Confused about the way compositing stuff go...

[sheepfilms]

The reason for rendering seperate passes in Maya (diffuse, reflections, shadows, normals for example) is that it is faster to adjust the effect the passes have on the overall image in a compositing application, without the need to spend hours or days re-rendering

An example of this is shadows. Say you have rendered out your shadow pass in Maya, just in black. In your compositing app you can then adjust this pass so that the shadows are more blue, less opaque or even blur them subtly. Now imagine doing these same tweaks on this shadow pass and all your other passes, but only in Maya. The balancing of the colour of the light would then break the colour of your objects, and not match your live action any more

Flexibility and speed are the key. Sometimes the scene is rendered with all the passes in Maya, this is called a beauty pass. The compositor can then choose if he wants to use this in combination with the other passes

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.