compositing conundrum... sigh...

#1

I’ve been doing some test renders to see how to composite everything into Combustion. I’ve been exporting a PSD file and importing it directly into my app of choice. The problem then is that once I do, I can’t get the damn thing to come close to the original rendered output.

My question to whoever reads this is what order and what is their layer type set to?

Specular Color
Reflection
Specular
Specular Diffuse
Mirror
Luminosity
Shadow
Shading
Diffuse
Diffuce Color
Raw Colour

I know that some of these are set to Screen, but after playing around for hours, I’m almost ready to pack it in.

#2

Which program 3D is using? The Max for example ja creates an archive .CWS with blend modes correct. These blends modes also vary depending on the desired effect. Blend modes is very common to use in this type of composition is a blend, add, multiply, screen and others

#3

Sorry, I forgot that descriptor. I’m using Lightwave 8.3 here and have the ability to export to rla, rpf, PSD, etc. I would use the rla format, but I can’t seem to access any of the specular, or reflections. So I thought I would try the PSD format, which I think could be far more powerful. BUT I found out really quickly that being a new user to Combustion 3 here on the Mac, that I’m having some issues with manipulating all the layers with the 3D blur feature across the whole scheme of things. It’s extremely complex. I’m starting to wonder if AE is going to better, but I had already made the investment.

#4

RPF, RLA files preserve only channels as alpha, Z-depth, velocity and others. I believe that you it can render the passes in the Lightwave in any format not so in .PSD. In format .PSD I find that the archives are created in the order and with blend modes certain. I can be wrong but .RPF files created in LW, they can have problems of reading in the Combustion. If you use the operators of 3D post (Combustion 3) you must export in formats that store special channels (RLA, RPF, IFF (Z-depth))

looks at this link. In the tutorial ones the Digital Fusion is being used, but almost everything is applied to the Combustion.
http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/tutorials/videos/dfx-fusion.html

#5

So would it be better to have the PSD file have the visual info and the other files have the zbuffer, motion, etc, or should I just keep it all within the output of the PSD file?

#6

So would it be better to have the PSD file have the visual info and the other files have the zbuffer, motion, etc, or should I just keep it all within the output of the PSD file

yes, look at the tutorial. But Combustion 3 don´t interpret this data only the combustion 4 ( G-buffer Builder)

sorry for the wrong link, its correct
ftp://gecko.newtek.com/multimedia/eyeon/PSD_Saving.mov
other link
“Depth Fog
Show the cool depth fog effect, which uses an RLA or RPF image to add fog as a post process.”
ftp://gecko.newtek.com/multimedia/eyeon/DepthFog.mov

#7

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