The Composite

Week 1 – Introduction to Nuke

In this first lesson we were introduced to Nuke and the interface. We got used to the Node system getting used to connecting the viewport, adjusting project settings, and using basic nodes like transform, grade and using default imagery of colour scapes.

I learnt how to add keyframes in Nuke and made a small animation, got to use the curve editor. Having animation on multiple nodes was an interesting way to work and something that was new to me.

Merging assets using the merge node

We were then tasked with arranging some pre-made node trees to create completed images. Here are my completed images.

Slight breakdown of the process

Here you can see how the elements have been added together with each being able to be controlled or manipulated individually

Alpha channels and colour space

We also learnt about colour channels and colour space in Nuke. Along with using the R, G and B keys to access the reds, greens and blues, A can also be pressed to access the alpha channel which is important in Nuke due to the amount of keying and compositing that will be carried out in this software.

Week 2 – Rotoscoping

This week we looked at rotoscoping. This is a really important technique in VFX which is very widely used in many productions, we look at it’s history and how the technique was invented by artists tracing over video footage of real people and transposing that into animations. Rotoscoping is essentially the art of cutting out a particular element or character away from a scene or a background, as technology has advanced rotoscoping has to and with a software such as Nuke rotoscoping is now very advance allowing a very fine level of detail such as cutting around strands of hair.

One thing to note about rotoscoping too is that it is often an entry level job in the VFX field, this means that it is a very good skill to have to secure my future in the industry.

To start us off with rotoscoping, we looked at how we would isolate one of the balls in a pieces of footage where several balls were moving around. We learnt about creating roto shapes and the different pen/shape tools that nuke provides as well as the nodes required to set roto up.

This was the original footage we were supplied

The first piece of roto focusing on the central ball

This is my roto and node graph for the first ball rotoscoping.

I then challenged myself to do another more complex ball movement

This was the result when I used the premult note to actually cut out the pieces. The node graph for this can be seen below

This node graph shows how I achieved the result. I am beginning to get used to the way that Nuke works and how to organise my nodes and files. I am learning how powerful the merge node is and getting more comfortable with the interface and short cut keys.

We then moved onto a different piece of footage and were tasked with rotoscoping the top of a building

The node graph here is similar to the one used for the balls with the addition of a grade node to adjust the colour of the resulting rotoscoping.

Week 3 – Learning Advanced Rotoscoping

This week we learnt a more advanced technique of rotoscoping which involves splitting objects into smaller shapes this provides more control to both the roto artist and the computer to work out its calculations. It also means that roto can be more precise, making sure all lines are accurate and not just the most direct result from point A to point B as sometimes that is not true to life. This is because most non-mechanical things travel in arcs rather than straight lines.

Rotoscoping fingers

The first task we were given was to rotoscope a finger, to do this we split the finger into 3 sections and were taught how to colour these sections different for ease of visualisation and also how to group them into a folder for easy reference and usability

The screenshot shows how I have sectioned the finger, colour coded it and given It it’s own folder

I then went about rotoscoping the entire hand in the scene. This was task which took me a very long time, but I learnt a lot along the way and also got faster as I went. I’m pleased with the result but I’m aware it could be refined, the results did get better as I went but the bits I did towards the end of the day I can tell I was fatiguing.

I tried to make a compilation video to make the result more fun to watch however I don’t know if it shows my workflow very well. The way I went about this was by making a new roto node for each finger, the thumb and palm and then key framing each, before merging them together.

This is the final result, again I think it could be better but I spent about 10 hours on this so I’m happy with the result

This is the node tree for my rotoscoping of the fingers

Rotoscoping the full body

Our next task was to rotoscope a full body from a shot. There were extra challenges with this one because the person we were rotoscoping out walked behind a pillar.

To overcome the pillar we were taught how to use different version of the merge node to mask it out. For this specific problem we used the stencil version of the merge node which means you can draw something that the roto will observe to not interact with.

The nodes needed for a standard merge sentcil result

This is a demonstration of the mask stencil, the white is my rotoscoped alpha, at this point, the persons torso, and the black bar is the merge stencil that is being taken into account.

I started rotoscoping the person when I realised that once they come in front of the pillar the merge stencil is still in effect therefore meaning the roto isn’t accurate once the stencil is no longer needed. To overcome this I set up a new set of roto nodes and decided to split my workflow and key framing into one side being behind the pillar and one side being in front of the pillar

A screenshot of my nodes that are seperated into the content before and after the pillar

These are a couple of screenshots from my full body rotoscoping

This is a video of my process so far

This is a cut out version using a premult node. Although I know this still needs a lot of work I’m pleased that I am getting more comfortable using Nuke and I worked very hard this week trying to get this done unfortunately rotoscoping the entire scene turned out to be too much of a challenge for me in one week on top of my other work and activities. However I think I am getting to breaking things up into shapes and I know from working on this how effective it is.

Week 4 – Learning Keying

This week we were introduced to keying in Nuke and removing green screen backgrounds. The first thing we discussed is it’s similarities and differences from keying in After Effects which most us are familiar with. The advantages of keying in Nuke is that it can give a much more precise result. As well as this because it is a node based system the actions taking place are a lot more easy to read and it is easier to make adjustments and fine tune certain nodes.

We also learnt about different types of keys such as luma keys (keys analysing luminance) and chroma keys (keys analysing colour values)

This is the first shot we worked on, where we replaced the sky in this image, we started this by using a luminance key to isolate the sky. Then added a roto shape to mask out things that we didn’t want to be effected such as the gaps between the trees in the tree line and the foreground

This is the alpha I created using the key and a roto shape

This is the node graph of the result

This is the same node graph with the additional of some fine tuning colour and lighting nodes to make the join between the plates more seamless.

The second sky replacement – this time without following along in class

The node graph for this composite, I used the stencil version of the merge node to mask out elements that weren’t picked up by the luminance key

Working with video and keying out a person

This is the next exercise we were set in class. This is my result from my time in class.

This is my node graph from class. I struggled with this in lesson, as I find figuring out the order of the nodes quite tricky as well as trying to remember what different version of keying nodes did/were good at. But this was a good beginner task.

Once I got home I decided to research different methods and test out different versions of keying because I felt like I needed a lot more practice to try and understand it. I found a really good video that demonstrated all of the different variations of keying and I tried all of them out before settling on a key result that combined two versions.

Putting into practice these different techniques was really useful for me and I feel I am a lot more comfortable using keys now even though I would like to keep practicing. This definitely helped get used to the workflow and gain more confidence in Nuke, especially after exhausting myself on rotoscoping last week, this was a more positive experience.

In order to achieve my result for my at home composition I ended up combining two different keys, the IBK colour key and the keylight. I found the IBK colour key was very good at getting the body isolated, yet it was quite harsh on the hair detail. Which is where the key light key came in. I ended up using a roto shape to isolate the key light key to just the hair and then merging it with the IBK key that keyed out the body. I’m really happy with this result and can see a definite improvement from my trial of the exercise in class

Harsh IBK alpha

Softer Keylight alpha

Combined alpha

The result of the key

The key comped with the background

Week 5 – Learning colour grading

The first exercise we were introduced to was grading the image to integrate the lady in to the scene more

Original Footage

 

Graded Footage

To do this we used a variety of techniques including Luma keys to examine the luminescence and grade nodes.

Nodes for luminescence grade

Example of a node graph for luminescence

Nodes for a roto specific grade

Node graph for roto that results in only the areas selected by the roto will be graded. It is important to mask your roto to the grade node

This was my finished result for the grade of the images above. This used a Luma key, then a colour grade, then saturation followed by a roto specific grade that adds the light rays from the left of her

The second task – Removing the patch

Our second task was to remove a patch from a piece of footage. As this patch only shows up for some frames we used keyframes to animate it into place.

This was the original footage

This was the graded footage, removing a patch from the bottom left

Roto grade example

This is an example of a roto grade (the blue window)

Grade based on luminescence

This is an example of a luminance grade where only a portion within a certain luminance range is affected by the grade

Colour grading assignment

For our assignment this week we were tasked with colour grading the elements in this scene so that they all looked like they integrated well

This is the original image and assets

This was the reference image we were given so we could know what we were aiming for

This is my finished result. I can see there are ways I can improve this however I think this is a good first attempt. I feel like it would take a lot of practice to train my eye to pick up on where the colours need to be in the spectrum as this was my first introduction to colour thoery

These are my node graphs for the different elements, you can see that I used a luma grade and a colour grade for all of them as well as often a luminance key for highlights and sometimes some rotoscoping

Week 6 – Tracking

This week we learnt the basics of 2D tracking in Nuke. To carry out this process we use a ‘Tracker” node which allows selection of the area you wish to track. The cross in the middle denotes the tracking point, the inner box selects the pattern that you wish to follow and the last box is the area that the tracker with search.

The next step is press the controls to try to automatically track the scene, going through the frames forwards or backwards. Once a track has been created it can be adjusted and a traffic light colouring system is used to highlight the accuracy of the track.

This is an example of how the tracker would be set up, it is important to link the node to the original footage so that we can track things correctly

This is a screenshot of the proporties tab of the tracker node. For this track I just needed to detect transform data (basic movement)

This is how the tracker was placed in the overall node graph, this applied the tracking data to the paint and roto shape after it was cut out and then this was merged over the original footage

This is the original video

This is the video with the tracked roto paint shape

We then moved on to applying tracks to this building footage that we used in an exercise previously. I ended up tracking two different buildings here in order to practice

For this track we included rotational data as well as transform data

One problem I ran into was not setting the transform to match move. This meant that my roto shapes weren’t following the track. This is something that comes with practice and having made the mistake now I am more likely to remember this for the future

This is my node graph for the two tracks of buildings in the scene

Windscreen track

Our next task was to track a windscreen through a piece of moving footage. This introduced us to more complex tracking using corner pin nodes. This was done using planner tracking as compared to one and two point tracks we had made previously.

The first track I made didn’t work very effectively as I made my initial roto shape too small/precise. I learnt through this exercise that making a larger more broadly sweeping shape for the initial roto gives more accurate result for the track, making it easier to refine later.

This is the original footage

The is the footage with my tracked windscreen highlighted. I am pleased with this result considering I struggled to get used to the workflow of using planar tracking and corner pin nodes.

Number plate change

The next task involved changing the number plate in the scene.

This is the original shot

This is the revised shot with the number plate changed.

Original video

Video of updated number plate

This was a fun exercise as it allowed us to use all the skills we had learned up to this point. With rotoscoping, grading and tracking. We were also introduced to a variety of transform nodes such as reformats and transform that I used here.

To explain this process, after bringing the new number plate image in I first reformatted it so that it would be the same dimensions as the backplate. I think rotoscoped out the piece I needed getting rid of the borders. I used a premult node of this to cut it out from its background, used a transform tool to put it into place and finally I graded the image using a colour grade and saturation nodes to make it integrate into the scene more effectively.

The track I created separately on the base footage using a corner pin node and the technique we had used in class earlier. I then applied the tracking data to the number plate, making it follow the assigned path and ended up with my result.

This felt like a good achievement for me and it made me appreciate the power of this software and what it can do even though this was a relatively simple exercise in the scope of Nuke compositing

Broken script

Our final task for the day was analysing a broken script. For this we were given a broken script and were tasked with fixing it. I really struggled with this exercise and felt quite out of my depth in terms of knowing where the problems were it was quite a complex script in my opinion and I didn’t feel like I had the skill to identify problems yet. However the one element I did find was poorly connected merge nodes. This was a problem because originally the A and B inputs were connected in the wrong order meaning that the result of the image would be skewed and not what was in the reference. I was able to fix this but unfortunately that was the only problem I was able to confidently identify and fix within this script.

Week 7 – Clean Up & Grain

This week we learnt how to use the roto paint node. This is a very useful tool that helps us complete tasks like removing tracking marks.

There are many different tools within the roto paint node. Here I was using the reveal tool to reveal the background behind. The setup is very similar to the standard roto tool

This shows the clone brush. This brush has a source point and will clone the pixels from the source point on to the new area. This means we can cover up the markers with similar tones of areas next to it

This is the clone tool settings, the orange highlight is the brush mark I made, an important thing to remember to check is the ‘life’ attribute of this. This is because by default this roto shape will only last one frame. In order for it to be visible for the entire video this needs to be changed to lifetime.

Another thing to be sure of is that the cloned roto paint layer is created on the first frame of the clip. This is because we are going to add tracking data to it to and these both need to start from the same point.

This is the tracking setup. The same system as we used last week.

Same as last week it is important to set up the track at as match-move transform and reference frame to the first frame of the clip. We then take this data and transfer it to the roto paint shape. To do this we navigate to the transform sections of both the tracker and the roto shape. Hold down control on the graph button next to the tracker translate and drag it onto the graph button next to the roto paint translate x. The same thing should be done with the centre x and y value too.

This means that the tracking data is being transposed onto the roto paint shape, being the roto paint shape will follow the track. Which is the result we want to correctly cover the markers

 

This is the node graph for this task. The green line between the tracker and the roto paint shape symbolises that a data exchange is happening here as the tracking data is being passed to the roto paint shape. The tracking node doesn’t actually need to be plugged into the footage at this point as the data is already stored.

This is the original footage

This is the result of one marker removed

This is the result of two markers removed

Removing someone from a scene using a patch and fixing the grain

For this task we were asked to remove the old man from this scene.

Original footage

End result

Node graph for this composite.

To do this we put a frame hold on the shot to make a freeze frame after the man leaves the shot. This allowed us to make a roto shape which becomes a patch that we can apply to the previous frames to cover up the man. Essentially we took data of what was on the screen after the man had left and applied it to the frames before he departs.

This is a screenshot of the patch

These are the nodes used for this task. We created the patch, cut it out using a premult and then merged the result back onto the original footage.

The only new technique here is the multiply node. The multiply node allows us to turn this shape on and off. This is useful as we want the patch to be active when the man is in shot but we want to deactivate it when the women walk past that area otherwise they will be obscured. To do this we set keyframes on the multiply node. Just before the women interact with the patch we set the value to one (active) and then on the next frame we set the value to zero (inactive). This is a really effective method for masking out assets temporarily and is much more efficient than using only roto.

This is the settings menu for the multiply node showing the value property that we change accordingly.

We also added tracking data to this scene which we applied to the patch, this is because there is a slight movement in the footage that we wanted it to follow

Rebalancing Grain

When shooting footage with a camera there is a natural grain that is given to the footage due to sensors reacting to the light. This grain is one of the aspects that grounds the footage in reality. However when creating patches and adding in new computer generated assets to footage, grain is absent. This means that we need to add grain in in order to make the composite look seamless.

After creating the patch we need to add grain to the image. To do this we first denoised the image and then added in a grain node. Looking at the red, green and blue channels we can adjust the grain in order to try and fit it to the original image. To make this easier we can use a wipe so that we can compare the original image to the new patch.

I got a result that I was fairly happy with but this is another area where I would need a lot of practice to train my eye

This is a screenshot showcasing the nodes we used for adding in the grain. We first used a denoise node followed by a grain node.

Week 8 – Recap of skills

The week we are revisiting the techniques that have used inn order to refresh our memories ready to receive our assignment brief.

Our first task was to remove a logo from a scene using Planar tracking.

This is the completed node graph to remove the patch. One thing that I struggled with here was remembering how to extract corner pin data after creating a roto shape

The workflow for this is

  1. Create the roto shape
  2. Highlight the overall shape
  3. Right click and select “planar track”
  4. After this has completed click the little corner pin icon in the viewer window and select “corner pin (absolute baked)”
  5. This will create a new node with just the corner pin data
  6. To have the pins follow the track, in the corner pin node settings (making sure you are on the first frame) set the reference frame by going to the “from tab”, then clicking “copy to”
  7. Next to each input click the squiggly line and set it to “no animation”

This exercise was really useful as not only did we use a planar track we also used the roto paint node again with the clone brush to reinsert the texture of the box onto the patch

The next task on this same piece was adding a new logo in. This was a reminder of corner pin and transform nodes as well as colour grading and matching,

This was a slight addition where we added the shadow

Second exercise – marker tracking and keying

For this exercise we tracked and removed the marker in the scene to prepare the shot for keying.

Node graph for marker removal

We started by tracking the markers, the added a frame hold to isolate the positioning of the markers. Then we painted them out with the roto paint tools, premult to cut them out and merged it over the clip. We them solted the tracking information back in so the painted out sectionns would follow the tracking data

Before marker removal

After marker removal

This is the script for the keying process, we used 3 different keys to key out the green. One as a harsh key, one to pick out hair detail and a third as a despill

We then added a garbage mat to crop out all the unnecessary areas. We also reapplied the tracking information to this so that the roto shape follows the zoom of the camera

This ended up being a complicated script that is quite long however broken into sections in backdrop nodes it is quit easy to understand. I like revisiting these techniques as I feel I need the refresher before starting to work on the assignment.

Assignment 01 – Technique

For our first assignment we have been asked to carry out a series of tasks on a shot. Broken down these tasks are

  • Removing the green screen and replacing it with a blue background
  • Taking out the tracking marker
  • Removing the logo from the bag
  • Changing the screen of the television (and masking Tim as he walks in front of it)

My full node graph for the project

Although this list looked straight forward I did find some things more challenging than I expected, for example with the tracking markers there is a couple the don’t appear until after Tim starts to leave the shot, this confused my workflow as I had to add in some extra roto to deal with this.

This is a screen recording of me carrying out this task. It’s quite long as I’m still getting familiar with Nuke, but it does show my process from start to finish of how I attempted each task.

This is my final video/result

Week 9 – Cleanup

Today we revisited some of the techniques we learned to clean up a shot. Unfortunately I had a lot of trouble using the computers at the university this week so I didn’t get as much practical time as I would have liked but it was a fun exercise once I got to it. Now that I have completed assignment 1 I feel like my confidence is really improving in Nuke as I have become familiar with the workflow now

This is my node graph for the shot. It was really good to practice these skills again, as I remember more each time I do this kind of work

I’ve included this screenshot as initially I was struggling to remember where to roto so that it would be tracked. In the beginning because I was catching up and copying a completed node tree I tried to track a roto node that was placed under the frame hold but this of course meant there was no movement as the shot was held in place. So I eventually remembered to gain the tracking data from the original footage itself.

Similarly I had to refresh my memory on setting up the corner pin. Setting the reference from my using the “copy to” button and then turning off the animation in the menu that appears when the squiggly line is clicked

This is a still from a later frame in the video, another piece of tracking and roto would need to be added here to complete the shot. Unfortunately I ran out of time to complete this in class and I now have to focus on assignments but I am confident in the workflow I would need to complete this shot

Using the roto paint node here was really interesting as we had a lot of detail to make sure we preserved in the curb where the well is. This gave me a good insight as to what it would be like in a studio doing a junior role of paint and roto artist. Looking at this freeze frame here I can also see that I didn’t add a grade node to my paint to make it darker towards the left of the image, this would have helped a lot in terms of believability and integration into the scene. This was something that was covered in class. I just unfortunately didn’t get to it in time.

Assignment 02 – Creative

Full node graph for the project

For the second assignment we could choose to either develop the shot we worked on for assignment 1 and change the background and TV screen etc. Or we could use some new footage that has been provided to us.

I chose to use a new clip as I thought it would be a nice exercise to practice the workflow again as well as having something fun to put a my showreel

My first task was assessing where the garbage mat would go and therefore how much of the scene I had to take into consideration. From this I found that I only needed to remove one tracking marker in the shot so this was the first element I tackled. Using a roto shape and roto paint, I used the clone brush to paint the marker out.

After this came keying. I struggled with this as that background wasn’t as flat or standardised in colour as the previous clip of Tim this meant there were multiple greens to key out. Initially I was hoping to develop a longer shot but my struggles with keying resulted in me using a shorter shot that had a more even toned green screen so that I could be sure I got a robust key.

To key out the green screen I used a keylight node.

When adding in the background (a picture I found license free on Upsplash). I realised that my garbage mat meant that the roto was cropping it out. To resolve this I created an inverse of the roto (a mask operation on the merge node instead of an over operation on the merge node) to make the background visible as desired.

Unfortunately with these two roto masks competing, it did leave a fuzzy edge visible around some frames. I am still unsure as to why this is and after trying multiple ways to fix it within the nodes themselves I ultimately decided to add another roto shape after all the merging had taken place, to take out the fuzzy line.

This shows an example of that little black line that the competing mask operations were generating. In this screenshot it is above the persons head

For the spaceships I made a simple model in Maya and textured it in Substance Painter, I then bought those textures back to Maya and textured my model. After this I exported my Nuke file where it was at that stage as an image sequence. Applied that image sequence as a texture to a poly plane in Maya so that I could see it while I was animating. I also set up a camera and my render view dimensions to make sure I could see what the final output what look like. I then set about animating the spaceships for the sequence. After I was done with this I exported the image sequence just including the spaceship models and making sure to have a transparent background. Due to using the nuke image sequence as reference all my frames matched up, which made it easy when importing the spaceships, I didn’t have to sync up the animation, that was already handled.

Model in Maya

Substance Painter texturing

Render in Maya of the spaceship

showing the different textures I exported for the different colour lights

animating in Maya

The spaceships composited in

Light modification work was done on both the spaceship image sequence and the background, this included desaturation and colour grading. On the spaceship I wanted them to fade at the end of their motion to signal that they were leaving the scene. To do this I used a roto node that was masked to a multiply node, this meant I could control when the rotoscoped section would be visible vs invisible. I added two of these set ups here so that I could make the blue and red ships disappear before the green one.

Overall I am pleased with this result considering the timescale. More would be done to integrate the elements and the models of the spaceships would be higher quality however I think it’s a good proof of concept for my skill level.

Week 10 – Gaining Feedback on Assignment 2 (Creative)

This week we recieved feedback on our second assignment which is our cretaive assignment. We showed our work to our teachers and industry professional Josh Parks.

Unfortunately I made amistake when bringing my Nuke script into the university as I thought that having simply the script would be enough, I forgot that I also needed the attached asset library so that Nuke would know where to find the material referenced. Because of this I didn’t end up getting my Nuke script to a reasonable state to show therefore the review was just of my portfolio site content however this did included a video of the finished project and my full node graph.

The feedback on this project was really insightful and useful. It was very nice to meet Josh and hear his thoughts.

The points I came away with to improve were

  • Reorgnaising the node graph, specifically moving my keying nodes to affect a copy of the original footage rather than the orginal footage itself (creating a non destructive workflow)
  • Adding a grade node to the man in the scene to make it look like the blue light from the sky is hitting him where the highlights are
  • Increasing the glow on the spaceships so that it has a more dramatic effect
  • Add a camera shake
  • Refine the key with a new rotoshape to remove some piece of transparency in the spacesuit

In terms of reorganising the node graph I got this feedback from multiple sources however I was unsure of how to go about this. I knew what I needed to do but I wasnt sure where the copy node would actually need to be placed. Therefore I asked for help from my teacher and I was very happy to figure this out.

Showing the keying nodes have been placed to the side of the pipeline

Adding a grade node to the spaceman

I also increased the glow on the spaceships and I am happy with this result. However I am slightly disappointed that the red spaceship now glows orange due to an increase in emmision intensity. I could change this texture and update it however when I tried to do that tonight my project crashed multiple times (I think there are issues with the Substance Painter plugin). So this is something I may come back to later if I have time, I don’t think it is absolutely necessary though.

The result of the increased glow of the ships’ lights

Updating the keying was a good exercise and I prefer the result now. I also took it upon myself to transfer tracking data to the background so that it move with the shot. Adding the camera shake was easy as it is just a node added at the end. I decided to make the shake quite subtle as with the camera movement now I didn’t want to overwhelm the scene and take the focus away from the subject and the spaceships.

Showcasing the camera shake node

As it stands I’m happy with this result and I am enjoying seeing all of my Nuke learning come together in a project of my own

 

Week 11

Today I received more feedback from Josh which was really valuable. My script looked good in terms of layout but he helped me elevate it even more by showing me how to make sure that the background always flows down directly to the output. He also helped me out a lot with grading my character and making the piece feel a lot more cohesive. I think I am having the same problems in Nuke as I am with animation where as a beginner I am too afraid to make big changes in fear of ruining something.

I am getting more confident at this with animation but I haven’t transferred this skill to nuke yet, so seeing Josh take my script and really play with it, reminded me that it’s important to be creative and test things out. The fear is not really justified, I cant ruin anything, and even if I do I’ll learn how to fix it.

In light of this Josh made some really big changes in terms of grading my piece. This really helped me see the power of Nuke and the grade node and definitely made me think I have a lot more to learn about this node in particular. The results from it are impressive and really make a difference.

He helped me with defocusing the background so that it fit the scene better and also to trick viewers into thinking it is further away than the main subject. This was really useful and again it is one of those things that makes sense in theory but I wouldn’t have known how to do it within the software so I’m really grateful to Josh for showing me this. His tips on using the gamma slider within the grade node to adjust the amount of contrast in the image were really useful and something I would like to look at further in future projects

background node graph showing defocus and grade

Integrating the spaceships was another aspect he helped me with. One thing that I really liked about his workflow here is that he introduced me to the unpremult node. This is because when I made my render in Maya it automatically applied a soft edge that would blend with the scene. To revert this change we can use an unpremult mode, we then also made these blue. As well as this to add in the increased glow and the lens flares Josh used a grade node that was specially applied to a luminince key. This allowed him to select just the glowing piece (using luminance key) and just grade these. This was a really impressive technique which makes such a difference to the overall result.

He also showed me how to merge these at the end so that the flares could impact the lighting on the astronauts face.

I learnt so much from this small feedback session and I am very grateful for his time. My biggest takeaways are the importance of grading and also gaining confidence in just messing around with the sliders and setting and trying things out.

Complete Node Graph

Completed node graph

Final video

A short breakdown video