photos
      5. 7.3.5. Working with procedural (computed) textures
        1. 7.3.5.1. Using a Clouds texture
        2. 7.3.5.2. Using a Blend texture
    4. 7.4. Summary
  14. 8. ANIMATED EFFECTS
    1. 8.1. Object animation
      1. 8.1.1. Navigating in time
      2. 8.1.2. Moving an element into view
        1. 8.1.2.1. Using the timeline window
        2. 8.1.2.2. Using the Ipo (animation) window
        3. 8.1.2.3. Making things change
        4. 8.1.2.4. Animating an object
      3. 8.1.3. Animating a layer
      4. 8.1.4. Moving elements into range
        1. 8.1.4.1. Camera clipping range
        2. 8.1.4.2. World (mist) range
      5. 8.1.5. Adding the finishing touches to element motion
    2. 8.2. Camera animation
      1. 8.2.1. Flying the camera through a field of dreams
      2. 8.2.2. Creating camera shake
      3. 8.2.3. Following a path
    3. 8.3. Shader animation
      1. 8.3.1. Animated textures
      2. 8.3.2. Moving subtitles
    4. 8.4. Lighting animation
      1. 8.4.1. Fake light
      2. 8.4.2. Matching a live-action plate
      3. 8.4.3. Fairy light
        1. 8.4.3.1. Lightning
      4. 8.4.4. Glowing orbs
    5. 8.5. Animating masks
      1. 8.5.1. Match moving and rotoscoping
      2. 8.5.2. Animating shapes
    6. 8.6. Particle effects
    7. 8.7. Generating particles
      1. 8.7.1. Creating a new particle system
      2. 8.7.2. Blender's emitter particle system
      3. 8.7.3. Colliders
      4. 8.7.4. Force fields
      5. 8.7.5. Blender's boids physics engine
      6. 8.7.6. Combining particle effects
      7. 8.7.7. Baking
    8. 8.8. Coordinating your animation
    9. 8.9. Summary
  15. 9. RENDERING
    1. 9.1. Rendering an image
      1. 9.1.1. Start with the aspect ratio
      2. 9.1.2. Determine the resolution
        1. 9.1.2.1. Proxy rendering
        2. 9.1.2.2. OpenGL rendering
        3. 9.1.2.3. Border rendering
        4. 9.1.2.4. Pipeline components
        5. 9.1.2.5. Alpha channel rendering
      3. 9.1.3. Test render
      4. 9.1.4. Pleasantries for rendering
        1. 9.1.4.1. Anti-aliasing
        2. 9.1.4.2. Motion blur
        3. 9.1.4.3. Edge rendering
        4. 9.1.4.4. Information stamping
      5. 9.1.5. Which image standard to use?
      6. 9.1.6. A place for everything . . .
      7. 9.1.7. Multithreaded rendering
      8. 9.1.8. Rendering curves
      9. 9.1.9. Dealing with rendering issues
        1. 9.1.9.1. The black render of darkness
        2. 9.1.9.2. Broken links
        3. 9.1.9.3. Overly bright or miscolored elements
        4. 9.1.9.4. Render crashes
    2. 9.2. Rendering video
      1. 9.2.1. Develop your storyboard
      2. 9.2.2. Set frames per second
      3. 9.2.3. Set the duration
      4. 9.2.4. Trade off quality with time
        1. 9.2.4.1. Step rendering
        2. 9.2.4.2. Override shading
        3. 9.2.4.3. Interlacing (fields rendering)
      5. 9.2.5. Select sequence or container
      6. 9.2.6. Choose your destination
      7. 9.2.7. Complete the animation
      8. 9.2.8. Render the video
      9. 9.2.9. Package it
      10. 9.2.10. Play back your animation
    3. 9.3. Of containers and codecs
      1. 9.3.1. QuickTime container
      2. 9.3.2. AVI container
      3. 9.3.3. FFmpeg container
    4. 9.4. Render farms
    5. 9.5. Summary
  16. 10. NODE-BASED COMPOSITING
    1. 10.1. Working with the compositor
      1. 10.1.1. Compositing screen layout
      2. 10.1.2. The node editor
        1. 10.1.2.1. Node editor header
        2. 10.1.2.2. Node editor workspace
      3. 10.1.3. Typical node controls
        1. 10.1.3.1. Node header
        2. 10.1.3.2. Sockets
        3. 10.1.3.3. Threading
        4. 10.1.3.4. Cyclic dependencies
        5. 10.1.3.5. Node editor window's Node menu
    2. 10.2. Feed me (input nodes)
      1. 10.2.1. Getting in the view
        1. 10.2.1.1. Render Layer node
        2. 10.2.1.2. Alpha Channel Socket
        3. 10.2.1.3. Render passes
        4. 10.2.1.4. Visualizing render passes
        5. 10.2.1.5. Render Layers panel
      2. 10.2.2. Image node
      3. 10.2.3. Sequences and movies
        1. 10.2.3.1. Working with different image resolutions
      4. 10.2.4. Texture node
      5. 10.2.5. Value node
      6. 10.2.6. Time node for animation
        1. 10.2.6.1. The curves widget
      7. 10.2.7. RGB (color) node
    3. 10.3. Getting something out of it
      1. 10.3.1. Composite node
      2. 10.3.2. Viewer node
      3. 10.3.3. Split Viewer node
      4. 10.3.4. Using the UV/Image Editor window
      5. 10.3.5. File Output node
    4. 10.4. The distort processing nodes
      1. 10.4.1. Crop
      2. 10.4.2. Displace
      3. 10.4.3. Lens Distortion node
      4. 10.4.4. Map UV
      5. 10.4.5. Rotate
      6. 10.4.6. Scale
      7. 10.4.7. Translate
    5. 10.5. Shake, rattle, and roll
    6. 10.6. Format conversion
      1. 10.6.1. One image to another
      2. 10.6.2. One medium to another
      3. 10.6.3. Cropping and letterboxing
      4. 10.6.4. Upscaling and downscaling
    7. 10.7. Summary
  17. 11. MANIPULATING IMAGES
    1. 11.1. Color nodes
      1. 11.1.1. Invert node
      2. 11.1.2. Bright/Contrast node
      3. 11.1.3. Gamma node
      4. 11.1.4. RGB Curves node
      5. 11.1.5. AlphaOver node
        1. 11.1.5.1. Seeing ghosts
      6. 11.1.6. Mix node
        1. 11.1.6.1. Color math
        2. 11.1.6.2. Hue, saturation, and value
        3. 11.1.6.3. Dodge and burn
      7. 11.1.7. Handy techniques
        1. 11.1.7.1. Sepia
        2. 11.1.7.2. Fades and transitions
        3. 11.1.7.3. Adjusting for print: CMYK
      8. 11.1.8. Z Combine node
        1. 11.1.8.1. Full-screen sample anti-aliasing
      9. 11.1.9. Tonemap node
    2. 11.2. Conversion nodes
      1. 11.2.1. RGB to BW node
      2. 11.2.2. Set Alpha node
      3. 11.2.3. Math node
        1. 11.2.3.1. Using Math to use watermarks
        2. 11.2.3.2. Encoding a watermark
        3. 11.2.3.3. Decoding a watermark
      4. 11.2.4. Alpha Convert node
      5. 11.2.5. ColorRamp node
      6. 11.2.6. Separate/Combine channel nodes
      7. 11.2.7. Pulling an object's mask using the ID Mask node
    3. 11.3. Matte nodes
      1. 11.3.1. Luminance Key node
      2. 11.3.2. Channel Key node
      3. 11.3.3. Difference Key node
      4. 11.3.4. Chroma Key node
      5. 11.3.5. Deinterlacing with Blender
    4. 11.4. Summary
  18. 12. ADVANCED NODES
    1. 12.1. Vector nodes
      1. 12.1.1. Normalize node
      2. 12.1.2. Normal node
        1. 12.1.2.1. Changing apparent light direction
      3. 12.1.3. Map Value node
    2. 12.2. Filter nodes
      1. 12.2.1. Blur node
        1. 12.2.1.1. Faking a focusing act
      2. 12.2.2. Soften filter
      3. 12.2.3. Sharpen filter
      4. 12.2.4. Laplace filter
      5. 12.2.5. Sobel filter
      6. 12.2.6. Prewitt filter
      7. 12.2.7. Kirsch filter
      8. 12.2.8. Shadow filter
      9. 12.2.9. Dilate/Erode node
        1. 12.2.9.1. Glowing magic aura with Dilate
      10. 12.2.10. Depth of field with the Defocus node
        1. 12.2.10.1. Making or faking a Z-buffer
        2. 12.2.10.2. Rack focus
      11. 12.2.11. Directional Blur node
      12. 12.2.12. Bilateral Blur node
      13. 12.2.13. Motion blur via the Vector Blur node
      14. 12.2.14. Glare node
    3. 12.3. Node groups
    4. 12.4. Posterizing and retro
    5. 12.5. Grease Pencil tool
    6. 12.6. Visualizing the win
    7. 12.7. Summary
  19. 13. NONLINEAR VIDEO EDITOR
    1. 13.1. The VSE window display modes
      1. 13.1.1. Sequence display mode
        1. 13.1.1.1. What is a video strip?
        2. 13.1.1.2. Do sequence
      2. 13.1.2. Image preview display mode
      3. 13.1.3. Luma waveform display mode
      4. 13.1.4. Chroma vectorscope display mode
      5. 13.1.5. Histogram display mode
    2. 13.2. An NLE screen layout
    3. 13.3. Scene sequencer buttons
      1. 13.3.1. Sequencer Input panel
        1. 13.3.1.1. Preprocessing strips using crop and translate
        2. 13.3.1.2. Crop
        3. 13.3.1.3. Translate
      2. 13.3.2. Sequencer Filter panel
      3. 13.3.3. Sequencer Proxy panel
        1. 13.3.3.1. Making a proxy
      4. 13.3.4. Sequencer Edit panel
    4. 13.4. Practical examples
      1. 13.4.1. Adjusting lift and gain
      2. 13.4.2. Making a slide show
        1. 13.4.2.1. Cross and fade transitions
        2. 13.4.2.2. Cut splice transitions
      3. 13.4.3. Image-format conversion
    5. 13.5. Summary
  20. 14. SEQUENCER EFFECTS
    1. 14.1. Loading combined audio/video
    2. 14.2. Editing strips
      1. 14.2.1. Editing multiple takes
      2. 14.2.2. Interleaving multiple cameras
    3. 14.3. Splice and transition effects
      1. 14.3.1. Gamma cross-fade
      2. 14.3.2. Wipe effect and other effects in general
      3. 14.3.3. Juxtapose
    4. 14.4. Glow effect
    5. 14.5. Speed Control effect
    6. 14.6. Offset blending effect
    7. 14.7. Masking in the sequencer
    8. 14.8. Animating VSE effects
    9. 14.9. VSE plug-in effects
      1. 14.9.1. Example plug-in: green screen
      2. 14.9.2. Other plug-ins
    10. 14.10. Audio sequences
    11. 14.11. Mashups
    12. 14.12. Summary
    13. 14.13. Apress License Agreement (Single-User Products)
      1. 14.13.1. APRESS SOFTWARE LICENSE
      2. 14.13.2. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
      3. 14.13.3. U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED RIGHTS

Product information

  • Title: Foundation Blender Compositing
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: June 2010
  • Publisher(s): Apress
  • ISBN: 9781430219767