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Page 1 Composite User Guide...
Page 2 OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. Trademarks The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and other countries: 3DEC (design/logo), 3December, 3December.com, 3ds Max, Algor, Alias, Alias (swirl design/logo), AliasStudio, Alias|Wavefront (design/logo),...
Page 3: Table Of Contents
Contents Chapter 1 Preface ....... 1 About Composite ......1 About This Guide .
Page 4 Chapter 4 Start Compositing Now! ..... 77 Try First, Read Later ......77 Start Composite, Create Composition, Import Media and Go .
Page 5 Color Picker ....... 154 Calculators ....... . 161 Hotkey Editor .
Page 6 Chapter 12 Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects ... . . 239 Reaction Compositing and Effects ....240 Compositing Workflow .
Page 7 Chapter 17 Image Processing Tools ..... 379 About Image Processing Tools ..... . 379 Filtering Tools .
Page 8 Masking Concepts ......538 Garbage Mask Tool Tabs ......538 Creating Masks .
Page 9 Creating a Monochrome Image ..... 655 Modifying a Display With the Pass Through Tool ... . 656 Setting the Amount of Gray in an Image .
Page 10 Chapter 31 Expressions ......719 About Expressions ......720 Short Expressions .
Page 11 Correcting Errors ......782 Stabilizing ....... . 783 1-point Stabilizing .
Page 12 Appendix C Python Scripting ......867 About Python Scripting ......867 Appendix D Initialization Variables and String Substitutions .
Page 13: Chapter 1 Preface
2 About Composite Composite is Autodesk s interactive solution for film compositing. It brings compositing and visual effects tools to high-end 2D artists working at HD, 2K, 4K or above, in film, television, and design. It features a full High Dynamic Range (HDR) pipeline, next-generation 3D compositing, high performance interaction at extremely high resolutions, and advanced rendering.
Page 14: About This Guide
To launch the Help, do one of the following: 1 From the Composite menu, choose Help > Composite Help. 2 From the Windows taskbar, choose Start > programs > Autodesk > Autodesk Composite 2011 > Composite Documentation > Online Help.
Page 15 Contacting Support For further assistance, please contact Technical Support at the following address: http://www.autodesk.com/subscriptionlogin. Contacting Support | 3...
Page 17: Part 1 Getting Started
Part 1: Getting Started Getting Started includes these chapters: About Getting Started on page 7 Interface Fundamentals on page 9 Start Compositing Now! on page 77...
Page 19: Chapter 2 About Getting Started
About Getting Started Topics in this chapter: About The Chapters on page 7 About The Chapters The Getting Started section describes fundamental Composite concepts and explains some of the tool s basic functionality, which should allow you to begin using Composite as quickly as possible. Here is a brief description of the chapters included in this section.
Page 20 Start Compositing Now! A Simple Workflow Overview This chapter provides you with a step-by-step example of how to composite using Composite. The goal is to demonstrate how easily you can begin to use the tool, even before you explore some of the more advanced topics covered in the Reference section.
Page 21: Chapter 3 Interface Fundamentals
Interface Fundamentals Topics in this chapter: Basic Interface Functions on page 9 The Gate UI on page 12 The Drop Gate on page 14 The Composite Interface on page 17 Tools, Views & Pick List tabs on page 30 The Player on page 34 Zooming and Panning on page 39...
Page 22: Entering Text
Mouse, Pen, Keyboard You can interact with the user interface using a mouse or a pen and graphics tablet, in concert with the keyboard. If you have a mouse wheel, you can use it to scroll through menus. NOTE To generate a right-click with a pen, press the key in Context Menu concert with the pen.
Page 23: Dragging And Dropping
For more text editor/field hotkey combinations, see Text Editor and Text Fields on page 820. Dragging and Dropping You can drag and drop the contents of most folders in the user interface. In the user preferences, you can choose whether you see the ghosted image of the composition or not.
Page 24: The Gate Ui
select the operation you want to undo or redo from the list. Note that the arrow that appears in the list indicates the most recent operation you performed. This operation and all operations above it are operations you can undo. All operations below the arrow are ones you can redo. Things to Remember: You set the maximum number of items in the undo/redo list in the user preferences General tab.
Page 25 The four gates are as follows: Gate: Displays: a) North gate The Schematic overlay. This is a semi- transparent, larger view of the Schematic. You can set the transparency of the back- ground and nodes in the overlay, in the Creative tab of the User Preferences.
Page 26: The Drop Gate
NOTE If you press the tilde (~) key, or middle-click and swipe simultaneously, the Gate UI is not displayed. If you press the key while swiping, the panel will stay open until you press The Drop Gate Similar to the Gate UI in appearance, the Drop Gate appears when you drop a composition or a tool into a Player, Layer Editor, or Schematic view.
Page 27 To use the Drop gate when dropping a tool do one of the following: 1 Drop a tool into a Player, Composition Browser (with no composition or tool selected), or Layer Editor (with no composition or tool selected). 2 Or, drop a tool onto a selected composition in the Schematic view or the Composition Browser.
Page 28 4 Or, drop a tool onto a primary output node in the Schematic view or a selected primary output node in the Composition Browser. 5 Drop a tool onto a secondary output node in the Schematic view or a selected secondary output node in the Composition Browser. The Tool Drop Gate appears.
Page 29: The Composite Interface
6 After you have performed one of the preceding actions, swipe through the appropriate option to select it, or click to cancel the drop. The Composite Interface The Composite interface may include a variety of views and elements, all of which are designed to ensure a seamless and intuitive workflow.
Page 30 Views and elements include: a Menu Bar This is always visible by default and cannot be modified. See The Menu Bar on page 19. b Viewports There can be one or more viewports in the Composite interface, depending on the currently selected preset or on a user-defined layout.
Page 31: The Menu Bar
The Menu Bar The menu bar appears at the top of the Composite window. It contains the following menus: File, Edit Preferences, and Help. There is also a minimize button at the far right. To show or hide the menu bar: press Ctrl + M Use: Open new or existing projects, close or...
Page 32 Use: Create, delete, rename, reset layout pre- sets. Or set a layout preset as default. Allows you to load or reload scripts. Access Composite help or documentation, Python scripting info, Learning Movies or Tutorials, the Support Centre, Release Notes, The AREA, the Hotkeys doc, Script- ing, Token Substitutions and Initialization Variables, and About Composite.
Page 33 Views You can access all available views from the Views tab, using the Gate UI and then dragging a view into a viewport. NOTE You cannot undo a drag view operation. If you frequently add or remove specific views, you can add them to the Pick List for even faster access. A view can be: 1 A view where you work on or view your composition;...
Page 34 View Description Scripting Tools Allows you to add a tools browser to any viewport. Four Views: a) File browser b) Layer Editor c) Schematic d) Player To add a view to a viewport: 1 Press the tilde key or middle-click your mouse to display the Gate UI, then swipe through the east gate to display the Tools, Views and Pick List tabs.
Page 35 3 Select a view and drag it into a viewport. To display a view in a fullscreen view: 1 Pause over a view you want to display as a fullscreen view and press the key. 2 In the Player controls, click the fullscreen button to play the composition. The view displays as a fullscreen view.
Page 36 The Tool UI has four main areas: Item: Description: a) Animation controls Controls for setting and working with cue marks and keyframes. See Keyframing Workflows on page 674. b) Player controls Controls for playing media associated with a composition, in any of the views. See Using the Player Controls on page 36.
Page 37 Versions: Displays a list of all current versions, including the working or current version, associated with the composition you currently have open. Metadata: Displays the description of the composition you currently have open, along with any custom attributes you have added. You can use this tab to edit the data associated with an individual field.
Page 38 Node-Specific Tabs One or more node-specific tabs appear when you select a node in a composition. For example, if you select the CC Histo tool, you ll see that it has a main tab, as well as a Ranges tab. You will typically select a node from the Schematic view, from the Composition Browser or from the Layer Editor context menu.
Page 39 c Go to home node Navigate to node set as Home node. d History View entire node list and select a node. e Set Home Set a home node from the history list. To set another node as a home node, select a node name and click Set Home The next set of controls is for using Tool presets.
Page 40 c Forward one key Move froward one keyframe in the currently selected animation curve for this tool node. or more information on setting animation keys, see Keyframing Workflows on page 674. d Mute Mute the currently selected tool node. This is a convenient way to toggle the effect of that node on or off.
Page 41 Taskbar The taskbar anchors the user interface and gives you immediate and consistent access to frequently-used core features and commands, such as presets, undo, warning messages, as well as the current composition, version, project, and user. The taskbar is located at the bottom of the desktop. To show or hide the task bar, press Ctrl + T on Windows and Linux, or...
Page 42: Tools, Views & Pick List Tabs
Click: from the list that appears; the number in- dicates how many render tasks in the list are currently in progress. The progress bar to the right of the render task name in the list shows the task's progress: a blue bar is displayed as the task progresses and is completed successfully.
Page 43 The Pick list tab provides you with easy access to frequently used tools, view and other elements. Each user has a Pick List. Its contents are independent of any project and are consistent across sessions. The Pick List exists as a tab in two locations: a) through the east gate of the Gate UI and b) the tool UI.
Page 44 To drag an item from the Tools or Views tab: In the Tools or Views tab, select an item from the lower portion of the panel, and drag it into a view. If you drag a tool into the Schematic view, you can drop it onto any connection to insert it in the composition.
Page 45 For more information on the Pick List, please see Pick List on page 141 in the Getting Familiar with Your Workspace chapter. In addition to regular tools, there is a specific category of tools known as Super tools. A super tool is a tool that is composed of a set of tools. Super tools include Macro, Reaction, Garbage Mask, 2D Compositor, Image Import, Keyer, Tracker, and Paint.
Page 46: The Player
Reaction Compositing and Effects on page 240 Garbage Mask Tool Tabs on page 538 2D Compositor on page 339 Using the Image Import Tool on page 125 Keyer Super Tool on page 522 About Tracking and Stabilizing on page 754 About Raster Paint on page 567 Vector Paint...
Page 47 The Mini-Player: Allows you to preview compositions located in the Footage folder or on your Desktop. See The Mini-Player on page 211. The Fullscreen Player: This version of the player is useful when you want a more immersive environment. You can use it to play compositions, work on compositions, and preview media.
Page 48 Using the Player Controls The Player controls are shared by all Player views. The Start Frame, End Frame, and Current Frame numbers in the Player controls reflect those of the currently selected Player. The Player controls allow you to: Play a composition Set the repeat mode for the playback Scrub through the composition Adjust the start or end frames of the composition...
Page 49 Click: Move to mark out. To set the repeat mode: Click the Repeat Mode on the left of the Player controls, and select a repeat mode from the menu: Select: To set the repeat mode to: No repeat. Playback ends when the Player reaches the last frame of the composition.
Page 50 a) Start Frame field b) End Frame field Click and drag in the Start Frame field to adjust the start frame for the composition, and/or in the End Frame field to adjust the end frame for the composition. The Start and End fields in the Composition tab of the Tool UI update to reflect the changes you make here.
Page 51: Zooming And Panning
2 Advance to the frame at which you want to set a keyframe. 3 Click the Set Keyframe button. To move an existing keyframe: Click a keyframe button on the left of the Player controls to move to an existing keyframe. Click: Move to the previous keyframe of the cur- rently selected tool node.
Page 52: Navigating And Browsing
To pan: In the view, press and drag. Spacebar To navigate views: Press to move to the next view. Press Ctrl + Tab Ctrl + Shift + to move to the previous view. Things to remember: When you zoom out in a Player view, the resolution is automatically adjusted to the optimal one for that zoom level.
Page 53: The File Browser
The File Browser The File Browser provides a view of the folders that your installation references. It also allows you to create compositions by importing media. The Folders area in the File browser shows the hierarchy of available folders in your project, as well as external drives and resources, in an expandable tree-like structure.
Page 54 Browser Settings and Controls The File Browser contains the following main areas and buttons: Item Description Folders list Displays the file system on your machine, including all mapped drives, as well as Wiretap. Using this area, you can navigate to the media you want to import. Folder Contents area Displays the contents of the folder cur- rently selected in the Folders list.
Page 55 Use: Bookmarks: Navigate to a directory. See The Book- marks Button on page 44. Open: Opens the selected files and adds them to the current Composite composition. If the File Browser selection is a Composite composition, this button will be labeled Open, and will open the selected compos- ition.
Page 56 Click the View button and select Thumbnails to view thumbnails. Deselect Thumbnails to see a list. To change the thumbnail size in the Contents area: Click the View button and select Small or Large. The sources or compositions in the Contents area are resized as follows: Thumbnails Size (in pixels) Small...
Page 57 There are five predefined bookmarks, which cannot be removed or renamed. They are the following: Name Function Value Comment Home Shorthand to browser's Not edit- Depends on the Set as home able Home” setting Project Bookmarks location of Not edit- Depends on selected Home project root...
Page 58 Or right-click on a directory in the File browser and select “Bookmark,” to bookmark that directory. All personal bookmarks are automatically assigned the name of the bookmarked directory, or the name of the bookmarked directory plus a "#" extension, where "#"...
Page 59 Creating bookmark folders in order to categorize bookmarks Editing personal bookmark labels Editing personal bookmarks or the Media bookmark's target Customizing the bookmarks and bookmark folders order Moving personal bookmarks from one folder to another Removing bookmark folders and personal bookmarks To manage bookmarks: 1 Use the Manage Bookmarks option.
Page 60 Floating File Browser You can also display the File Browser as a floating browser, so that you can use it at any point during a session to access project folders. To display the floating File Browser, do one of the following: Press (for Windows and Linux) (on Mac OS) or to...
Page 61 The Composition Browser has three columns. The Name column contains the name of the node or attribute. The Value column contains the value associated with an attribute. The M (marked) column indicates whether an attribute is marked for keyframing. The Composition Browser is also available in the Animation tab of the tool Composition Browser Functionality There are five buttons at the bottom of the Composition Browser: the Filters Option button, the Filter button, The Auto Expand button, The Expand...
Page 62: Working With Schematic
Point would display muted nodes as well as nodes that have a context point set on them. Therefor adding tool filters adds tool nodes to your display. Click: Tools Selected Display tools (in the result) that are currently selected. Similar Filter tools that are similar to the selected tools.
Page 63 NOTE Unless otherwise specified, the term node” and tool node” are interchangeable throughout this guide. When you create a composition by importing media, the composition contains one input node (which points to the media you imported) and one output node. You then build the dependency graph by adding tool nodes. For more detailed information on the different types of nodes, see Node Overview page 52.
Page 64 When working in the Schematic view, you can: Show or hide the Schematic Navigator. Clean up the view (clean up all or a portion of the composition, automatically zoom to fit the dependency graph in the view). Change the name of a node. Work with connections (connect one node to another, insert a node between two nodes, disconnect one node from another, reposition a node within the composition, change the appearance of connections, have...
Page 65 Node Types There are a number of different types of nodes, each represented by a different icon. Node type Description An input node for a composition created during a normal media import. It is identi- fied by a small sheet icon on the left of the proxy.
Page 66 Node type Description A group node that you create by selecting two or more nodes and grouping them together. You can right-click a group and select Edit Group to work only with the nodes in that group. A visual group node is similar to a normal group node, however you are able to see its contents without entering it.
Page 67 Tab: Description: A node that accepts nine inputs: Output Contains the output of the node. You cre- ate connections between nodes by connect- ing the output tab of one node to the in- put tab of another. The Output node con- tains the result of the dependency graph.
Page 68 Tab: Description: Masking There is an input for masking. See Pixel Masking on page 560. Intermediate Result Click this tab to enable intermediate results for the node. See Caching on page 226. Marked for keyframing icon A yellow icon appears nest to the image input tab when the tool has been marked for keyframing.
Page 69 the composition lets you link to a composition at different points in the dependency graph. An output node cannot be muted, however, intermediate results can be enabled on output nodes and output nodes can be grouped at any level. There's no restriction on the presence of an output node at the highest group level (the composition level).
Page 70 Value: Description: As Primary Output Whether the width, height, pixel ratio and rate values follow Image Format the primary output values. Always off on primary output. On by default on additional outputs. As Primary Output Whether the channels and depth values follow the primary Pixel Format output values.
Page 71 When inserting a composition into another one, the input node of the primary output from the source graph is used as the connection point when the composition is dropped on an input socket in the destination graph. When dropping tools in the Schematic view, the south gate option Add Before Primary Output connects the new nodes before the primary output node.
Page 72 Adding Output Nodes Creating a new composition automatically adds an output node to it. However, you can add more output nodes anywhere in the composition. To add an output node to a composition, do one of the following: Drag the output tool from the Utilities folder in the Tools tab and drop it into the Schematic view.
Page 73 Deleting Output Nodes The primary output node cannot be deleted, which ensures that a composition has at least one output. Graphical delete options on the primary output are absent and any attempt to delete it in another way (hotkey or scripting) results in an error message.
Page 74 Color Line Style Output White Dashed line To change the appearance of a connection line: 1 Middle-click or press the tilde key (~) key to display the drop gate, and swipe south to the Schematic Options. 2 Under Display, select an option form Links for the connection lines. NOTE You can also set the links style in your user preferences.
Page 75 2 In the Tool Options at the right, click in the Name field and edit the name. 3 Press Enter to accept your edits. The node in the Schematic view updates to reflect the new name. To display the details of a node without opening a node: 1 Press the key and pass the cursor over a node.
Page 76 NOTE There are hotspots located along each edge of the viewer to be used to auto-pan the viewer when holding the cursor down over these areas for a predetermined time. This will be used when dragging or connecting nodes. The speed at which the panning is done can be controlled by using the Ctrl hotkey...
Page 77 NOTE If more than one node is selected, they will be grouped. If there is only one node selected and it is not a group node, it is grouped, otherwise if it is a group node, it is ungrouped. When you create a visual group node, all the nodes in this group display semi-transparent backgrounds that allow the nodes to adopt the color of the visual group itself.
Page 78 2 To lock just the nodes inside a group, while still allowing the group itself to be moved, right-click on the title bar of the visual group node and select Lock Tools. To open or close a visual group node: 1 To open a group node, right-click on the node and select Open or press Shift + O .
Page 79 To collapse a branch of the dependency graph: 1 Locate the node at which you want to collapse the branch. 2 Right-click the node and select Expand or Collapse or press 3 The branch leading into that node collapses. The arrow on the left of the node indicates a collapsed branch.
Page 80 To mute or unmute a node: 1 Select the node. 2 Right-click a node and select Mute or Unmute, or press NOTE You can also mute/unmute a node by selecting it and clicking the Mute button in the Tool Options area. This button is located to the left of the Reset button.
Page 81 To turn intermediate results on or off for a node: Click the orange tab in the lower-right of the node. The orange tab brightens or darkens to indicate results are, respectively, on or off for the node. See Caching on page 226. NOTE You can also turn intermediate results on/off for anode by selecting the node and clicking the IR button in the Tool Options area.
Page 82 To cut, copy or paste one or more nodes: 1 Select the node(s) you want to cut or copy. 2 Then, do one of two things. To cut the node(s), right-click one of the selected nodes and select Cut, or press (for Windows and Ctrl + X Linux) or...
Page 83 To select all nodes, do one of the following: 1 Right-click the Schematic view and choose Select All. 2 Press (for Windows and Linux) or (for Mac OS). Ctrl + A Cmd + A All nodes and connection lines are selected in the Schematic view. Selecting Nodes Upstream and Downstream Drill-Down is a way to change the currently selected node without depending on a viewer, such as the Schematic view or the Composition browser.
Page 84 again cycles back to the first image input. When in tool output mode in the Player, pressing the 6 hotkey a second time cycles to the next image output. once the last output is reached, pressing the 6 hotkey again cycles back to the first image output.
Page 85 Select: Highlights Expand and highlight the tabs of a node when you pass the cursor over them. Links Change the line style of connections. Lines can appear as: Curved, Straight, or Angled. Finally, set the placement options. Select: Auto Layout Automatically organize all of the nodes in the dependency graph.
Page 86 Then set the ViewerTime options: Set: Follow Master Sets the view to global time. Disable to use its own global time. Offset Lets you set a frame offset for the time. The frame offset is with respect to the time you set for the view. For example, if you set a frame offset of 5 and selected the Follow Master option, the proxy in the view always displays the frame that is five frames ahead of the frame currently running in global time.
Page 87 Things to Remember: Each Schematic view has its own set of options except for the flow (left-right, top-bottom, etc.) Schematic Options | 75...
Page 89: Start Compositing Now
Start Compositing Now! Topics in this chapter: Try First, Read Later on page 77 Start Composite, Create Composition, Import Media and Go on page 77 Add Media on page 81 Add Tools on page 83 To Render the Composition on page 86 Try First, Read Later This chapter will allow you to start experimenting with Composite tools right away.
Page 90 Composite, it becomes a composition that you can open, or use to insert or link to/from another composition. The Tool UI at the bottom of the Composite desktop shows composition information, and updates to show the Tool UI of the tool you are currently working with. Composite comes with a set of default user interface presets, called task group presets, that let you begin working effectively, immediately.
Page 91 3 From the File menu, select “New.” 4 The Create Composition dialog appears. 5 In the Name field, enter a name for the composition. You can change the location of the composition in the field above the Name field. Once you have entered the information, click the Create button.
Page 92 6 A new composition has been created. 80 | Chapter 4 Start Compositing Now!
Page 93: Add Media
Add Media When you have created a new composition, you can import media and then add it to your composition and start working—see Importing Media on page 118. To import media: 1 Select File > Import or press Ctrl + I( for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + I(for Mac OS).
Page 94 3 In the Contents area, select the media file(s) you want to import. To select multiple files, press Ctrl + click. 4 Click the Import button, or right-click one of the selected media files and select Import File(s). The media files are imported into the composition using an Image Import tool.
Page 95: Add Tools
Add Tools Once your media is added, you can start to add tools to your composition. To add tools to your composition: 1 Middle-click or press the tilde (~) key to display the Gate UI and swipe east (right). 2 If it isn t already selected, select the Tools tab. Add Tools | 83...
Page 96 3 Select a tool and add it to your composition by dragging it into the Schematic. For this example, we will add a Garbage Mask, a Panner tool and a Blend & Comp tool. 84 | Chapter 4 Start Compositing Now!
Page 97 4 Use the controls on each tool to modify your composition: Use the Garbage Mask to key out areas of the image which you don t need. See Garbage Mask Tool Tabs on page 538. Use the Panner tool to position the image. See Panner Tool on page 437.
Page 98: To Render The Composition
To Render the Composition Now that you have completed your composition, you ll want to render it. 86 | Chapter 4 Start Compositing Now!
Page 99 To render your composition: 1 Select the output node. 2 In the Tool Details area, select the Output tab. 3 Set the image format to the proper format you want to render. 4 Click on the render tab. To Render the Composition | 87...
Page 100 5 Under the file format choose the sequence file format to be rendered. 6 The default is to name the rendered file the comp name and the output name. Change the output name if desired. 7 Go to the file menu and choose render. 88 | Chapter 4 Start Compositing Now!
Page 101 8 The Render dialog appears. Click the Start button to start the rendering process. To Render the Composition | 89...
Page 103: Part 2: Reference
Part 2: Reference Reference includes these chapters: About Reference on page 93 Projects on page 95 Wiretap on page 111 Importing Media on page 115 Getting Familiar with Your Workspace on page 139 The Player on page 189 Working with Compositions on page 217 Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects on page 239...
Page 104 Managing Film Grain on page 501 Pulling Keys and Creating Mattes on page 509 Masking on page 537 Raster Paint on page 567 Vector Paint on page 595 Color Correction on page 617 Animation on page 659 Time Tools on page 691 Customization Tools on page 699 Vectors...
Page 105: About Reference
About Reference Topics in this chapter: About the Chapters on page 93 About the Chapters The Reference section goes into detail about Composite tools and functionality. This section allows you to build on the Getting Started section by providing in depth information about topics that were introduced in that section, as well as the rest of the Composite application.
Page 106 Pre-Compositing on page 299 Importing FBX Files on page 323 Premultiplication on page 337 2D Compositing on page 339 Image Processing Tools on page 379 Pixel Expressions on page 439 Warping on page 467 Effects Tools on page 497 Managing Film Grain on page 501 Pulling Keys and Creating Mattes on page 509...
Page 107: Projects
Projects Topics in this chapter: About Projects on page 95 Example Workflows on page 97 Setting Project Preferences on page 97 Archiving or Restoring on page 104 About Projects Projects allow users to keep a part of their preferences separately, in order to better accommodate separation of the work in multiple sub-tasks.
Page 108 (including media). For more information on scripts, see the Composite Python API online documentation (from the Windows Start menu, choose Programs > Autodesk > Composite > Composite Documentation > Scripting API). Project Preferences At the beginning of a project, you can define the following preferences:...
Page 109: Example Workflows
For example, you might have a script that creates projects. Refer to the Composite Python API documentation. In the Windows Start menu choose Programs > Autodesk > Composite > Composite Documentation > Scripting API. Workflow for administrative tasks during a project: 1 Import media—see...
Page 110 NOTE All operations you perform during a session use the project preferences of the currently open project. NOTE Project preferences from a read-only file are not modifiable, unless saved under a different location with read/write permissions, and then reloaded. To set project preferences: 1 Open a project in Composite.
Page 111 Home Folder Indicate the path for the home folder. Monitor Executable Enter the command line that launches the render queue monitor. 4 Select the Composition tab and set the media preferences for the project. These preferences set the media format for any compositions you subsequently create.
Page 112 Pixel Aspect Ratio Displays the aspect ratio of each of the pixels of the selected format. If you selected Custom in the Format box, you can click in this box and edit the ratio. Rate View the frame rate of the selected format. Click to display the list of frame rates available for this format, and select the one you want to use.
Page 113 7 Select the Import tab to set preferences for the import operation—see Channel Assignments on page 128 and Channel Groups (Import Preferences) on page 131, Unpremultiply in Import Mode on page 134 and Specifying the Destination Format on page 135. Destination Folder Enter the path to the project folder in which you want to import media, when using the Import as Footage actions in the...
Page 114 9 Select the Pre-Compositing tab and set the preferences for importing pre-comp files—see About Pre-Compositing on page 299. 10 Select the Tools tab and set the path for the CTL tool—see CTL Tool page 463. 11 Select the Archive tab and set the preferences for your archive and restore operations—see Archiving or Restoring on page 104.
Page 115 Archive Folder The folder or folder template (using substitution tokens) in which archives are stored. Archiving Executable The command line that executes when you perform an archive operation in Composite. It starts the archive.py script, located in the \resources\bgTasks folder of the Composite program folder. Consult the script for an explanation of each of the command line options.
Page 116: Archiving Or Restoring
As for most tasks, you can use scripting to improve efficiency. Consult the online Composite Python API documentation for help with scripts (in the Windows Start menu, choose Programs > Autodesk > Composite > Composite Documentation > Scripting API). 104 | Chapter 6 Projects...
Page 117 To archive the current composition: 1 Select File > Archive. 2 In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the archive and click OK. NOTE The Python script for archiving does not recognize file names that contain any of the following characters: *?:”<> (asterisk, question mark, colon, quote mark, open angle bracket, close angle bracket).
Page 118 NOTE The Python script for archiving does not recognize file names that contain any of the following characters: *?:”<> (i.e. asterisk, question mark, colon, quote mark, open angle bracket, close angle bracket). A file name with any of these characters causes the archiving script to fail. If you are archiving a composition, the following dialog appears in which you can choose the archiving options.
Page 119 NOTE The Python script for archiving does not recognize file names that contain any of the following characters: *?:”<> (i.e. asterisk, question mark, colon, quote mark, open angle bracket, close angle bracket). A file name with any of these characters causes the archiving script to fail. WARNING Changing the name of a .zip file, moving or transferring an archive will result in undefined restoration behavior.
Page 120 Depending on the dependencies (if any), you are prompted to restore the archived dependencies. 3 Select the dependencies to restore. 4 Relocate the restored archive and its dependencies. The external dependencies in the .zip files are restored. If some .zip files are missing because they were moved, transferred, or renamed, the external dependency files will not be restored.
Page 121 NOTE Some external dependencies, such as paint stroke files, do not appear in the relocation dialog box as these are stored by default in the shared storage folder. You can change the default shared storage directory in the Project Preferences window (Site Preferences tab)—see Setting Project Preferences on page 97.
Page 123: Wiretap
To access images on the IFFFS filesystem and network, the Wiretap servers running on IFFFS workstations must be configured to offer Wiretap Path ® ® ® Translation Service—see the Autodesk Stone and Wire Release Notes.
Page 124: Accessing Media Via Wiretap
Wiretap Concepts To ensure efficient browsing of the Wiretap network, here are some basic Wiretap concepts: Wiretap Network: A collection of Wiretap-compliant servers that reside on a network domain. Wiretap Server: A single Wiretap-compliant server that exposes a proprietary database as a tree-like hierarchy of Wiretap nodes. A Wiretap Server is typically a daemon running on a host machine.
Page 125: Accessing Ifffs Clips
Accessing IFFFS Clips When you import media from a Wiretap server, the Information tab displays information about the media and its path. NOTE The path to clips is displayed, but not the path to images. a) Clip name b) Clip path You can access a subclip by specifying the range in the path field.
Page 127: Importing Media
Importing Media Topics in this chapter: About Media on page 115 Physical Location of Media on page 116 Supported Media Formats on page 116 Importing Media on page 118 Using the Image Import Tool on page 125 Log to Lin Workflows on page 126 Moving Imported Compositions into Project Folders on page 126...
Page 128: Physical Location Of Media
111. Supported Media Formats You can import media in any of the following formats: ® NOTE When you import .dpx media from Autodesk Flame , you import the media with LUT. To disable the import conversion, see Importing Media on page 118.
Page 129 Format File exten- Supported bit depths for imports sion TIFF .tif, .tiff 8, 16, 32 NOTE Bit depths 8, 10, and 16 are integer unless otherwise indicated. Bit depth 32 is float. You can produce results in any of the following media formats. For 4K and higher media, support is limited to tiled formats (OpenEXR, TIFF, and IFF).
Page 130: Importing Media
Pixel Aspect Ratio Composite guesses the pixel aspect ratio of images by comparing an image's resolution with a list of common combinations of pixel aspect ratio and resolution. You can, however, override the guess that Composite makes. Composite can also store and retrieve the pixel aspect ratio information from file formats, such as .bmp, .jpg, .tiff, and .dpx.
Page 131 2 Navigate to the folder that contains the media you want to import. 3 Select the media files you want to import. You can either import, drag and drop, or use the UNC path to import the media. Importing Media | 119...
Page 132 NOTE You can import multiple media files in the same folder, in a single operation. However, when you do this, you cannot set the import options for each file individually. To select multiple files, click the first file to import, then Ctrl + click each additional file to add it to the selection.
Page 133 selected—see Log to Lin Workflows on page 126, Image and File I/O page 127 and Channel Assignments on page 128. NOTE Values are not clamped when you import media in log format, so no image data is lost. All tools can work with all of the data contained in log format images.
Page 134 6 The destination folder is either the default Footage folder, or the one specified in the Import tab of the Project Preferences window—see Setting Project Preferences on page 97. Drag the file directly into the Footage folder or click Import. You can create other folders to store the compositions that you create when you import.
Page 135 sequence of image files. The third and fourth columns are the properties of the resulting footage composition. Path Location of selected file. If you select more than one file, the path of the last selected file is displayed. Type Displays the type of file that is selected—see Footage Role on page 137.
Page 136 common combinations of pixel aspect and resolution. The aspect ratio is related to the image ratio; changing it affects the image ratio. Image Ratio The image resolution of the selected media, taking into account the pixel ratio. Pixel Ratio The pixel ratio of the selected media. You can set the pixel aspect ratio.
Page 137: Using The Image Import Tool
want the start time to be unconditionally set to a different number, which you can do with the Comp Start editable value field. Unpremultiply Unpremultiply in Import Mode on page 134. Motion Vectors Importing Motion Vectors From Maya on page 712. Using the Image Import Tool The Image Import tool lets you quickly build a composition by dragging files directly into a composition from the file system.
Page 138: Log To Lin Workflows
Copy (Ctrl + C for Windows and Linux or Cmd + C for Mac OS) a file path, paste (Ctrl + V for Windows and Linux or Cmd + V for Mac OS) it in the Path field of the Import Image tab and press Enter. Log to Lin Workflows There are several tools and controls to construct logarithmic to linear workflows depending on your needs.
Page 139: Image And File I/O
in the Project Preferences window (Import tab)—see Setting Project Preferences on page 97. To move imported compositions into project folders: 1 In the File Browser, click View and select Folders. 2 In the Folders list, expand the folders for the project so that both the folder containing the imported compositions, and the folders where you want to move those compositions, are visible.
Page 140: Channel Assignments
Depth (Z), surface normal directions (XYZ), or motion vectors (XY) Channel Assignments Once you have imported your EXR media, you can use the Options tab to assign and import the channels. A channel view shows the channels that are present in the files and channel groups are defined in the project preferences. NOTE These tools are also available when using the Image Import tool (Options tab).
Page 141 OpenEXR channels are assigned to the Composite RGBA channels according to the following rules: If the channel name part of the input channel (the string after the last dot) is named “R”, “G”, “B” or “A” (case insensitive), then it is assigned to its respective R, G, B or A channel.
Page 142 of a group in the preferences can be assigned to a corresponding channel group. Each Channel can be assigned a field from the list, or as groups when using the buttons next to the menu. The Channel Groups list shows only if the existing group was found in the file.
Page 143 Velocity velX and velY to R and G NOTE The groups map to a subset of the channels available from the Splutter Fish plugin used by Autodesk 3ds Max: Velocity, Depth, and Surface Normal. Channel Groups (Import Preferences) | 131...
Page 144 The selected group, Velocity, is predefined by Composite. It defines a mapping of channels named velX and velY to output channel R and G respectively. No channels are mapped to B and A. Under From File To Output are four fields labeled R, G, B, and A. Each contains all the channels available in the EXR file.
Page 145 Channel Description Z-axis Normals materialID A surfaces material ID is the value that determines which sub- material the surface will use when you apply a Multi/Sub-Object to a material to the object to which the material belongs. objectID The value that determines which object will be used when you apply it to the object.
Page 146 Once you have selected “all channels,” a new node will appear in the Schematic, which displays tabs that each correspond to an output connection. In other words, all channels are imported into different import nodes which creates a group with multiple output connections that corresponds to each import node s output.
Page 147 was premultiplied. OpenEXR files have their alpha channel premultiplied, so it is set to on by default. The following table summarizes the different cases. Format Unpremul- Value tiply Format without alpha Format with alpha, without premultiplied info Format with alpha, with premultiplied info Depends on info Format with alpha, conventional premulti- Depends on convention...
Page 148 on the context and node selected. This allows you to create a footage composition in the Footage folder, and at the same time create a link node to that footage in the current composition. If you drag an image sequence to the Schematic and drop it on an input of a node, the Gate UI does not appear.
Page 149 If you drag and drop your second image into the viewer (instead of an Output node), you have a choice of five options. Footage Role How do you distinguish a composition representing footage from a composition you are using for compositing? Composite has a role for a composition named Footage.
Page 150: Premultiplication
This role is not permanent and can be changed at any time. You can even create a composition from scratch and assign it a Footage role. When a sequence is imported, either by clicking the Import button or by dragging the sequence into a library folder, a composition is created with the Footage role.
Page 151: Getting Familiar With Your Workspace
Getting Familiar with Your Workspace Topics in this chapter: Working with a Task-Based UI on page 140 Pick List on page 141 Tool Presets on page 146 Animation Editor on page 149 Layer Editor on page 150 Player on page 153 View Layouts on page 153 Color Picker...
Page 152: Working With A Task-Based Ui
Working with a Task-Based UI Composite provides a flexible workspace environment that lets you work within the context of the current task at hand. You can choose from the available task presets to populate the user interface with the views you need to begin working immediately, or you can create your own presets, as well as customize existing presets according to your facility's workflow.
Page 153: Pick List
To select, delete, rename, set as default, or reset to a default preset: 1 Select the Edit Layout Presets and choose the New, Delete, Rename, Set as Default, or Reset command. 2 If you chose the New or Rename command, enter a name for the new/renamed preset and click OK or press Enter.
Page 154 Pick List tab in the tool UI Pick List tab accessed through the east gate Working with the Pick List You can add and remove items in your Pick List, create a new Pick List group, delete Pick List groups you no longer use, and reorder Pick List groups. You can color code Pick List groups for easier recognition, as well as rename them.
Page 155 To add items to the Pick List: Do one of the following: Drag the item to the Pick List tab and drop it into a group. Right-click the item and select Add to Pick List. The Pick List group which is currently highlighted in the Pick List tab will be the destination Pick List group.
Page 156 NOTE You cannot undo the removal of an item from the Pick List. You can, of course, add that item to the Pick List again at any time. To create a new Pick List group: Do one of the following: Right-click anywhere in the Pick List tab and select New Group.
Page 157 To color code a Pick List group: 1 Right-click and select Edit Groups. 2 Click the color pot next to the Pick List group name field. The color picker appears. 3 Select a color from the Color Picker and press OK—see Color Picker page 154.
Page 158: Tool Presets
Tool Presets A tool preset is a tool you save with a customized set of properties. You can then use the tool preset as you would any other tool in a dependency graph. Sharing tool presets among a team is a great way to streamline a project. You can simply email tool presets to anyone involved in a particular project.
Page 159 (a) Tool preset controls To create a tool preset: 1 From the Schematic, select a tool node from the dependency graph. 2 Do one of the following: Right-click the tool and select Presets > Save. In the Tool options area, click the Save button. 3 Type in a name for the tool preset and click OK.
Page 160 To reload a tool preset: 1 From the Schematic, select the tool node with the tool preset you want reload. 2 In the Tool options area, click the Reload button. The tool preset is reloaded into the selected tool node. To delete a tool preset: 1 Navigate to the following folder: <UserData>/toolPresets.
Page 161: Animation Editor
The name of the tab changes to that of the dropped tool preset. The Player updates to reflect the result of applying the tool preset to the image. Using Tool Presets in the Pick List For greater workflow efficiency, you can add tool presets to the Pick List and access your favorite or most frequently used tools—see Pick List on page 141.
Page 162: Layer Editor
for a specific tool, the Animation Editor view updates each time you select a different tool node in the Schematic view to reflect the animation curve of that tool node 3 Select the Playback tab to set the time and frame rate. 4 Set the Viewer Time options.
Page 163 The Layer Editor contains columns that you can reorder by dragging a column heading. You can also right-click a column heading to display show/hide options. Any hidden columns are listed in the menu. The Layer Editor includes the following: Column/But- Description V (visible) Turns the visibility of the layer on and off.
Page 164 Column/But- Description Duplicates a layer. This is particularly useful when you want to use the same image generator or media for multiple layers. When there is a source in the Layer Editor that does not have a layer assigned to it, the text is displayed in red—see Duplicating Layers on page 252.
Page 165: Player
Player The Player lets you play or preview a composition, or preview media. There are three different versions of the Player: Player view Lets you play compositions and view the changes you make to compositions as you work—see Player View Default Settings on page 190.
Page 166: Color Picker
To delete a saved view layout setting: Do one of the following: Right-click in the view and select Delete (corresponding view layout) from the View Layout sub-menu. Press Ctrl + Shift + (F1, F2, F3, F4). The saved view layout is deleted. NOTE Composite saves the zoom/pan settings for viewers that have entered fullscreen mode so that the next time they go fullscreen, they maintain the same zoom/pan as before.
Page 167 Working with the Color Picker When working with the color picker, you can: Examine the values of each component of a color that appears on screen. Examine the minimum, maximum, or average color value in a selection. Select and store a color without launching the Color Picker. Create, delete, and rename a color palette.
Page 168 NOTE You will always be in pick mode whenever the color picker is active. You can only pick outside of the floating window. When inside the window the cursor will return to the normal cursor for interaction with the UI controls. Cursor in pick mode To select a color for a color pot from the screen: 1 Ctrl + click the color pot for which you want to select a color.
Page 169 To examine the values of an on-screen color: 1 Start the Color Picker by pressing the Alt + P hotkey combination. 2 At the bottom center of the Color Picker UI, click the bit depth button and select a color depth for the Color Picker. 3 Position the cursor over the on-screen color whose values you want to examine, and click.
Page 170 The pop-up Color Picker appears. 2 Click the Advanced button to expand the Color Picker and to display more options. 3 If necessary use the Bit Depth button at the bottom of the Color Picker to adjust the number of colors the Color Picker displays. 4 Do any of the following to pick a color: If you want to use the RGB model, use the slider bars to adjust the color.
Page 171 To exit the Color Picker without updating the color pot: Do one of the following: Press Cancel. Press the Esc key. Click the close button at the top-right corner of the Color Picker UI. To create a color palette: Do one of the following: Click the palette name button and select New from the menu.
Page 172 Open your User folder located at the top of the Library folder structure and open the Color Palettes folder. Right-click a palette and select Copy. Right-click anywhere in the Color Palettes folder and select Paste. Click the new palette, press F2, and enter a name for the new palette.
Page 173: Calculators
To switch color palettes: Click the Color Palette button and select a color palette. Calculators There are two calculators available: the standard calculator that you can use to perform calculations and enter values into fields, and the Expresso Calculator that is displayed when you click the Expresso button or click in a numeric field that allows expressions.
Page 174 The Expresso Calculator appears. Shift + Alt + click a field that allows expressions. The Expresso Calculator appears. The standard calculator appears if there is no expression. NOTE If you use one of the last three methods and the calculator does not appear, the field cannot accept a value from the calculator.
Page 175: Hotkey Editor
Hotkey Editor The Hotkey Editor enables you to save different Hotkey Catalogs, and share these Catalogs with other users. Use the Hotkey Editor to manage hot keys (keyboard shortcuts). The Hotkey Editor allows you to: Quickly and easily modify the existing default hotkeys. Keep a copy of your user defined hotkeys for sharing and backup or updating your copy of Composite.
Page 176 Also, like any other database objects found in the user home folder, you can move Catalogs around, copy them, and archive them for sharing. Hotkey Editor The Hotkey Editor allows you to modify all the hotkeys described in the default Composite hotkey resource file.
Page 177 The hotkeys displayed are those found in the default Composite hotkeys resource file and the current active Hotkey Catalog—see Hotkey Catalogs page 163. The active Hotkey Catalog is displayed in the Catalog menu at the bottom of the Hotkey Editor. NOTE You can manage the Catalogs from the File Browser in the hotkeys subfolder of the user home folder, which is similar to how Color Palettes work.
Page 178 Value Represents the keystrokes composing the hotkey. This can be edited by clicking the cell or by typing F2 after selecting the row. Type Represents the type (Press/Release) of the hotkey. This can be edited by a right-click edit option on the cell or by typing F2 after selecting the cell.
Page 179 Conflicting Hotkeys Conflicting hotkey rows in the Hotkey Editor are displayed in red. To resolve a conflicting hotkey: 1 Right-click a conflicting hotkey to see the “Go To Conflict” option. 2 Choosing this option on the menu, or pressing the F3 hotkey will take you to the conflicting hotkey, select it, then turn the learning state ON.
Page 180: Setting User Preferences
2 Select All. 3 Select Reset. All Composite hotkeys are reset and hotkey entries are removed from the active Catalog. Setting User Preferences A user is defined as a group of settings that belong to a user. The settings include: color palettes, hotkey catalogs, presets, and bookmarks. Preferences are stored in a file named .txuser under your user home directory.
Page 181 In the taskbar, click your user name. 3 Select the Creative tab. 4 Set the Gate UI preferences. Animate Gate Determines the way the panels move into the interface when you swipe through the Gate UI. Select this option to have the panels slide into the interface.
Page 182 Auto Zoom Automatically zoom the view to include all nodes when you drag a node outside of the visible area. Links Select the style (Curved, Angled, or Straight) of the lines that connect nodes in the Schematic view. 2D Flow Build the dependency graph in the Schematic view in a left-to-right or top-down direction.
Page 183 Messages Display messages in the messages area of the taskbar. You can click the messages area to display a list of messages received to date. Msg Popup Level Select the types of messages to appear as pop-ups. The order of the types in the list is meaningful. Each type includes all types that appear above it in the list.
Page 184: Previewing Video
Tooltip Turn tooltips on or off. 21 Select the Scripting tab. Script Output Choose to show the script output. You can also enable the time, stream and context for the script output, and define the maximum number of lines. 22 Select the Video Preview tab. See Previewing Video on page 172.
Page 185 To set up video previewing: 1 Open the User Preferences window by doing one of the following: From the menu bar, select Edit > User Preferences. In the taskbar, click your user name. 2 In the User Preferences window, select the Video Preview tab. 3 For the device, select AJA Preview and click Show Settings.
Page 186 174 | Chapter 9 Getting Familiar with Your Workspace...
Page 187 4 In the AJA Preview Setup window, select a primary format. This should match the resolution and update rate of the material you want to preview. If the resolution does not match, the image will be centered in the video preview device.
Page 188: Creating User Defined Attributes
Creating User Defined Attributes Create user defined attributes (UDAs) to let you expand the limited number of already defined attributes associated with the different data types. There are three types of UDAs: Composition (version) Project User Composition (Version) UDAs Composition UDAs are the most important type of UDA as this allows you to associate data you have in your facility with projects, users and versions of compositions in Composite.
Page 189 apply to the project data type (although there is nothing stopping you from referencing a project UDA from the metadata tab in your project preferences). Creating UDAs Creating a scoped UDA for a project, user, or composition can be done in one of two ways: through the metadata tab in the Tool Details, Project Preferences or User Preferences, or with the XML editor.
Page 190 To create a UDA using the Metadata tab: From the Tool Details, Project Preferences or User Preferences, select the Metadata tab. This will reveal a list of user defined attributes. You will now be able to add, remove or modify UDAs in your project. You can add information to each of the UDAs by clicking in the value field next to the UDA.
Page 191 Numerical: this control allows you to define a numerical UDA. NOTE It is not necessary to fill out all the fields, only the ones that apply to your project, with the exception of the name field, which must be filled. Text: this is a text field for data entry.
Page 192 Cancel — cancels the changes and brings you back to the list of UDAs. Once you have completed your changes, they will be visible in the original list of UDAs. NOTE The metadata tab will not reflect the changes made in the manage mode.
Page 193 Using a UDA When specifying, for instance, a render file name, there is an option for entering UDAs in the string. The UDAs may be scoped or not and can be selected from the default lists available or can be created by the user. See—Creating UDAs on page 177.
Page 194 3 Place the cursor in the File Name string where you want the UDA to appear and select UDA. The UDA is added to the string. 4 Repeat steps 2 and 3 to add more UDAs to the string. XML Resource Files Composite is shipped with a default set of XML resources files, one for each of the above mentioned data types;...
Page 195 UdaTextField XML Resource Files | 183...
Page 196 UdaValueEditor UdaMenu 184 | Chapter 9 Getting Familiar with Your Workspace...
Page 197 UdaPushedToggle XML Resource Files | 185...
Page 198 UDA Declaration 186 | Chapter 9 Getting Familiar with Your Workspace...
Page 199: Other Workspace Functions
Default UDA Tag An optional XML tag in the resource file is used to specify the default value for each of the UDAs when a data type that has that UDA is created. If no default tag is specified, the UDA will be empty. The XML tag is <DefaultValue>. Read-Only UDA Tag An optional XML tag in the metadata.*.xml resource file is used to specify whether the UDA is read-only.
Page 201: Chapter 10 The Player
The Player Topics in this chapter: About the Player on page 190 Player View Default Settings on page 190 Setting the Target on page 191 Setting Context Points on page 191 Playing Back in Multiple Views on page 192 Playback Performance on page 192 Setting the Target for the Player on page 194...
Page 202: About The Player
PlayerIn-player pixel displayIn-player Pixel Display on page 209 Adjusting the Zoom or Pan on page 209 Applying a LUT or Color Conversion Tool to the Player on page 210 The Mini-Player on page 211 The Fullscreen Player on page 213 About the Player As stated earlier, the Player is used to play or preview a composition, or preview media.
Page 203: Setting The Target
Calculating Image Size in Composite All Composite images live on a 2D plane.Composite and PXL use a Cartesian coordinate system to identify points on the plane.This plane and reference system are called the Image Reference Frame (IRF). This reference system has an origin and perpendicular X and Y axes.
Page 204: Playing Back In Multiple Views
Context points are especially useful when you want to see how changes to a tool node that precedes the node with context points affect the context point. You can have the Player view display the output from a context point. You can set a maximum of four context points.
Page 205 Internally, the two key features used to improve playback performance are tiling and the media cache. The media cache keeps images that have been loaded close at hand on the local drive for faster retrieval. To improve playback performance, you can turn on hardware rendering (if you are compositing with Reaction) and/or define a region of interest.
Page 206: Setting The Target For The Player
Hardware Rendering You can switch to hardware rendering when using Reaction to improve playback performance when the quality of the output is secondary to the speed of playback—see Turning Hardware Rendering On or Off on page 205. NOTE Only Reaction nodes benefit from hardware rendering. For all other tool nodes, switching to hardware rendering has no effect.
Page 207: Setting The Channels For The Target
3 Select the target you want the Player view to display. Select: To display: C1 Output The output of the node on which you have set context point 1. C2 Output The output of the node on which you have set context point 2. C3 Output The output of the node on which you have set context point 3.
Page 208 NOTE You can set the channels for the target in the fullscreen Player only if you entered it through a Player view. To set the channels for the target: 1 Do one of the following to display the Player options: In the Player view or fullscreen Player, press the tilde key (~) or middle-click and go through the south gate.
Page 209: Setting The Mark In And Mark Out Points For Playback
Setting the Mark In and Mark Out Points for Playback You can set the mark in and mark out points that the Player views use to play back a composition. By default the Player view uses the mark in and out points set for the composition, or, if none are set, uses 0 as mark in and 1 as mark out.
Page 210: Setting The Real-Time Playback Preference
To set the frame rate for playback: 1 In the Player view or fullscreen Player, middle-click or press the tilde key (~) to display the Gate UI and go through the south gate. 2 In the Player options, select the Playback tab and locate the Frame Rate area.
Page 211: Synchronizing Or Separating Playback Between Views
3 Set the real-time playback preference. Play All Frames Select this button to play every frame, regardless of the impact on real-time playback. Deselect to have the Player view drop frames if necessary to perform playback as close to real-time as possible. NOTE A busy cursor appears in the lower-left corner of the Player when Composite is processing the composition during playback.
Page 212: Setting The Playback Point When The Player Updates
Offset Select this button to set an offset, in frames, for the time. Type the offset in the field to the right of this button, or click and drag on the bottom edge of the field to adjust the value. The frame offset is with respect to the time you set for the view.
Page 213: Setting The Resolution For A Player
Setting the Resolution for a Player You can set the resolution that a Player view or the fullscreen Player uses. This is useful for improving playback performance when a high resolution image is not necessary. NOTE You can set the resolution for the fullscreen Player only if you entered it through a Player view.
Page 214: Setting A Region Of Interest (Roi) In The Player
Setting a Region of Interest (ROI) in the Player You can set a region of interest in a Player view or in the fullscreen Player. NOTE You can set a region of interest in the fullscreen Player only if you entered it through a Player view.
Page 215: Displaying Masks And Guides
3 Use the resize handles to adjust the region of interest. You can resize the box to adjust the region of interest at any point. It remains visible as long as ROI is enabled. Things to Remember When you define a region of interest (ROI), you can choose to show or hide the areas of the loaded tiles that fall outside the ROI—see Showing or Hiding Tiles...
Page 216: Showing Or Hiding Tiles
2 In the Display tab of the Player options, locate the Masks and Guides areas. 3 In the Masks area, select the mask you want the Player to display, or select None if you do not want to display a mask. Each mask represents the aspect ratio of a specific film format.
Page 217: Turning Hardware Rendering On Or Off
NOTE You can show or hide tiles in the fullscreen Player only if you entered it through a Player view. To show or hide the area of the tiles that fall outside the region of interest: 1 In the Player view or fullscreen Player, middle-click or press the tilde key (~) to display the Gate UI and go through the south gate.
Page 218: Setting The Pixel Aspect Ratio Of The Player
Deselect Interactivity to have the view use software rendering. Note that the Reaction tool disregards any display modifier set for the Player when Interactivity is enabled. Recall that you set a display modifier for a Player in the third tab of the Player options—see Applying a LUT or Color Conversion Tool to the Player on page 210.
Page 219 NOTE You can display target information in the fullscreen Player only if you entered it through a Player view. To display information about the target, in the Player: 1 In the Player view or fullscreen Player, middle-click or press the tilde key (~) to display the Gate UI and go through the south gate.
Page 220: Displaying Manipulators In The Player
Select: View Mode Display the channels (RGB, RGBA, A, or another combination of these) that appear in the Player. You set the channels you want the Player to display in the View area of the Player options—see Setting the Target for the Player on page 194.
Page 221: In-Player Pixel Display
In-player Pixel Display To display positional and color value information about a particular pixel in an image: 1 Zoom the Player to view the pixel. 2 Place the cursor in the player over the pixel and press Z. Adjusting the Zoom or Pan You can zoom or pan in the Player view, the fullscreen Player, or the mini-Player.
Page 222: Applying A Lut Or Color Conversion Tool To The Player
To pan in the Player: In the Player, press Spacebar and drag. Things to Remember When you zoom out in the Player, the resolution is automatically adjusted to the optimal one for that zoom level. This reduces the load on the computer.
Page 223: The Mini-Player
To remove a display modifier from the Player: 1 In the Player, middle-click or press the tilde key (~) to display the Gate UI and go through the south gate. The Player Options appear. 2 Select the Display tab. In the Tool Options area on the right, click Delete. Things to Remember You can display the name of the tool you use, in the information bar at the bottom of the Player view—see...
Page 224 Using the Mini-Player The mini-Player lets you preview media compositions in project folders and lets the project administrator preview media prior to import—see The File Browser on page 41. The mini-Player includes controls to play the composition or media. You can also scrub or move to a specific frame of the composition or media.
Page 225: The Fullscreen Player
(a) Current Frame field To move to a specific frame of the composition or media: Click in the Current Frame field, enter the frame number to which you want to move, and press Enter. (a) Current Frame field The Fullscreen Player The fullscreen Player occupies the entire screen (the taskbar is also hidden) and is available from any Player view, as well as from the mini-Player.
Page 226 The fullscreen Player Fullscreen Player and the Gate UI When you enter the fullscreen Player through a Player view, the Gate UI is available. You can thus add tools to a composition by going through the east gate, display and work in the Schematic overlay by going through the north gate, set Player options by going through the south gate (or from the context menu), or use the composition browser by going through the west gate.
Page 227 gate). The Player controls appear at the bottom of the Player options. You use them as you would in the Player view—see Using the Player Controls on page You can also use the Player hotkeys to navigate frames, set in and out marks, set a region of interest, and so on—see Player on page 829.
Page 228 where to add it in the dependency graph (the options that appear depend on the current tool node selected when you perform the drop). To add a tool to the Schematic overlay in the fullscreen Player: 1 In the fullscreen Player, middle-click or press the tilde key (~) to display the Gate UI and swipe right to display the Pick List, Tools, and Views tabs.
Page 229: Chapter 11 Working With Compositions
Working with Compositions Topics in this chapter: Creating Compositions on page 217 Rendering, Caching and Versioning on page 224 Linking Compositions on page 234 Closing a Composition on page 236 Creating Compositions A composition is a file that contains both the current work and the different versions, if any, of that work.
Page 230 composition, another directory, named <compname>.txpaintstrokes is created to store the paint strokes. By default, the browsers in Composite do not show the versions and paint strokes directories. To see them, you must deselect the Collapse Compositions option. Creating a New Composition You can create a new composition and have it open automatically.
Page 231 generated by another application, such as Maya, the source would be set accordingly. You can edit this field. Path Location of the composition. Description Information you can enter about the composition. Primary Output Select the output to use as the principal output of the composition.
Page 232 Opening and Viewing Compositions There are two modes in which you can load a composition into Composite: Open and View. The Open mode allows you to modify the composition (read/write mode). The View mode allows you to view the dependency graph and all attributes in the tool UI, but without being able to modify anything (read-only mode).
Page 233 The version of the composition is opened in read/write mode. If the version is in use by another user, it will open in View mode (read only). Select a composition and drag it to the Schematic or Player. In the Gate UI that appears, swipe east to open the composition.
Page 234 (a) Composition icon To view a composition: 1 Select File > Open or press Ctrl + O (for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + O (for Mac OS). 2 In the File Browser, do one of the following: Select a composition, then right-click and select View. NOTE Advanced technique: if the composition has more than one version, they are displayed in a list.
Page 235 Saving Compositions To save a composition: Select File > Save or press Ctrl + S (for Windows or Linux) or Cmd + S (for Mac OS). To save a composition with a different name: 1 Select File > Save As. 2 In the Save Composition As browser that opens, enter a different name for the composition and click Save.
Page 236: Rendering, Caching And Versioning
Checking the Status of Compositions You can check whether a composition is open or whether it is view-only. To check the status of compositions: 1 In the taskbar, click beside the composition icon to display the list of compositions. 2 Look at the version icon for each item in the list. A yellow icon indicates a view-only composition.
Page 237 2 Click the Select All or Deslect All button to enable or disable rendering for all outputs. 3 Click the Output button to enable or disable the render for an individual output. 4 Click the Edit button to map the UI for this node. This will dismiss the Render dialog.
Page 238 Backburner dispatches rendering to Autodesk Backburner(TM), Autodesk's distributed network rendering solution. As for Background rendering, you can use Composite while rendering proceeds. When you choose Background or Backburner rendering, the render is done on a copy of the composition: modifying the composition while it renders will not affect the result of the rendering.
Page 239 Disk cached results are called intermediate results. It is counter-productive to enable intermediate results at every node in your composition: the increased disk usage in reading and writing to the disk cache will negate the gains from caching. Instead, try to identify the subgraph parts of your composition that are costly to compute and are heavily used, and cache only the outputs of those subgraphs.
Page 240 To clear the media cache of intermediate results: Open a File Browser (Ctrl + O for Windows and Linux, Cmd + O for Mac OS), right-click a composition and select Clear Cache. The intermediate results for all nodes of all versions of the composition are cleared.
Page 241 Version browser. See the Viewing Rendered Versions of a Composition on page 230subsection. When you revert to a previous version of a composition, the contents of that version are copied over to the working version. Rendering Results over a Network The Render Actions tab in the Project Preferences dialog allows you to edit existing render actions, and define new ones.
Page 242 The current rendered result name. For network rendering: 1 Ensure Composite is installed in the same path on every workstation that is part of the render farm, for example: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Composite 2011\Composite\ 2 Ensure the rendering application is installed on every workstation that is part of the render farm.
Page 243 2 In the tool UI, select the Versions tab. The Versions tab displays all existing versions of the composition. The working version of a composition is always listed first, followed by the most recently created versions. 3 To view a version, double-click any entry in the list. The read-only version is opened.
Page 244 Right-click and select Revert Working To. In the message box that appears, click OK to confirm the reversion. Rendering to Wiretap The Wiretap protocol allows some degree of data exchange between Autodesk Composite and Autodesk editing and effects products, such as Autodesk Smoke ®...
Page 245 4 In the text field next to the Wiretap button, do one of the following: Type in the path. Using the File Browser, navigate to a Wiretap folder, right-click the item in the right pane, and select Copy Path. Paste the contents in the Wiretap field (Ctrl + V for Windows and Linux or Cmd + V for Mac OS).
Page 246: Linking Compositions
Linking Compositions By linking other compositions with your working version, you can create a more complex composition. You can link to as many compositions as you need. You can link to a specific output of a composition, as well as specify the mark in, mark out and offset times, and the repeat mode.
Page 247 2 In the gate that appears, swipe south through the Link option. The linked composition appears in the Schematic. If this is the first time you are linking to a composition from this composition, the Link Image tab appears in the tool UI. If a Link Image tab already exists for this composition, its contents update to reflect those of the composition to which you just linked.
Page 248: Closing A Composition
the link node is opened. The update will not occur if you are viewing a version as viewed versions are read-only. 7 Set the mark in, mark out, offset, and repeat times by editing the respective fields. Or you can select the As Comp option to use the linked composition's times.
Page 249 To close a composition: 1 If the composition is not selected, in the taskbar, click the name of the current composition (to the right of the composition icon) and then select the composition you want to close. (a) Name of the current composition in the taskbar Alternatively, in a File Browser, click the composition you want to close.
Page 251: Multilayer Compositing And 3D Effects
Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects Topics in this chapter: Reaction Compositing and Effects on page 240 Compositing Workflow on page 242 Basic Compositing in Reaction on page 243 Working with Maya Pre-Comps on page 250 Working with Layers on page 251 Working with Geometric Surfaces on page 254 Using Parenting Axes...
Page 252: Reaction Compositing And Effects
Reaction Compositing and Effects The Reaction super tool provides a complete multilayer compositing and 3D effects environment. You can use Reaction to quickly composite and output numerous images that are already processed using other tools, as well as cross over into a 3D environment where you can apply lighting, spatial, visualization, and rendering effects to your scene.
Page 253 Layer When performing multilayer compositing using Reaction, you typically set a background, although you are not required to, then assign source inputs to layers. A layer is composed of three separate components: a surface (3D geometry) object and local axis, a multi-channel material object, and a layer element.
Page 254: Compositing Workflow
source to project an illuminated image onto a layer or the scene—see Working with Lights on page 268. Shader Shaders are programs that help define the look of objects in your scene. They can be considered a part of the rendering pipeline. Compositing Workflow The Reaction tool lets you create 2D multilayer compositions and perform 3D compositing with applied transformations and other effects.
Page 255: Basic Compositing In Reaction
Selecting and manipulating objects. You can transform (scale, rotate, and translate) any surfaces, cameras, and lights in your scene using the 3D manipulators and icons. You can also organize objects into hierarchies for easy manipulation. Working with cameras. You can add cameras, transform cameras, and define other properties, such as depth of field and field of view.
Page 256 priority, create, and access tools that affect the selected layer—see Layer Editor on page 150. Setting the Player Settings Before you do anything in Reaction, be sure to verify that your Player settings are set properly. To set the Player display settings for Reaction: 1 With the cursor over the Player, press the tilde key (~) or middle-click to display the Gate UI.
Page 257 4 Under Reaction, select a plane (XY, XZ, or YZ) for the grid, adjust the size of the grid and the distance between grid lines. The grid helps you place elements in 3D space. NOTE To work with grids, you must select the Interactivity option (under Reaction).
Page 258 NOTE You can add, connect, and delete a Reaction tool as you would any other tool. To add Reaction to a new composition: In the Tools tab, drag the Reaction tool to the Player, Layer Editor, or Schematic. If you dropped Reaction on a Player or an empty Layer Editor view, the composition drop gate appears.
Page 259 2 Decide where to add Reaction in your dependency graph. The background is set accordingly, and appears in the Layer Editor. To set the background automatically in the Schematic view: Drop the Reaction tool onto an existing tool or image output connection in the Schematic view.
Page 260 NOTE You cannot delete a background input connector. Creating Sources and Layers You can composite as many layers as you want using Reaction, but first you must create the layers. A layer in Reaction is composed of a source input that you assign to a geometrical support, or 3D geometry, and a material node that is automatically generated—see Working with Geometric Surfaces...
Page 261 To add a layer: Do one of the following: At the bottom of the Layer Editor, select a surface geometry type and click Create. A layer with the surface you chose and a source are created. In the Schematic view, right-click the Reaction node and select Add Layer.
Page 262: Working With Maya Pre-Comps
To add one or more source compositions to Reaction in a single step: 1 Select the Reaction tool in the Schematic view or select the desired Reaction in the Layer Editor. 2 Select one or more compositions from the File Browser or Desktop and drop (or stick) them onto the Layer Editor, Schematic, or Player.
Page 263: Working With Layers
Working with Layers When you create a layer, it is automatically added to the top of the Layer Editor. The source name is displayed along with the name of the node to which it is connected. Also, each layer is numbered, so you can easily identify it.
Page 264: Duplicating Layers
To select a layer: Do one of the following: In the Layer Editor, click to select a layer. In the Schematic view, double-click the Reaction node to open the Group Schematic. Click a Layer node. In the Player, select a layer. The selected layer is shown with the manipulator icon that represents the three axes.
Page 265 To reorder layers: 1 Select a layer from the Layer Editor. 2 Use the arrow buttons at the bottom of the Layer Editor to reorder the layer. Modifying Motion Blur on Individual Layers You can modify the motion blur applied to your composition on individual layers, so that each layer appears to be moving at a different speed than other layers—see Adding Motion Blur and Depth of Field to a Scene...
Page 266: Working With Geometric Surfaces
Thumbnails: Size (in pixels): Back Face The back faces of the layer will be rendered. Time Dilation Modifies the motion blur that affects layers animated in the scene. You can give the layer the appearance of moving at a different speed than is set for Motion Blur in the Render tab.
Page 267 3 To change the surface, select a surface type under the Type column. 4 In the Surfaces tab, adjust the properties to modify the surface's geometry. Surface Description Type Bicubic Bilinear You can change the number of segments to increase or decrease the number of polygons, and change their shape.
Page 268: Using Parenting Axes
3 Adjust the manipulators to modify the surface. TIP You can also select a bilinear surface by opening the Group Schematic. Using Parenting Axes You can add axes to a 3D scene and parent them to cameras, lights, layers, and other axes in the Group Schematic. This lets you control the movement of one or more child objects by transforming the parent axis.
Page 269: Working With Materials
To add an axis from the Tools tab: 1 In the Schematic view, double-click the Reaction node to display the Group Schematic. 2 From the Tools tab, drag the Axis tool from the Reaction folder to the Group Schematic. 3 In the Schematic view, parent the axis to a layer, camera, or light. To set the visibility of an axis: 1 In the Schematic view, select the Reaction node.
Page 270 material node to define a bump map, as well as radiosity, reflection, or refraction environment maps, depending on the shader type selected. Textures are 2D images that can be wrapped around an object's surface, much like a piece of paper wrapped around an object. The information displayed on the object's surface depends on the type of texture map used.
Page 271 To select a shader type: In the Materials UI, select a shader: Standard The full range of parameters for creating diverse 3D effects using lights and cameras. Simple A subset of Standard shader parameters. It does not consider lights in the scene, but you can create lighting effects using environment maps.
Page 272 Blending Modes Blending modes are available with all shader types. A blending mode defines how the color of one layer is blended with the color of the layer or part of the scene lying behind it (relative to the Player). You can animate and apply expressions to blending modes—see Animation on page 659 and...
Page 273 Blending Mode Description Multiply Multiplies the pixel values of the current layer with the pixels in the background, and clips all RGB values at 255. The overall effect is similar to drawing with a colored marker over an image: it darkens and colorizes at the same time using the current layer imagery.
Page 274 Blending Mode Description positive value of the color is used and results in bright color shifts. The layer order is not significant, as both layers contribute nearly equally to the result. Exclusion Creates an effect similar to Difference, but lower in contrast and resulting in a grayer image.
Page 275 NOTE Transparency affects the visibility of a layer's other attributes. Glossiness Sets the level of glossiness for the layer, which affects the specular highlights created when a light shines directly on a layer. A glossier, more reflective surface yields a smaller, sharper highlight. A less glossy surface has a highlight that is more diffuse or blurry.
Page 276 Color Description Reflective Sets a color to modulate the color of layer surfaces with reflective properties and/or reflection maps applied. You typically set a grayscale value, with white being reflective, and black having no reflectivity. Refractive Sets a color to modulate the subtle changes in color that occur as light passes through an object where transparency or translucency is incor- porated.
Page 277 dynamically. Using environment maps is a fast and inexpensive way to achieve highly realistic lighting effects. NOTE Material nodes in the Group Schematic always show all five input tabs. However, the number of active input tabs depends on the channels available for the selected Shader type.
Page 278 Material Texture Description Channel simulate relief on objects by perturbing the surface shading according to an image map. The geometry is not affected. 3 To exit the Group Schematic, double-click anywhere in the Schematic. NOTE When using an RGB image as an input to the Bump channel, the RGB values map to XYZ when calculating the effects of light on the surface normals.
Page 279 Property Description Filtering Sets the quality of the texture image. When a texture is stretched onto an object, it may, depending on the camera position, lose some of its crispness. The rendered can compensate for this, but it may slow the process. Filtering options include: Nearest A box filter and the fastest way to resample an image since it only samples a single pixel of the input image to determ-...
Page 280: Working With Lights
Property Description Rotation Rotates the texture over a surface. Using the Shadow Matte Shader The Shadow Matte shader lets you capture shadows created by using 3D objects as proxies. This creates the illusion of shadows cast from objects or image elements onto 2D images where none exist.
Page 281 in the rendered scene. You can dramatically change the nature and mood of your compositions by modifying lights and their properties. NOTE You can animate lighting parameters using keyframes and by applying expressions—see Animation on page 659 and Expressions on page 719. Adding Lights to a Scene You can add one or more lights to your scene and set their properties to achieve a variety of lighting effects.
Page 282 Choosing the Type of Light When you add a light to your scene, an Omni light is added by default. You can change the light type and its properties, and add as many lights to your scene as needed. You can define physical properties for your light, depending on the type of light you selected.
Page 283 To set properties for a directional light: 1 Select the Lights tab. 2 Under Light Type, select the Directional light type. 3 Adjust the Radius field to set the radius of the light. This value is also used to delimit the size of the shadow map. Setting Basic Lighting Properties You can set basic lighting properties for all light types.
Page 284 Setting Shadow Properties You can enable shadows and set their properties and parameters to achieve the results that you want. To enable shadows and set their properties: On the Lights tab, under Parameters, select Shadows. Property Description Type Sets the type of shadow created. There are four types: Normal: The default shadow.
Page 285 To choose the shading properties that a light affects: 1 On the Lights tab, under Parameters, select the Affects option. 2 Under Light Affects, select the shading properties you want the light to affect. Adding a Projector Texture to a Light A projector texture is created when you connect an image to a light node in the Reaction Group Schematic.
Page 286: Working With Cameras
Property Description Bilinear A separable triangular filter that takes into account more area when resampling. Mitchell Considered one of the best magnification filters for images; has a good balance between ringing and sharpness. Gaussian Good magnification and magnification filter with no ringing, but introduces noticeable softness to the result im- age.
Page 287 Adding a Camera to Your Scene You can add as many cameras to a scene as you like, and you can view and render your scene from any camera. There are two ways to add cameras to a scene: through the Cameras tab in a Reaction node or through the Tools tab. Once you've added cameras, you can indicate which camera(s) to use as the render, or active, camera(s).
Page 288 A camera is added to the Cameras list. To add a camera from the Tools tab: 1 In the Schematic view, display the Group Schematic by double-clicking the Reaction node or right-clicking the Reaction node and selecting Edit Group. 2 From the Tools tab, select Camera from the Reaction folder and drag it to the Group Schematic.
Page 289 3 From the Cameras list, select a camera. 4 In the Cameras tab, you can set the properties for the selected camera. Parameter Description Type Perspective (default) This projection simulates a real phys- ical camera. Orthographic With this projection, all camera rays are par- allel, and objects do not appear to change size as they change distance from the camera.
Page 290 Parameter Description Film Aspect Ratio When the aspect ratio of the film is modified, the horizontal camera aperture is modified. X = Y multiplied by the aspect ratio. The ratio of the camera aperture width divided by the camera aperture height. When changed, it dynamically adjusts the camera aperture width.
Page 291 NOTE When using any camera, other than the render camera, zooming and panning in the Player is equivalent to dollying and trucking the camera. The View From menu lets you access each camera and camera view, and is available from both the hardware and software renderer. To access the camera(s): Right-click the Player and select View From >...
Page 292 To truck the camera: Hold down the W key and drag up, down, left, or right to position the camera. To orbit the camera: Hold down the Q key and drag in any direction to position the camera. Modifying Motion Blur for the Render Camera(s) You can modify the motion blur applied to the render camera(s) in your composition.
Page 293: Camera Mapping
Camera Mapping Camera mapping lets you add depth and perspective to a matte painting or rendered image by allowing it to be projected onto geometry from the point of view of the camera. In this way, you can add the illusion of 3D movement to a 2D scene.
Page 294 6 Temporarily disconnect the layer type (bicubic in this case) node from the sub-graph. 7 From the Tools tab, select Camera Mapping from the Reaction folder and drag it to the Group Schematic. 8 Connect the Layer Geometry output to the Camera Mapping input. 9 Connect the Camera Mapping Geometry output to the bicubic node.
Page 295: 3D Displacement
10 From the reaction folder, drag a second camera to the sub graph and connect its camera output to the Camera Mapping node's Camera output. 11 Adjust the Camera's Film Back, Position, Rotation and Pivot parameters. 3D Displacement The 3D Displacement tool lets you add depth to meshes created in or imported into Composite.
Page 296 (a) Image before displacement. (b) Image after displacement. (c) Displacement targeted towards and converging on an object. In this case, a light. NOTE The 3D Displacement tool can only perform displacement on images with sufficient geometry. If the image you are using does not contain sufficient geometry, you can increase it by adjusting the width and height of segments in the Surfaces tab of Reaction.
Page 297 4 Select the Reaction node. In the tool UI, select the Render tab and click Z-Buffer—see Enabling Z-Buffer Effects in Your Scene on page 292. 5 Add the two images you want to use to the Schematic view, connecting one to each source. In the following example, the Noise image generator is used to displace the character.
Page 298 10 Select the 3D Displacement node. In the tool UI, you can adjust the following parameters: Parameter Description Amount Amount of displacement in the image. Positive values make the displacement protrude and negative values invert the displacement. NOTE The displacement occurs in Reaction units (Amount times the displacement image values minus the Offset).
Page 299 Parameter Description Channel Set the channel for displacement: Luma, Red, Green, Blue, Alpha. Convergence Used with the Toward Target type. The displacement con- verges or is parallel to the target. X Radius, Y Radius Set the amount of blur to apply in the X or Y direction. Link Couple the X and Y Radius so that when you change the X Radius or Y Radius, the other changes in the same proportion.
Page 300: Transforming Objects
The image is starting to displace towards the light object. Transforming Objects You can transform an individual layer, axis, light, or camera along a specific axis to achieve the effects you want. You can transform objects interactively in the Player, or by setting values in the transformation fields in the Reaction tool UI.
Page 301 3 Click a transform button. Click: Translate an object along the selected axis. When you move an object, its coordinates are displayed and update dynamically. Rotate an object about the selected axis and change its orientation. Angles of rotation are measured in degrees. Scale an object in X, Y, or Z according to the selected axis.
Page 302: Reaction Rendering Effects And Output Results
Reaction Rendering Effects and Output Results Because Reaction provides a 3D environment, it has its own rendering and output options that you can use to specify an output format, set certain rendering features to quickly render draft results, or set rendering effects such as anti-aliasing or motion blur and depth of field.
Page 303 4 Under Rendering, set rendering options. Parameter Description Filter Applies filter effects on your composition. Choices are listed in order of speed and quality: Box, Conic, Max, Quadratic, Narrow Gaussian, Me- dium Gaussian, Wide Gaussian, Cubic, Cook, and Mit-Net Noch. The Box filter is ultra-fast, but low quality.
Page 304 Adding Motion Blur and Depth of Field to a Scene When the Motion Blur and Depth of Field (DOF) effects options are enabled, you can set parameters to define how they will appear in your scene. NOTE The software renderer must be enabled to apply Motion Blur and Depth of Field effects.
Page 305: Setting Up A Stereo Camera Rig
To enable the Z-buffer: Under Fx, select Z-buffer. Setting up a Stereo Camera Rig You can use Reaction to render a stereo scene from two cameras, or vastly different viewpoints from an arbitrary number of cameras. To set up a stereo camera rig in Reaction: 1 Select the Reaction node in the Schematic view and then select the Cameras tab.
Page 306 4 From the Tool UI, set the Left & Right cameras Translation Z parameter to 0. 5 From the Tool UI, set the Left camera Input Stream parameter to 0. 6 From the Tool UI, set the Right camera Input Stream parameter to 1. 7 From the Reaction Cameras list, set the Left &...
Page 307 9 From the Tool UI, right-click on the Right camera X Film Offset parameter and choose Edit Expression option. 10 In the text field, type a minus sign in front of the expression and press Apply. Setting up a Stereo Camera Rig | 295...
Page 308 11 From the Tool UI, right-click on the Right camera X Translation parameter and choose Edit Expression option. 12 In the text field, type a minus sign in front of the expression and press Apply. 296 | Chapter 12 Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects...
Page 309 The stereo rig is ready to use. You can adjust left and right eye convergence. Setting up a Stereo Camera Rig | 297...
Page 311: Pre-Compositing
Composite 2011 allows you to import a render layers and passes setup exported as a pre-comp (.precomp) file by 3D applications that support this file format, such as Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max. Once imported into Composite, a set of compositions is automatically created, representing the render layer setup.
Page 312 3D applications are render layer centric because it suits 3D artists. However, once you import a pre-comp file into Composite, it becomes camera centric because it is more suitable for the 2D artist. Now you can perform any compositing work needed on the pre-comp file, and go back and forth between Composite and the 3D application.
Page 313 whether to contribute to a pass or not (compare the Mono camera against the Right and Left cameras on Render Layer 1 in our example). A render pass composition imports render pass file sequences; it's a footage composition. A render layer composition assembles the render passes for a given render layer.
Page 314 Pre-Compositing Import You can either import render passes from a pre-comp file generated by any 3D application or import Maya passes directly from the Maya (.ma or .mb) file. A Maya pre-comp file contains the same information as the corresponding .ma or .mb file of the 3D scene.
Page 315 The Script Output floating window displays the progress of the import, and the Pre-Compositing Import Options dialog box displays. See Viewing Output and Error Messages on page 871. 4 Set parameters for the pre-comp file—see The Pre-Compositing Import Options on page 306. If images are missing, you are prompted to locate the folder that contains the images.
Page 316 5 Do one of the following: If you have a template you want to use, locate it. If you want to use the default template provided by Composite, click Default Template. NOTE The Browse button does not work when importing Maya files, because the import is performed in a background process.
Page 317 7 To view a layer composition, do one of the following: Double-click a link node. Right-click a link node and select Open. In the File Browser, open it from the Layers folder. 8 To view a render pass composition, open it from the Passes folder in the File Browser.
Page 318: The Pre-Compositing Import Options
Notice that the Path field displays path of the image sequence that is imported for that render pass. And, the image format, pixel format, rate, frame range and pre-multiplication import options are properly set. The Pre-Compositing Import Options When you import pre-comp files and render layers and passes, you can set the following options in the Pre-Compositing Import Options dialog box.
Page 319: About Anchors
Parameter Description Passes Folder The name of the subfolder in which the render pass compositions are stored. Layers Folder The name of the sub folder in which the render layer composi- tions are stored. Merge Merges the content of all render layer compositions into the scene composition—see Merging Layers on page 321.
Page 320 Pre-Compositing Anchors In a pre-compositing scene, each render pass is uniquely identified by a render pass anchor. The same applies to render layers/render pass anchors and cameras/camera anchors.The various anchor names in the 3D application are used by Composite during the import of pre-comp files. The anchors are used to locate the entry points for each type of 3D asset in the resulting Composite compositions.
Page 321 To add an anchor to a node: 1 Right-click the node on which you want to add an anchor and select Add. 2 In the Add Anchor dialog box, type in a name for the anchor. 3 Do one of the following to specify the type of anchor: In the Type field, type in the kind of anchor you are adding.
Page 322: Using Pre-Compositing Templates
The new anchor was added to the bottom of the list of anchors. The type of anchor is indicated in parentheses. To remove anchors: Right-click the node on which you want to remove an anchor and select Anchors and one of the following: Remove All: To remove all the anchors associated with the node.
Page 323 contains an arbitrary number of anchor link nodes that source an arbitrary dependency graph. The anchor link nodes in a template can be unconnected or linked to existing compositions; the link is simply replaced when the template is used to create a composition.
Page 324 Maya2011_LayerTemplate.txcomposition. The script uses the template file that is closest to the version that the application used to generate the pre-comp file. Default pre-compositing templates are located in: Windows: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Composite 2011\resources\precomp\templates Linux: /usr/autodesk/Autodesk_Composite_2011/resources/precomp/templates. Mac OS: /Applications/Autodesk/Composite/2011/AutodeskComposite.app/Contents/Resources/precom/templates.
Page 325: Pre-Comp File Creation And Updates
Creating a Pre-Compositing Template You can create your own template for pre-compositing. To create a template: 1 Import a pre-comp file without specifying a template—see Pre-Compositing Import on page 302. If you are creating a render layer template, the render layer composition contains a number of link nodes to render pass footage compositions.
Page 326 Non-Destructive Updates Pre-comp import updates are completely non-destructive. When an update is needed on a composition of any type (render layer, render pass, or scene), modifications are applied to a new version of the composition (if you turned on the Backup Working Version option in the Pre-Compositing Import Options dialog box or project preferences), which could be a clone of the working version or a new version recreated from scratch.
Page 327 If the render pass file names do not have extensions or if the extension does not correspond to an image file format that Composite can import, a warning is issued, but the render pass composition is still created and its Import node holds the specified sequence path, however, it produces a red X frame.
Page 328 is imported the same way it is done in the creation process—see Pre-Compositing Import Options on page 306. Note that the primary version of a render pass composition is never changed by the pre-compositing update. It is up to you to decide which one is the primary—see Working with Compositions on page 217.
Page 329 The time range (start, end) of the render layer composition is then set to the union of its render pass compositions time ranges. Render Layer Composition Update A render layer composition is updated when a new pass is added to the scene. Deleting a pass will not trigger an update because it's non-destructive.
Page 330 If some render layer anchor link nodes are missing in the scene template, new unconnected render layer link nodes are automatically added to the scene composition (in the same way as when no template is specified). Without a Template If no scene template is specified, render layer anchor link nodes are created with their proper anchor name set and point to their respective render layer composition.
Page 331 The format and rate of a scene composition is not modified on update. However, the start/end of the scene composition is updated to be the union of its current time range and the time ranges of all its linked render layer compositions.
Page 332 For example, if you double-click the left group, you'll see the default render layer template in the following dependency graph. In Multi-Stream mode, the left and right outputs of each link node are merged together, feeding only one instance of the dependency graph. At the end, each stream is extracted—see Multi-stream Compositing on page 371.
Page 333: Merging Layers
Merging Layers By default, each layer of a scene is imported into a different render layer composition. For greater compositing freedom and to set expressions, you must have all the dependency graphs of each layer in one scene composition. To merge layers during import, click the Single Composition button in the Pre-Compositing Import Options dialog box.
Page 334 You can also specify a template to handle all passes from all layers—see Using Pre-Compositing Templates on page 310. You can replace a link node by the content of its linked composition. To merge in a composition: In the Schematic view, right-click a Link Image node and select Merge and one of the following: Non-Recursive: Bring in one level of the linked composition.
Page 335: Importing Fbx Files
Importing FBX Files Topics in this chapter: Importing FBX Files on page 323 FBX Import Limitations on page 329 Importing FBX Files You can import all renderable cameras, camera planes, lights, geometry and locators. When you import a scene, a new composition is created within a Reaction node with all 3D data.
Page 336 To Import an FBX File To import an FBX file into Composite: 1 Select File > Import or press Ctrl + I(for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + I( for Mac OS). The File Browser is displayed. 2 Locate the folder in which the FBX file (.fbx) resides. 3 Right-click import or click the Import button to import and select Import 3D Scene.
Page 337 The Embedded Script Console displays the progress of the import. 4 Open the File Browser using the The Gate UI on page 12 or by pressing Ctrl + O (for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + O (for Mac OS). 5 Open the imported composition.
Page 338 WARNING There is currently no mechanism in Composite that locks imported objects to their original values. If an object's values are changed by mistake, use the undo feature or Ctrl + Z (for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + Z ( for Mac OS). Pressing Reset will reset the values to the default settings of the identity matrix, not to the original values of the object.
Page 339 To view the camera image plane and its properties: 1 In the Layer Editor, select the camera image plane layer. Its properties are displayed in the Reaction tab. 2 In the Player, right-click and select View From > Perspective or press Shift + 2 to view from the perspective camera.
Page 340 To view the imported FBX transforms: In the Tool UI, select the Axes tab and select an axis to view. The imported FBX transforms are displayed in the Player and their properties displayed in the Axes tab. To view the camera(s): 1 In the Tool UI, select the Cameras tab.
Page 341: Fbx Import Limitations
FBX Import Limitations The Composite 3D workflow lets you import scenes into Composite. The following tables show which node attributes are brought over to Composite (indicated by an “S” for supported) and whether the attributes can be edited (indicated by a “E”) in Composite or whether it's recalculated into some other attributes or Composite paradigms.
Page 342 Group Attributes Comments Scale Pivot Display Rotate Pivot Display Scale Pivot Object Display Visibility In Composite, it affects only Axis visibility (not whole hierarchy). Locator Group Attributes Comments Local Trans- Position form Scale Object Display Visibility Camera Group Attributes Comments Camera Attrib- Controls (Aim, Aim-Up) Only free cameras in Composite.
Page 343 Group Attributes Comments Film Aspect Ratio Lens Squeeze Ratio Film Fit On Film Fit Mode Resolution Gate Film Fit Offset Film Offset Film Back 2D Pre Scale Transform Film Translate Film Roll Pivot Film Roll Value Film Roll Order Post Scale Output Set- Renderable Camera is imported if renderable.
Page 344 Group Attributes Comments Display Safe Action Display Safe Title Player setting. Display Film Pivot Display Film Origin Overscan Orthograph- Orthographic Mode icView Orthographic Width Can not be set in Composite. Or- thographic height is always 100 and width is set according to output pixel aspect ratio.
Page 345 Group Attributes Comments Type Always Image File (Texture not supported). Image Name In Image Import node feeding the Reaction source. Use Image Sequence Can be controlled through Image Import node mark in/out. Frame Offset In Image Import node feeding the Reaction source.
Page 346 Current Limitations The following list outlines the current limitations for FBX import: Password protected FBX files cannot be imported in Composite. You cannot selectively import assets from the FBX file; Composite imports everything it recognizes. By default, the geometry import tool imports all meshes of the scene into a single layer.
Page 347 the cam¬era view), just a simple image plane parented by the camera and properly scaled for the current depth of the plane. Current Limitations | 335...
Page 349: Premultiplication
Premultiplication Topics in this chapter: Premultiplied Images on page 337 When to Premultiply on page 337 Common Problems with Premultiplication on page 338 Premultiplication Tools on page 338 Premultiplied Images A premultiplied image is one where the RGB channels have been multiplied by the alpha channel.
Page 350: Common Problems With Premultiplication
consider premultiplying two or more images whenever you have to perform a color correction or use filtering nodes. When you premultiply an image by a matte, you should be aware that there is a very specific brightness relationship between the pixels in the color channels and the pixels in the matte.
Page 351: 2D Compositing
2D Compositing Topics in this chapter: About 2D Compositing on page 339 2D Compositor on page 339 Alpha Tools on page 342 Channel Processing Tools on page 361 Composition Tools on page 365 Multi-stream Compositing on page 371 Stereo Viewing on page 374 About 2D Compositing This chapter describes the 2D compositing tools available to you in Composite.
Page 352 NOTE If the top layer has an embedded alpha channel, it is shown as black. You can connect the same composition to the Matte channel to achieve the desired result. The 2D compositor is a “super tool” because it contains a separate 2D Compositor Layer tool inside the tool.
Page 353 4 Add more layers as desired. If a composition has an embedded alpha channel, the alpha channel will appear black. You can connect the same image to the associated Matte input to achieve the desired result. Adjusting the Matte's Luminance Curves You can adjust the luminance curves of the front and back mattes of your composite by selecting the layer from the 2D Compositor tool.
Page 354: Alpha Tools
To adjust the matte's luminance curves: 1 In the Layer Browser, select the composite layer to adjust. You can mute or solo the layer. 2 Use the Layer Tools to navigate through the 2D Compositor's layers. 3 Select mathematical blending operations from a context menu. 4 Once a layer is selected from the Layer Browser, click a curve to select it.
Page 355: Alpha Levels
Tool Description Drop Alpha A simple matte modifier that drops the alpha channel from its primary input—see Drop Alpha on page 356. Edge Lets you refine the edges of a matte—see Edge Tool on page 356. Extract Alpha Extracts the alpha channel from its primary input—see Extract Alpha on page 357.
Page 356 The Alpha Levels tool UI has the following parameters. (a) Lift/Gain fields (b) Minimum Output slider and field (c) Minimum Input slider and field (d) Luma Remapping Curve (e) Maximum Input slider and field (f) Maximum Output slider and field Lift Adjust the Lift to add an overall offset to the matte.
Page 357 Front Channel Selects which channel to use for the front. Channel selections include Luma, Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha (default is Alpha). Front Invert Inverts the front before using it (default is off). Front Intensity Specifies the intensity of the front layer (default is 100%; range is [0,10]).
Page 358 NOTE The Blend Alpha tool has four fewer modes than the Blend & Comp and Glow tools, because the Blend Alpha tool affects only the alpha channel. Basic blend modes Mode Blend Result Normal This is the default setting and displays the front input Average Adds the front and back, then divides by 2.
Page 359 Modes based on lighting Mode Blend Result Spotlight Like Multiply but with 2 X the brightness. Spotlight Same as Spotlight but also adds ambient illumination to the back input. Blend Overlay Darkens or lightens the pixels depending on the back color. Soft Light If the front color is lighter than mid-gray, the image is lightened.
Page 360: Blur Alpha
To blend curves: Select and drag a control point on the curve. To add a control point to the curve: With the cursor in the curve window, press + (plus sign) and click the curve at the location in which you want to add a control point. To delete a control point from the curve: With the cursor in the curve window, press - (minus sign) and click the control point you want to delete from the curve.
Page 361: Clamp Alpha
The Blur Alpha tool has the following parameters: X Radius Change this value to blur horizontal pixels. Y Radius Change this value to blur vertical pixels. Link Select to link X and Y values. NOTE X and Y Radius are animatable attributes—see Marking Attributes for Keyframing on page 674.
Page 362: Comp Alpha Tool
white regions, or both. You can specify what range of values is black and what range is white. In addition, you can control the maximum number of pixels of edges to preserve and the softness controlling the blend between the preserved edge region and the interior filled-in region.
Page 363 This tool only affects alpha. If the back is an RGBA image, the color part is simply copied to the output. NOTE The alpha output of this tool is always clamped to the [0,1] interval. The Comp Alpha tool has the following parameters: Front Channel Selects which channel to use for the front (default is alpha).
Page 364 Compositing Operators The following table lists the compositing operators applicable between front and back input images: Operator Result: Over Composites the front over the back. The output will cover any area covered by either the front or the back. Where the front and back overlap, the output will show the front.
Page 365 (a) Original matte (b) Modified with Control Edge (c) Alpha Remapped NOTE This tool can be masked and animated. The Control Edge tool has the following parameters: Use: Outer Dis- Control the width and offset of the outer edges. tance Inner Dis- Control the width and offset of the inner edges.
Page 366 Use: Link Softness Link the Outer and Inner Softness sliders. By default, the Link button is enabled. Remap Alpha Remap the alpha as the last step in the internal pipeline. Curve Reset Reset the alpha remapping curve. Detect Edge The Detect Edge tool lets you create an image composed of the edges in an image.
Page 367 Use: Outer soft- Add blur to the outside extremities of edges. ness Inner Soft- Add blur to the inside extremities of edges. ness Link Distance Link the Outer and Inner Distance sliders so that the alpha edges are thickened by an amount of twice the slider value, centered about their original position in the input image.
Page 368: Drop Alpha
Drop Alpha The Drop Alpha tool is a simple matte modifier that drops the alpha channel from its primary input. This tool has no control parameters but always outputs an RGB image. NOTE This implies that if the input is an alpha-only image, the output will be a black RGB image.
Page 369: Fade Tool
Use: Blur Reduce the edge width. The numeric fields take values representing the pixel width of the blur filter along the X-axis and the Y-axis (from 0.000 to 30.000 float). Link: Blurs the width and height proportionally. Default is on. Gaussian: Default is on, but can be changed to a box blur filter.
Page 370 NOTE If the input image has no alpha channel, one will be added. This is consistent with Composite's general behavior with respect to missing channels. A missing alpha channel is interpreted as a virtual solid opaque alpha channel. Invert Alpha The Invert Alpha tool inverts the alpha channel of its primary input and has no control parameters.
Page 371 Original matte Alpha remapped Alpha inverted An invert button provides inversion of the alpha after the curve mapping. This tool affects alpha only; the RGB channels, if present, are passed through unchanged. The pixel format of the output is the same as the pixel format of the image input.
Page 372: Set Alpha Tool
To exit the Add or Delete control point mode: Press Esc. NOTE This tool can be masked. The Remap Alpha tool has the following parameters: Use: Invert Invert the alpha after the curve mapping. Curve Gesturally manipulate the alpha remapping. Reset Reset the remapping curve.
Page 373: Channel Processing Tools
4 Select the component from image B that you want to add to the alpha component from image A. 5 Blend the components until you are satisfied with the result. NOTE The Set Alpha tool's Blend attribute is animatable—see Animation Concepts on page 660.
Page 374: Channel Extract Tool
Channel Extract Tool The Channel Extract tool lets you to remove a channel from an image. You can remove the red, green, blue, or alpha channel. To extract a channel from an image: 1 Drag the Extract tool from the Channel folder on the Tools tab onto the dependency graph in the Schematic view.
Page 375: Channel Replace Tool
Channel Select the source image channel to analyze. Minimum Set the minimum value threshold of the source image channel. Maximum Set the maximum value threshold of the source image channel. In Range RGB Select the source image channel to display as the “In Range”...
Page 376: Channel Rewire Tool
To remap the channel values of one image to a different image: 1 Drag the Replace tool from the Channel folder in the Tools tab to the dependency graph in the Schematic view and connect the images to the tool node (one image for input A and one image for input B). 2 In the Tool UI, click the channel you want to replace and select values;...
Page 377: Composition Tools
2 Select the input component(s) from the selection list. NOTE When Alpha is selected, a sixth choice, None, is available. NOTE The Channel Rewire tool has a masking input and its attributes are also animatable—see Pixel Masking on page 560 and Animation Concepts on page 660.
Page 378 Tool: Description: Comp Ops Apply compositing operators to two source images—see Comp Ops page 369. Math Ops Apply mathematical compositing operators to the RGBA values of two source images—see Math Ops on page 370. Blend The Blend tool lets you blend two images by applying a blend factor. The image connected to the A input is displayed when the Blend Factor is set to 0;...
Page 379: Blend & Comp
Blend & Comp The Blend & Comp tool is used to composite front and back RGBA images. While most compositing tools composite a front layer over an opaque background under the direction of a matte image, this tool offers full support for RGBA images, both for the front and back inputs, and computes an RGBA result.
Page 380 Use: Correlation Specify how the two input mattes are correlated. This can be used to improve the quality of the composite in special cases. For example, if you composite two mattes that share a good portion of their outline, you should let the system know if they are Adjacent or Superposed. By default, the correlation mode is None, assuming that, normally, the input mattes are not correlated.
Page 381 NOTE The Blend Matte tool has a masking input and its attributes are also animatable—see Pixel Masking on page 560 and Animation Concepts on page 660. Comp Ops The Comp Ops tool lets you apply a variety of compositing operators to two source images.
Page 382: Math Ops
Select: A atop B Place the RGBA of input A over the RGBA of input B but through the alpha of input B. B atop A Place the RGBA of input B over the RGBA of input A but through the alpha of input A.
Page 383: Multi-Stream Compositing
3 Click the Operator button and select a math operator. Select: Add to the RGBA of input A, a percentage (using the Blend value) of the RGBA of input B. Divide the RGBA values of input A by the RGBA values of input B. Create a composite image where the final output will be the maximum RGBA values of either input A or input B.
Page 384 Use: and a single output socket. You can connect as many inputs as you like to the Merge Streams tool. Extract Streams extract single-stream image outputs from the Merge Stream node using the Selector value editor. Stereo Streams input left eye and right eye image streams to create a 2-stream stereo image.
Page 385 3 Drag a Merge Streams tool from the Streams tool folder and drop it into the composition. 4 Connect all layers to the inputs of the Merge Streams node. 5 Drop a Blur tool into the composition and connect the Merge Streams output socket to its input then change the blur parameters.
Page 386: Stereo Viewing
NOTE To view the individual streams, use the Player 0, (next stream) and Shift + 0 (previous stream) to cycle to the next and previous streams produced by the Player target. You can also view a stream by swiping through the Player south gate, opening the Streams tab and selecting the stream you want to view from the Stream value editor.
Page 387 The stereo image pair is displayed in anaglyph mode in the player. You can view the image with inexpensive tinted glasses. Composite 2011 supports special-purpose stereo viewing hardware, such as quad-buffered stereo monitors, or 3D DLP (TM) monitors. These stereo viewing devices are supported through Composite video preview devices.
Page 388 Select: DLP-3D Preview view stereo pairs using DLP -3D monitors that support active shutter glasses—see Active Shutter Glasses on page 378. Segmented Frame view stereo pairs using circular polarization monitors with passive Preview polarizing glasses—see Polarizing Glasses on page 377. Quad-buffer view stereo pairs with polarizing glasses using monitors based on linear polarization —see...
Page 389 Supported Stereo Output Graphics Hardware The following section describes some of the multiple display configurations possible on a Composite workstation. Composite supports systems with standard graphics cards with DVI outputs. Single graphics card, single DVI output This configuration implies that stereo will be shown in the Composite UI.
Page 390 systems, the observer head orientation is important to avoid ghosting artifacts. Active Shutter Glasses The viewer wears LCD glasses that open the left or the right eye in synchronization with left and right images shown by the display device. The synchronization signal is broadcast by an emitter to the LCD glasses.
Page 391: Chapter 17 Image Processing Tools
Image Processing Tools Topics in this chapter: About Image Processing Tools on page 379 Filtering Tools on page 379 Formatting Tools on page 409 Image Generation Tools on page 419 Transform Tools on page 431 About Image Processing Tools This chapter describes the image processing tools available to you in Composite. They are described in the order in which they appear in the Tools tab.
Page 392: Remove Dust Tool
Tool: Description: Blur Applies a blur to an image—see About Blurs on page 385. Lens Blur Accurately simulates the defocus effect of a real camera on an HDR im- age—see Lens Blur Tool on page 400 Median Removes impulse noise with an edge-preserving smoothing filter—see Median Tool on page 406.
Page 393 Dust Removal Workflow The dust removal workflow can be divided into three steps: Dust Detection This automatically creates the defect matte by examining the images, using motion vectors if available. This step is optional, as the defect matte may be supplied to the tool as the second input. Even if no defect matte is supplied, you may choose to bypass detection and perform all labeling by hand.
Page 394 Global Detection and Repair The Global Detection UI has the following parameter controls: Use: Calculate Motion calculate forward and backward motion vectors. Quality control the quality of the motion vectors by applying the motion analysis only to lower-resolution versions of the input image, up to the resolution specified by the quality parameter.
Page 395 Use: Repair Method select either the Temporal or Spatial repair method. The default method is temporal repair. This means to replace a dust pixel with the average of the corresponding pixels in the previous 2 and next 2 frames. If motion vectors are supplied on the 3rd or 4th input, they will be used to define the correspondence;...
Page 396 frame of the composition. You can select and edit the objects only by direct manipulation on the image wireframe overlays. When in creation mode (either Rectangle, Ellipse, or Spline is selected) you can set the Detection and Correction values that will apply only within the shape to be drawn.
Page 397 (a) Tolerance and Size Tolerance raised to label more dust in this area. (b) Tolerance and Size Tolerance of 100, to label the entire interior as dust. (c) Tolerance and Size Tolerance of 0, to label the entire interior as not dust. Defect Matte Viewing The defect matte is output on the second output, thus allowing the use of context points—see...
Page 398 Controls Blur Settings for the directional Gaussian blur and the Radial blur—see Directional Gaussian and Radial Blur on page 386. Modulation Settings for the Modulated blur—see Modulation Blur on page 391. Vectors Settings for the Vectors blur—see Vectors Blur page 395. Output Settings affecting the image output by the tool—see Output Controls...
Page 399 About Blurs | 387...
Page 400 Use: X Radius Set the amount of blur to apply in direction of the X axis (before taking into account the rotation parameter). Y Radius Set the amount of blur to apply in direction of the Y axis (before taking into account the rotation parameter). Link Couple the X Radius and Y Radius so that when you change the X Radius or the Y Radius the other changes in the same proportion.
Page 401 vectors are then used to construct blur ellipses aligned with each vector. The size of the major axis matches the length of the displacement vector. The size of the minor axis is kept fixed at a small value. That value is chosen to keep aliasing artifacts at an acceptable level while not introducing too much blurriness.
Page 402 Use: Zoom Set the amount of blur to apply in the radial direction (before taking into account the rotation parameter). The amount of blur is specified in degrees; the further a pixel is located from the center of the radial blur, the more it is blurred. Expressing the Zoom parameter in degrees allows it to share the same units as the Spin parameter.
Page 403 Use: Rotation Rotate the radial and tangential direction by a given angle. The angle is specified in degrees. This causes the blur effect to spiral. X,Y Position Specify the center of the radial blur. You can also click and drag the red manipulator in the player to set the location of the center of the blur.
Page 404 Use: Blue, Alpha, Luma and None. When None is selected, the image is blurred as if the Modulation Channel had a constant value of 1. Note that this behavior is different than muting the entire modulated blur. This is an aid for trying to figure out what the various parts of the tool contribute.
Page 405 Image with no modulated blur. Z Depth modulation image - closer objects appear as lighter shades of gray; farther objects appear darker. Luma channel offset value of sphere is 0.011 and matches that of the modulation image retaining focus. About Blurs | 393...
Page 406 Luma channel offset value of column is 0.704 and matches that of the modulation image retaining focus. Although the Modulation Blur tool can simulate depth of field, artifacts may appear for a number of reasons and are inherent 2.5D motion blur and depth of field.
Page 407 this represents a huge discontinuity in its blur modulation and the Z-discontinuity ends up as a discontinuity in the blurred image. To help remove the resulting artifacts, the parameters (Min. Alpha and Max Radius) under the Extend label can be set to generate the missing Z information. Use: Min Alpha Select at which alpha value to start generating the...
Page 408 Use: Length Set the amount of blur to apply in direction of the forward vectors (before taking into account the rotation parameter). The amount of blur applied per pixel is also modulated by the length of the vectors. Width Set the amount of blur to apply in a direction perpendicular to the forward vectors (before taking into account the rotation parameter.) The amount of blur applied per pixel is also modulated by the length of the vectors.
Page 409 Use: Mute Mute the Vector Blur contribution of the Blur tool. The other blurs are still applied (if they are not themselves muted). Using the Modulation blur tool to simulate motion blur can be difficult due to some of the same inherent issues as when trying to simulate depth of field using the Modulation blur tool;...
Page 410 Use: Color Set the color of displayed vectors. Click on the color pot to display the color picker—see Color Picker on page 154. NOTE The Blur tool has a masking input—see Pixel Masking on page 560. The Blur tool's X and Y attributes are both animatable by setting keyframes or using expressions—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and...
Page 411 Output Controls The Output UI allows you to control the following parameters: About Blurs | 399...
Page 412: Lens Blur Tool
Use: Min Radius Specify a minimum of blur to apply in any direction. This is useful to minimize aliasing artifacts that might occur when performing blurs that exhibits a high degree of directionality. Tiling X and Specify how the input image should be extended outside its region of definition (ROD).
Page 413 Lens Blur UI The Lens Blur UI is composed of four tabs: Lens Blur, Modulation, Output, and Masking. The Lens Blur tab consists of a set of parameters for setting the main blur effect, as well as controls to create bloom, flares, and halos. To create the main blur effect, use the controls on the left side of the UI.
Page 414 The following images show the types of effects you can generate using the main blur controls. Input image (some single pixels not visible) Pentagon blur with softness set at 2 pixels Pentagon blur with softness set to 20 pixels 402 | Chapter 17 Image Processing Tools...
Page 415 Pentagon blur with aberration Radial chromatic aberration The Bloom controls let you remap the higher luminance range to increase the bloom appearance of the blur. This is especially useful for 8-bit images which cannot represent values greater than 1. With bloom, you can remap the values to make it seem like an HDR image, giving you more realistic blooms around bright light sources and reflections.
Page 416 Original image The Flares parameters let you add lines and streaks emanating from bright lights and reflections. You can set the intensity of the flares, as well as the number of flares. An intensity of 0 (the default) will disable flare generation. The rotation of the lines can be animated to simulate flares that seem to rotate as the camera moves relative to the light sources.
Page 417 Original image Modulation Tab The Modulation tab looks just like that of the Blur, including the extrapolation (extending) capability—see Modulation Blur on page 391. You can choose what channel of the modulation image is used and apply an offset to the modulation image.
Page 418: Median Tool
Masking Tab The Lens Blur tool has a masking input and a Masking tab—see Pixel Masking on page 560. Median Tool The Median tool is an edge-preserving smoothing filter that works particularly well for removing impulse noise. For grayscale images, the median filter works by ranking the pixels under the kernel according to their value and selecting the median to replace the pixel at the center of the kernel.
Page 419 Finally, the median filter can be applied recursively. Repeated applications using a small kernel size yield better results than a single application using a large kernel. NOTE When using the filter recursively, the blending described above is applied at each iteration. The Median tool has the following parameters: Use: Filter...
Page 420: Unsharp Mask
Sharpen Tool The Sharpen tool lets you increase the clarity and focus of an image. The Sharpen tool applies a sharpening filter to a number of adjacent pixels in the input image and increases their contrast. To apply sharpening modifications to an image using the Sharpen tool: 1 Drag the Sharpen tool from the Tool tab to the dependency graph in the Schematic view.
Page 421: Formatting Tools
image, called unsharp mask. The unsharp mask is then subtracted from the original image, removing low frequencies. The Unsharp Mask tool has the following parameters: Unsharp Mask Radius X, Radius Y, and Link Control the radius of the blur (just like in the Blur tool). By default, the X and Y radii are linked and set to 1.20;...
Page 422: Convert Depth Tool
Tool: Description: Floating Windows Premultiply Premultiplies an input image—see Premultiply Tool on page 413. Unpremul- Unpremultiplies an input image—see Unpremultiply Tool on page 414. tiply Resize Changes the resolution of an image—see Resize Tool on page 415. Convert Depth Tool The Convert Depth tool lets you change the color depth of an input image.
Page 423 absolute crop if you want to retain certain portions of the image. To assist in cropping, you can keep a fixed image size regardless of input dimensions. Original image Cropped image You can also animate the Crop tool's parameters by setting keyframes or using expressions—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and...
Page 424 2 Select a crop type: Relative, Window, or Absolute. Use: Relative Crop Crop an image relative to the size of the input image. The default value for all parameters (left, bottom, right, top) is zero. All para- meters have a range of zero to the respective size (width and height) of the image being cropped.
Page 425: Premultiply Tool
The Auto Crop feature computes a fit-all region where the entire distorted image fits into the output without losing any part of the image. When you set the crop mode to Auto Crop, the output region at each frame will automatically be computed.
Page 426: Unpremultiply Tool
NOTE When using the Premultiply tool, make sure the output image is never processed by a tool that produces incorrect results while operating on an image with premultiplied data. Tracking of whether images are stored in premultiplied format or not, does not occur. Unpremultiply Tool The Unpremultiply tool lets you recover an alpha-unpremultiplied foreground image from an alpha-premultiplied image whose foreground may have been...
Page 427: Resize Tool
The image is unpremultiplied. NOTE When using the Unpremultiply tool, make sure the output image is never processed by a tool that produces incorrect results while operating on an image with unpremultiplied data. Tracking of whether images are stored in premultiplied format or not, does not occur. All tools except this one assumes unpremultiplied data.
Page 428 Select: Format Select from a list of many standard resolutions, as well as a Custom option that you can use to specify non-standard resolu- tions. Width and Height Display the frame width and height of the selected resolution preset. If you select Custom from the resolution presets box, use these fields to enter the frame width and height values you want to use.
Page 429 Select: Width and Change the width and height of the crop box. You can either type Height the dimensions into the respective Width and Height attribute value fields, or you can grab the edges of the crop box with the cursor and resize.
Page 430 Animate Resize Settings Animate the position of the crop box to pan and scan a 16:9 composition to a 4:3 format. Pan and scan is a technique widely used for resizing 16:9 compositions to a 4:3 resolution when the area of interest in the shots is to one side of the 16:9 frame.
Page 431: Image Generation Tools
To resize a 16:9 composition from source to a 4:3 destination resolution using the Letterbox fit method: 1 Drag the Resize tool from the Tools tab to the dependency graph in the Schematic view, and connect it to the composition. 2 From the Destination settings area, select the 4:3 resolution to which you want to resize the source.
Page 432 NOTE All image generation tools are output tools and therefore, have only an output node connector and no input connector. All image generating tools can be used to generate masks with those tools that have masking inputs—see Pixel Masking on page 560. Setting Image Generation Properties and Formats Each of the image generating tools has a common UI area where properties can be applied.
Page 433: Bilinear Ramp Tool
Property Description 16-bit 32-bit Repeat Determines how the generator node outputs its result outside its source time range. Possible modes are: No Repeat: There is no repetition at all, the generator outputs black frames outside its time range. Hold: First and last frames are repeated. Loop: Repeats the entire sequence.
Page 434 To create a bilinear ramped image: 1 Drag the Bilinear Ramp tool from the Tools tab to the dependency graph in the Schematic view and attach it to the Output node. 2 Apply image properties—see Setting Image Generation Properties and Formats on page 420.
Page 435: Checkerboard Tool
NOTE The Bilinear Ramp tool's Fill, Lower Right, Lower Left, Upper Right, Upper Left, and Center X and Center Y parameters are animatable by setting keyframes or using expressions—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and Validating and Applying the Expression String on page 729.
Page 436: Color Source Tool
Color Source Tool The Color Source tool lets you create images with a variety of properties and in several formats. The Color Source tool is comprised of two sets of color channel value fields that allow you to generate a single color image based on RGBA values.
Page 437: Linear Ramp Tool
Linear Ramp Tool The Linear Ramp tool lets you create images with a variety of properties and in several formats. The Linear Ramp tool is comprised of three sets of color channel value fields that allow you to generate a multi-color image based on RGBA values.
Page 438: Radial Ramp Tool
NOTE You can also type values directly into the value fields and press Enter. NOTE The Linear Ramp tool's Fill, Start, End, and Ramp Center parameters are animatable by setting keyframes or using expressions—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and Validating and Applying the Expression String on page 729.
Page 439: Noise Tool
2 Apply image properties—see Setting Image Generation Properties and Formats on page 420. 3 Adjust the color values in the Fill, Start, and End fields. 4 Modify the location and direction of the X and Y ramps. 5 Adjust the middle and falloff ranges. NOTE You can also manipulate the radial ramps by left-clicking and moving them.
Page 440 value fields that allows you to generate a multi-color image based on RGBA values. One set of values is for generating the fill color, and two sets are for generating start and end color values. You can also adjust the level and seed (the method used to generate the noise).
Page 441: Slate Tool
Slate Tool The Slate tool lets you add production information over an image or clip, which is useful during the review/approval stage of a project. Although Slate is not a full text tool, you can adjust the size, color, opacity, position, and duration of the text, as well as add a drop shadow.
Page 442 3 To add a variable to your composition, select a variable from the list, and click Add. You can add multiple variables. The composition's name appears in the Player. 4 To enter information about your composition, select the type of information you want to add and click Add UDA.
Page 443: Transform Tools
7 Add a drop shadow to the text by clicking Drop Shadow and setting its position, color, and opacity. 8 Add a background behind the text by clicking Box and setting the color, opacity, and margin. Transform Tools Use the Transform tools to move, reorient, and animate images. There are four image transformation tools: Tool: Description:...
Page 444: D Transform Tool
2D Transform Tool The 2D Transform tool lets you apply arbitrary transforms on an image and lets you add camera jitter, motion blur, or stabilizing to the image. You can also move, scale, rotate, and shear images in 2D with high quality filtering as well as concatenate transforms to avoid re-filtering.
Page 445 To produce an affine transformation on an image: 1 Add a Transform 2D tool at the desired point in the dependency graph (if one is not already there). One transform is automatically added. You can add additional transforms using the New button. 2 Use the controls that appear in the UI to the right of the super tool controls or the direct manipulators that appear in the Player.
Page 446 Use: Crop Crop the output image—see Crop Tool on page 410. Simulating Camera Jitter Using the 2D Transform Tool NOTE The following example describes one way to simulate camera jitter using the 2D Transform tool combined with a Noise or Rand expression—see Random Number Functions on page 749.
Page 447: Flip Tool
NOTE You may also want to add motion blur to the output for a more realistic effect. Flip Tool The Flip tool lets you take an image and flip the pixels left-to-right, top-to-bottom, or both when the Link button is enabled. The default setting is vertical flip.
Page 448: Orient Tool
To modify an image using the Flip tool: 1 Drag the Flip tool from the Tools tab to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. The image will be vertically flipped. 2 Select the desired flip parameters: Vertical, Horizontal, or both. NOTE The Flip tool's Vertical and Horizontal attributes are both animatable by setting keyframes or using expressions—see Setting Keys Manually...
Page 449: Panner Tool
Panner Tool The Panner tool lets you reposition the image in both the X and Y directions, as well as to reposition the image using the X and Y offset created when used with Tracker tool data inside an expression—see Validating and Applying the Expression String on page 729 and...
Page 451: Chapter 18 Pixel Expressions
Pixel Expressions Topics in this chapter: About Pixel Expressions on page 439 PXL Tool on page 440 CTL Tool on page 463 About Pixel Expressions Use one of Composite's pixel expression tools to create customized effects and apply color management solutions. There are two pixel expression tools: Tool: Description: PXL Tool...
Page 452: Pxl Tool
PXL Tool The PXL tool provides the ability to write a C-like program to control the creation of its output image. The program executed by the PXL tool is written in a new language called PXL, the Pixel eXpression Language (pronounced “pixel”).
Page 453 removed from the tool. Because it supports masking, the PXL tool also has a standard masking image input. The PXL tool allows the user to create an arbitrary number of animated scalar float inputs, to be used as parameters to the PXL script. Because of UI space restrictions, only the first ten scalar parameters will be shown in the UI;...
Page 454 The area on the left displays the same parameters that are shown in User mode, as well as two buttons to add and delete parameters. Parameters cannot be edited, only added and removed. Clicking the Add button pops up a modal dialog where the user types in the name of the parameter, its minimum, maximum, and default values, as well as the minimum increment to be used when changing the value in the UI.
Page 455 The above graphic shows Edit mode, where the PXL script developer is editing the script inside the Composite internal editor (titled Script), which is displayed to the right of the develop controls. Select: Apply compile the edited script and, if successful, applies it as the new image processing script.
Page 456: Output Tab
The other option while in Develop mode is File mode where the PXL script is being read from an external file. In this mode, the PXL file is edited with an editor external to Composite, then saved to disk. You will then click on the Apply button to have Composite read the script from the file and apply it.
Page 457 Masking Tab The PXL tool has the same masking capability that is available on other image modifier tools, in the standard Masking tab—see Creating Masks on page 540. Sharing PXL Tools An important use case of the PXL tool is that even if you are not an experienced PXL script writer you can still use the PXL tool to quickly write a simple expression to create a basic effect.
Page 458 PXL Presets There are several PXL tool presets installed with Composite and they are described below: Blur 5 x 5 A simple 5 x 5 blur kernel with hard coded weights. Original Blurred Clouds Creates a cloud texture. 446 | Chapter 18 Pixel Expressions...
Page 459 Corner Pin Provides eight parameters to control the four corners of the image, and computes a perspective transformation to place the image based on the corners. By setting expressions to link the eight parameters to a garbage mask rectangle, a simple interactive corner pinner can be made. Directional Blur Performs an anti-aliased blur using a rotated rectangle to achieve a blur in a particular direction.
Page 460 Original Blurred Emboss Simple emboss, based on gradients of luminance. Original Embossed Erode Alpha Erodes alpha using a simple square kernel. 448 | Chapter 18 Pixel Expressions...
Page 461 Original Eroded Alpha with a 10 pixel radius Gamma Applies a simple gamma exponential to all channels. Original Gamma correction applied Lattice Adds a lattice of shaded tubular bars to the image channels. Lens Flare Provides 1 to 5 lines of flares centered on bright points on the image.
Page 462 factor for the weight of the lines as they get more distant from the centre of the blur. Original Lens flare applied Marble Creates a marble texture. Mandelbrot Generates a mandelbrot fractal image. 450 | Chapter 18 Pixel Expressions...
Page 463 Noise Wipe Performs a wipe transition between two images where each pixel switches at a random time. Noise Creates a pattern of random noise. PXL Presets | 451...
Page 464 Num Colors A preset that reduces the number of colors to create images with banding. It can also add dithering noise to reduce the banding. NumColors = 6, Dither = 0 NumColors = 2, Dither = 1 Out of Range Marks pixels outside of a specified range with a specified color, such as red in the following image.
Page 465 Polygon Blur Performs a simple anti-aliased polygon blur, to simulate a lens effect. You can choose the number of sides, the radius, and rotation angle. Original image Polygon Blur applied Ripple Twirl A twirl effect with some extra ripples. PXL Presets | 453...
Page 466 Original image Ripple Twirl applied Sharpen 5 x 5 A simple 5x5 sharpening kernel with hard coded weights. Original image Sharpened Spherical Mapping Applies spherical mapping to the current selection. 454 | Chapter 18 Pixel Expressions...
Page 467 Original image Spherical mapping applied Stereo Anaglypha A preset that provides two methods of combining colors into a single Red/Blue glasses image (left image) and one method for cross-eyed viewing (right image). Red/Blue glasses Cross-eyed viewing Wood Frame Creates a wood frame. You can specify the frame's thickness and lighting qualities.
Page 468 PXL, the Pixel eXpression Language The following section outlines the traits inherent to the PXL language. Example Script and Procedure The following example PXL script and procedure multiplies the input pixel R, G, and B components by 3. To multiply the input pixel R, G, and B components by 3: 1 Add a PXL tool to the dependency graph.
Page 469 Image Processing Algorithm Categories There are three types of image processing operators: the point operator, the gather operator, and the scatter operator. They are based on a workflow in which there are one or more input images and a single output image: Point operator Image processing operation that only reads pixels from the input images at the current position, and only writes one pixel to the...
Page 470 No explicit type casting or type conversion is supported. However, many mixed-type assignment operators and functions are provided. If a variable of image type is used where type rules would require a color type, the language automatically calls the built-in single-argument sample (image) function.
Page 471 Operators PXL supports the following operators, which are a subset of those found in C. Of note are the lack of bitwise manipulation operators, as well as the lack of a modulo operator, however the modulo is available through the built-in mod() function—see Built-in Functions on page 460.
Page 472 Variable Declarations The naming of variables uses the same rules as C. A variable name must begin with an alphabetical character, followed by none or more alphanumeric characters or underscore character. It must not contain any white spaces. All variables are initialized by Composite upon declaration, depending on type: Float variables are initialized to 0.
Page 473 overloading is supported by the sample() function to provide two implementations, one with a single argument, the other with 3 arguments. NOTE In the following table, all references to type color also refer to vec4, and vice versa. PXL, the Pixel eXpression Language | 461...
Page 474 Interface with Composite Executable The Composite executable interfaces with the PXL script in the following way: The function declaration is optional. If present, it must be called “main()”. Function arguments can be any of the PXL basic types. Arguments to “main()”...
Page 475: Ctl Tool
All images read by the PXL script are read at the current time t. There is no way to read images at a time different from t within a PXL script. To do so, a user must use external Composite Retimer or Time Offset tools before inputting images to the PXL tool.
Page 476 Additional images (if any) follow the same convention: for an additional input image Bg, the corresponding arguments to main would be: input varying float rBg input varying float gBg input varying float bBg input varying float aBg 4 parameters of the main() function must be present to define the output pixel color.
Page 477 7 Type the following script into the editor or copy then paste it in using Ctrl + C (for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + C (for Mac OS) and Ctrl + V (for Windows and Linux) or Cmd + V (for Mac OS): The two images are blended.
Page 479: Chapter 19 Warping
Warping Topics in this chapter: About Warping on page 467 Warp 2D on page 467 2D Transforms on page 478 Cropping and Filtering the Output on page 482 Warping Tools on page 484 About Warping The Warping tools let you distort the physical shapes and contours of images. Warp 2D The Warp 2D tool lets you: Warp an image to change the geometry of some elements.
Page 480 The basic operation of the Warp 2D tool involves drawing source and destination shapes and linking pairs of these together. The correspondence between points on the source and destination shapes defines constraints on the transformation of the image. Another type of shape constraint is a fence shape which functions like a pair of source and destination shapes that are constrained to always be equal, keeping a part of the image from moving from its source position.
Page 481 You will then switch out of source space into destination space (by pressing the 6 hotkey while focused in the viewer) and begin editing the destination shapes. As you drag around a destination shape, the image underneath is warped accordingly. Once you have dragged all the destination shapes to their desired final positions, you may want to add another shape pair or fence shape to refine the warp.
Page 482 Shape drawing closely mimics that of Garbage Mask and Remove Dust tools. The types of objects that can be created are: Splines, open or closed Freehand shapes. Rectangles Ellipses Points (just a spline with a single vertex) Like the Garbage Mask, there is a list box with the named shapes and individually editable parameters.
Page 483 Each shape also has a Boolean parameter, Fence. When this is enabled, this shape acts like a pair of source and destination shapes which are constrained to be equal. This holds the image under the shape in place. When the Fence parameter is enabled, the destination shape and link points disappear.
Page 484 (a) Fences added to limit warp to the right eye (b) Warp result The Warp 2D tool will have two outputs: Result (warped by the amount of the interpolation parameter) Input image warped by 100% While editing, you can use the standard hotkeys (5 and 6) to switch between the input image and the second output, in order to view the source and destination spaces.
Page 485 Source shapes Destination shapes Fence shapes Links (defines correspondences between the source and destination shapes) Interpolated shapes (viewable only, these cannot be edited, but show the interpolated position of the shapes based on the current interpolation parameter) Other controls on the Shape Drawing tab include: Use: Name Give the selected shape a name.
Page 486 paste a selected source or destination shape either in the same Warp 2D tool or from another. To copy and paste a source or destination shape: 1 Select a source or destination shape to copy. 2 Use the Ctrl + C (for Windows and Linux) or the Cmd + C (for Mac OS) hotkey combination to copy the shape.
Page 487 Output Tab There are several parameters which control how the warped image is rendered and are located under the Warp label. Use: Timing Set the timing of the deformation. The default state is Global where all shapes deform at the same time based on the interpolation you set (see below), or you can select the timing to be on a per shape basis allowing you to deform various features on differing...
Page 488 There are several parameters which control how the image warp transformation is computed and they are located under the Render label. Use: Quality Control the quality versus speed of the deformation as higher quality warping takes more computation time. If you experience discontinuities or warps that are not smooth, or if the animation has regions that do not warp smoothly over time you should in- crease the Quality setting.
Page 489: Options Tab
(a) Skew (b) Rigid Use: Boundary Set the image boundary to either Fixed or Free. Fixed holds the border of the image in place while Free lets the image expand beyond the image border. (a) Fixed (b) Free Like the Garbage Mask, the Warp 2D tool's Output tab contains a crop tool and user settings controls—see Output Tab Settings on page 558.
Page 490: 2D Transforms
Links spacing = 30 Morphing Between Two Images Although the Warp 2D tool warps a single image, you can morph between two images using the following workflow: To warp between two images: 1 Add a Warp 2D tool node to image A. 2 Place all your source shapes onto image A.
Page 491 Affine transforms can be applied for free performance-wise, i.e. they can be applied at the same time as the warps without slowing down the tools. By combining transforms into a single resampling operation, the produced image has less degradation than if separate transform and warp tools were used. In addition, the combined transforms/warps approach is not susceptible to the bottleneck issue.
Page 492 The image can be moved along the Y or X world axis, respectively by dragging either the vertical or horizontal arrow protruding from the square. The vertical and horizontal arrows extending further from the square act on the Y and X image axis respectively. To rotate the input image, warp effect, or output image: Do one of the following: Type values into the Z Rotation value editors and press Enter.
Page 493 Note that the world and image axes are equivalent when there is no rotation. To scale the input image, warp effect, or output image: Do one of the following: Type values into the X and Y Scale value editors and press Enter. Move the right angle in the centre of the direct manipulator.
Page 494: Cropping And Filtering The Output
NOTE You can use the following hotkeys to quickly select a manipulator; press M to select the Input manipulator, press comma (,) to select the Effect manipulator, or press period (.) to select the Output manipulator. Cropping and Filtering the Output The Crop allows you to change the size of an image.
Page 495 Filter Description better isotropic qualities, less ringing, and same sharpening and anti- aliasing. The next example illustrates the sharpening and ringing effects of the six filters. The next example illustrates the anti-aliasing and blurring effects of the six filters. These examples were created with a checkerboard and polar tool to provide variance in frequencies in all directions.
Page 496: Warping Tools
Other common output parameters: Use: AA Factor Adjust the trade-off between anti-aliasing and blurriness. Tiling X/Y Set the repeat mode. Choose from; Transparent (default), Edge, Repeat, and Mirror. Aspect Control whether the mapping is stretched to cover the entire image region of definition (ROD) while in Image mode, or whether the mapping is only uniformly stretched to fit the height of the image (Circular mode).
Page 497 Tool Description Wave Creates a wave effect in an image—see Wave Tool on page 496 Crumple The Crumple tool lets you create an image which appears crumpled like a piece of paper. Original image The Crumple tool has the following parameters: Use: Amplitude Control the overall strength of the filter.
Page 498 image: Modulation and Vectors. Both ways can be combined together by specifying the Modulation Image and a Forward Vectors image. Displacing with Modulation You can use a single channel to modulate the displacement along a fixed direction. You can define the fixed distance and angle and the displacement increases or decreases by the intensity of the channels (Red, Green, Blue, Alpha or Luma) of the modulation image.
Page 499 Displacing with Forward Vectors You can use a forward vector image to define the displacement of the primary input image. Each pixel can be moved in a different direction. The red component of the image represents the X direction of the motion vector and the green component the Y direction.
Page 500 Use: Mode Select either lens correction or distortion. This affects all other parameters. The other parameters will be considered either in a distortion or in a correction work flow. The distortion transforma- tion is exactly the inverse of the correction, so keeping the same parameters and putting back to back distortion plus rectification will give back the original result, but filtered twice at each trans- formation resulting in possible degradation in image quality.
Page 501 distort tool would be added to the dependency graph and used (in Correct mode) to rectify the distortion before compositing the new layer over it. The composite will then be made (any compositing operation) and a second instance of the correcting Lens Distort tool would be added after the compositing operation has taken place using the same values but in Distort mode applying the original distort to both layers.
Page 502 3 Modify the existing spline. 4 Click the Analyze button to analyze radial distortion from the created spline. The image is corrected and the Magnitude and Adjustment fields are updated. 490 | Chapter 19 Warping...
Page 503 5 To remove the spline, click Clear. Note that this removes the editable spline only, but does not remove the correction. If you add a new spline, corrections will be additive. 6 To begin a new analysis, click the Reset button in the Tools Options. 7 To correct an analysis, use Undo (Ctrl + Z for Windows and Linux or Cmd + Z for Mac OS).
Page 504 Use: Direction Set the direction of the magnification. Setting to Horizontal results in a rectangular magnification region, enlarged in the horizontal direction. It can also be set to Vertical which enlarges the image in the vertical direction. Or it can be set to Both resulting in a circular magnification region, such as a magnifying glass.
Page 505 Use: Amount Control the severity of the pinch. Positive pinch pulls the image inside the cone, making it appear to recede. Negative values stretch the image over the cone, moving the center point closer to your point of view. Polar Tool The Polar tool lets you transform the input image from Cartesian coordinates to Polar coordinates or vice versa.
Page 506 Ripple Tool The Ripple tool lets you create ripple-like effects from the center of the image outward. Pond Ripples The Ripple tool has the following parameters: Mode Determine the ripple effect. Pond Ripples create ripples with a 45 degree offset. Out from Center pushes the ripples away from the center, extending the first half, and compressing the second half of each ripple.
Page 507 Use: Max Ridges Control the total number of ripples that can be generated. For example, set Max Ridges to 5 to create 5 rings of distortion; the area inside and outside of the rings are unaffected. Spread Set the distance between the ripples and the center. Animate the spread to create continuous rippling of the image.
Page 508 Use: angle can also be changed with a rotation manipulator in the player. Twirl the rotation. Wave Tool The Wave tool lets you simulate waves in a single direction (as opposed to circular waves as found in Ripple). Original image The Wave tool has the following parameters.
Page 509: Chapter 20 Effects Tools
Effects Tools Topics in this chapter: About Effects Tools on page 497 Drop Shadow on page 497 Glow on page 498 About Effects Tools Effects tools let you add lighting and shadow effects to your images. There are two effects tools available: Tool Description Drop Shadow...
Page 510: Glow
coloring it; the resulting shadow can then be sent to the output or composited under the original input image. The Drop Shadow tool has the following parameters: Output Controls whether to output the shadow alone or composited under the input image. The UI will present a pull-down menu with Composite and Shadow Only items.
Page 511 Threshold Lets you determine which parts of the image (usually the brightest) you want to apply the glow to. You can base the threshold either on a channel; Red, Green, Blue or Alpha, or Luma, or on a color component of the image (R,G,B or overall luminance).
Page 512 Type values into the channel fields and press Enter. In the case of modifying all channels uniformly, when values are typed into any field, the other fields update. The luminance field will update regardless of which method is used to modify the values. Select the Reset button to return all values to 0.
Page 513: Chapter 21 Managing Film Grain
Managing Film Grain Topics in this chapter: About Managing Grain on page 501 Adding Grain to a Composition on page 502 Removing Grain from a Composition on page 504 Fine-tuning the Grain on page 505 Saving and Loading Grain Profiles on page 507 About Managing Grain Grain is a basic characteristic of film.
Page 514: Adding Grain To A Composition
Grain added to composition. The grain management tools let you create convincing composites with film material. You may want to add grain to clips that originate from video to give them a film look. The grain management tools are useful when: Mixing film clips originating from different film stocks;...
Page 515 (a) Input image of CG character on which grain will be applied. (b) Panner tool to place the CG character at the desired location in the reference image. (c) Add Grain tool (d) Comp Ops tool to composite the CG character over the background(A over B). (e) Reference image from which the grain is sampled.
Page 516: Removing Grain From A Composition
(a) Selection button The regions you defined are analyzed and grain is applied over the entire composition. Response curves are generated and displayed in the Animation Editor. You can now fine-tune the resulting curves—see Fine-tuning the Grain on page 505. Removing Grain from a Composition Removing grain from a composition allows you to composite two grainy clips that don't match, or simply to clean up a clip.
Page 517: Fine-Tuning The Grain
Regions of the reference image that are appropriate for analysis are analyzed and grain is applied over the entire composition. Click the Selection button and drag to define an area to analyze. For best results, define multiple regions of uniform color with no features. Click the Analyze button to create the grain.
Page 518 To fine-tune the grain: Use any of the following controls on the Add Grain or Remove Grain UI: Use: Red, Green, Blue Adjust the values of the RGB channels for the gain and size of the grain. Link Link the R, G, and B channels of the gain or size, so when you change the value of one channel, the others change as well.
Page 519: Saving And Loading Grain Profiles
To frame the response curves: Under Curves, click the Frame button. To reset the Animation Editor: Under Curves, click the Reset button. The currently selected curve is set to 0. Saving and Loading Grain Profiles A grain profile is a set of parameters that describes grain appearance. Once you create a grain profile through the Add Grain or Remove Grain tool, you can save it and reload it for use in other compositions.
Page 521: Chapter 22 Pulling Keys And Creating Mattes
Pulling Keys and Creating Mattes Topics in this chapter: Keying Concepts on page 509 Keying Workflow on page 512 Extracting a Key Using the Diamond Keyer on page 514 Creating a Difference Matte Using the Difference Tool on page 517 Extracting a Key Using the Luma Keyer on page 518 Removing Color Spill with Color Curves...
Page 522 which are opaque (white). Using techniques, such as softening the edge of mattes, you can refine the results to create realistic composites. Keying Keying is the process of isolating a region of an image by selecting pixels of a particular color and making those pixels transparent, or creating an alpha channel where those pixels are located.
Page 523 Hold-out matte A matte that prevents a foreground element from completely obscuring an object in the background. Traveling matte A matte that changes position or shape over time. Color Models A color model is a means of identifying colors in a source according to its component parts.
Page 524: Keying Workflow
Softness Colors that fall within the softness range are partially transparent. These areas appear gray (a dark gray to light gray range) in the matte. For example, softness makes the transition between the foreground and background of a composition more convincing by softening what would otherwise look like an abrupt cutout.
Page 525 Selecting Keying Tools When you key an image or an image sequence, you can use a keyer or a collection of keying tools to generate a matte or remove color spill from a shot. You may also need to generate more than one key to achieve the desired result.
Page 526: Extracting A Key Using The Diamond Keyer
The Keying tools include Color Curves, Diamond Keyer, the Difference tool, and Luma Keyer. To add a keying tool to the process tree: 1 From the Tools tab, drag a keying tool to the process tree in Schematic. 2 Drag the Keying tool over the output of a node that you wish to key. When the connection is highlighted, release the mouse.
Page 527 Use: Plot Color Plot a pixel or range of pixels to key in an image. Tolerance Set tolerance range based on current value of a sampled pixel or range of pixels. Softness Set softness (of the matte edge) range based on current value of a sampled pixel or range of pixels.
Page 528 (a) Plotted color within tolerance range (b) Softness wireframe diamond (c) Tolerance wireframe diamond You can drag the three control points of the tolerance wireframe diamond to cover more or less of the hue spectrum. To solve problem areas, use the Key Color eyedropper to plot a color in the image.
Page 529: Creating A Difference Matte Using The Difference Tool
(a) Tolerance sliders (b) Tolerance and Softness value fields (white range) (c) 1.0 white indicator (d) Softness sliders (e) 0.0 black indicator (f) Sharpness value field (g) Tolerance and Softness value fields (black range) Use: Tolerance Change the tolerance's luma range (drag the cursor or enter a value in the Tolerance value field).
Page 530: Extracting A Key Using The Luma Keyer
The Difference tool contains the following parameters: (a) Channels (b) Tolerance value fields for RGB channels (c) Softness fields for RGB channels (d) Gain and Lift adjustment The matte is created using Tolerance and Softness values. The Tolerance value specifies the difference level that is considered black. A high Tolerance value includes more black in the matte.
Page 531: Removing Color Spill With Color Curves
Use: Set the range of pixels to key based on the threshold range. Threshold Set the range of the pixels to key. Increasing the threshold removes less prevalent pixels from the composition. Softness Soften the edge of the key. NOTE Key, Threshold, and Softness are animatable attributes—see Marking Attributes for Keyframing on page 674.
Page 532 (a) Channels (b) Curves window (c) Color Targets Use: Channels controls Select which color curve you want to manipulate. Curves window Adjust the curve by manipulating its control points and tan- gents. For more precise work, add and delete control points by using the + and - hotkeys when your cursor is in the Curves window.
Page 533 Suppressing a Sampled Color Unwanted color can be caused by factors such as inconsistent lighting conditions during a shoot. This can result in images that contain unnatural looking colors or one predominant color, which gives the image an unwanted color cast. You can suppress the unwanted color using the Suppression feature in the Color Curves.
Page 534: Keyer Super Tool
with the curve changes relative to the height of the point on the curve in the curve editing area. Each curve is a hue gradient and as the shape of the curve changes, the colors along the curve's gradient change to reflect the result. For example: Raising the blue curve over the darker luma range, the curve along that range becomes bluer (for all pixels with a lower mean luma value, the blue channel value increases—the result in the image is that blue is added to...
Page 535: Supported Features
Refining the edges of a matte Degraining a key in image Spill suppression Improving the blend between the front and back images. Compositing using a matte Supported Features The Keyer supertool supports the following features and functionality: Quick selection of Keyer nodes Adding and changing tools in the Keyer schematic Master Keyer matte generator with on-screen manipulation Unlimited patches...
Page 536 The Front input image is despilled by the Spill & Blend tool node. The result is sent to the Result node (an instance of the Set Alpha tool) to become the RGB channels of the RGBA Output Image output. The Front input image is processed first by the Screen Degrain tool node, then by the Master Keyer matte generator.
Page 537 In the most common use case, the key color you sample will be the one used for screen degraining and spill and blend adjustments. To provide quick workflow, the Master Keyer, Screen Degrain and Spill & Blend initially created by the Keyer super-tool all share the primary and secondary key colors, and mix values of these samples.
Page 538 The first four buttons are pre-defined to select the Keyer itself, the Clean Up Alpha, the Garbage Mask, or the Edge tool respectively. Selecting the node button will display the UI of the given tool, as well as set the display of the Animation editor, and the composition browser.
Page 539 To generate and refine a matte with the Master Keyer: 1 Set a Player view to Tool Output and, with the selection on the Keyer super tool node, cycle to the Comp Output of the Keyer—see Cycling Through Inputs and Outputs on page 71.
Page 540 To add softness, drag a slider to the right. To remove softness, drag a slider to the left. The red indicator shows the original value and the yellow indicator shows the current value. 7 To modify more than one parameter, move the mouse between the parameters until the cursor changes to a double arrow, or drag vertically.
Page 541 drag. You can then modify the displayed parameters by clicking the image and dragging the highlighted slider. NOTE To reset Matte parameters, click the Reset button under the Master Keyer UI. All matte parameters are reset, except the Mix field and the key colors.
Page 542 NOTE You can create an arbitrary number of matte generator patches. The number of patches starts at one, and new patches can be created. Although, in theory, there is no limit to the number of patches, in practice, there are diminishing returns in terms of matte quality when adding new patches.
Page 543 6 To use the same patch but start with a new sample, press Ctrl + Alt + drag the image. 7 To manually select a patch type, select it from the Patch box. NOTE If you want to reset the patch, so you can automatically select the patch type, you must disable the patch and set the patch type to Off.
Page 544 3 Sample a grainy area of the image. To sample a single pixel, click the image. To sample an area of the image, Ctrl + drag a selection box. Once the image is sampled, Screen Degrain is automatically enabled and grain is removed from the image.
Page 545 Suppressing Spill After you create a key and key out any trouble areas, some of the background color may have spilled over the edge of the key. Use the Spill controls to suppress or disguise color spill in the front image. To gesturally remove color spill: 1 Set a Player view to Tool Output and, with the selection on the Keyer super tool node, cycle to Comp Output—see...
Page 546 To blend the front and back images: 1 Set a Player view to Tool Output and, with the selection on the Keyer super tool node, cycle to Comp Output—see Cycling Through Inputs and Outputs on page 71. 2 Select Blend from the Sample menu or press Shift + B. 3 Blend the front and back image.
Page 547 4 To modify both parameters, move the mouse between them to highlight a parameter, or drag the pen vertically. When you highlight the parameter you want to adjust, drag the slider. NOTE If you do not like the result, you can click Undo to reset parameters after you complete an operation.
Page 549: Chapter 23 Masking
Masking Topics in this chapter: About Masking on page 537 Masking Concepts on page 538 Garbage Mask Tool Tabs on page 538 Creating Masks on page 540 Editing Masks on page 543 Transforming Masks on page 548 Creating and Editing Edges on page 554 User Settings on page 555...
Page 550: Masking Concepts
Pixel Masking lets you temporarily isolate specific areas of the footage. You can apply effects to the selected area of an image without affecting the rest. Masking Concepts You can use garbage masks to key undesired elements in an image and to do rotoscope work.
Page 551 Garbage Mask Controls The Garbage Mask tab consists of the following controls and parameter settings: Mask List The Mask List displays all the masks that have been created for the current composition. It also displays some of the masking parameters and navigation buttons.
Page 552: Creating Masks
Use: Reset the Comp operator, Opacity, Intensity and the mask Invert toggle of selected masks. Move selected masks to the bottom of the Mask list. Move selected masks down one place in the Mask list. Move selected masks up one place in the Mask list. Move masks to the top of the Mask list.
Page 553 the Factory Default button—see User Settings on page 555. You can change the following parameters once a Creation tool is selected: Garbage mask Name Opacity (animatable) Intensity (animatable) Smoothing Invert (animatable) Compositing Operator—see Compositing Operators on page 563. Correlation. Specify how input mattes are correlated. This can be used to improve the quality of the composite in special cases.
Page 554 5 Continue to click in the image to add more control points. 6 To close the shape, click on the first control point you created, or press Enter. If you hold Ctrl + Alt, the shape will be closed in Auto Tangent mode.
Page 555: Editing Masks
To create an elliptical mask: 1 Select the Elliptical tool button or press W. 2 Set initial mask parameters if necessary. 3 Select Ellipse Options settings if necessary. These options include: Use: From Center Click and drag the cursor to draw the mask from the center of the first mouse/pen click.
Page 556 Selecting a shape or group of shapes from the mask list. Selecting a shape or group of shapes in the Player. There are two mask editing tools in the Garbage Mask UI; the Point tool and the Transform tool. Use the Point tool to edit mask points. Depending on what hot key is pressed and on the location of the mouse cursor, the mouse cursor updates and displays a visual cue for the current edit mode.
Page 557 To delete control points from a mask: Press and hold the Alt key and click on the control point you want to delete or, select points and press the Delete key. To move control points: Do one of the following: Click and drag a control point.
Page 558 To add or delete tangent handles: Press and hold the Ctrl key and click on the control points to go from a sharp curve to a smooth curve with tangent handles and drag to adjust the tangents. Press and hold the Ctrl key and click on the control point a second time to delete them.
Page 559 To adjust the length of both sides of an unbroken tangent handle: Hold the Alt key and drag the handle. When you press Alt and drag an unbroken tangent handle, both tangent handles are automatically given the same length. To break a tangent handle: Press Ctrl then click and drag the handle.
Page 560: Transforming Masks
To move a curve between points: Hold Ctrl + Alt over the location on the curve you want to move then drag the curve. The curve and tangents adjust accordingly based on the location of the cursor. Transforming Masks Once your mask is created, use the Transform tool to fine tune its position, shape, and size.
Page 561 can also be animated. Once you select the Translate tool, the following parameters are displayed: The following mask shape Transform parameters can be animated. They are accessible from the animation timeline and expressions can be assigned to all of them: Translation X Translation Y Rotation R...
Page 562 Use: Translation X,Y Translate the mask in the X and Y direction. Offset X,Y Add an offset to the translation of a garbage mask. Rotation Rotate the mask. Scale Change the mask's X or Y scale (or both with Link enabled). Pivot Adjust the X and Y location of the mask's center of rotation/scaling.
Page 563 To add an offset to the translation of a mask: Do one of the following: Type the offset position into the X, Y value editors and press Enter. Click + drag inside the value editor. Transforming Masks | 551...
Page 564 To rotate a mask: Do one of the following: With the cursor over the rotation handle, rotate the mask. Type the angle of rotation (in degrees) into the Rotation value editor and press Enter. Click + drag inside the value editor. To scale a mask: Do one of the following: With the cursor over the one of the mask's resize handles, click + drag...
Page 565 To adjust the X and Y location of the mask's center of rotation (pivot point): Do one of the following: With the cursor over the mask's pivot handle, click + drag the mask. Type the X and Y pivot position values into the X and Y Pivot value editors and press Enter.
Page 566: Creating And Editing Edges
Click + drag inside the value editor. Creating and Editing Edges If you have not set initial edge gradient parameters before creating a mask shape. You can do so while in edit mode. The following mask In and Out Edge point parameters (for each edge point) can be animated.
Page 567: User Settings
To change the edge distance or position: 1 Do one of the following: Drag the outer edge handle towards the outside of the mask to create an outer edge gradient, or towards the center of the mask to create an inner edge gradient. Type the distance (in pixels) into the Distance value editor and position (relative to the first control point generated for the mask) then press Enter.
Page 568 Any subsequent mask you create will inherit the same settings except for the mask color (which by default is on Auto and picks a random color), and the mask name instance (the next mask would be named GMask(2)). If you change the parameters for a second mask, for example, its name, color and toggle off the Auto Color, all masks you create afterward will retain those parameters.
Page 569 New rectangular mask (second instance) reset to the green square selected from the Mask List. To create a series of garbage masks working with User Settings: 1 Select the Freeform creation tool (or press D) and draw a freeform mask using default values. 2 Select the Ellipse tool.
Page 570: Output Tab Settings
15 Create the mask in the image. 16 Select the Ellipse tool. (or press W). 17 Select Reset To User Favorite. 18 Click once in the Player to create the mask. 19 Select the Mask named Green from the Mask List. 20 Select the Rectangle tool (or press S).
Page 571: Options Tab Settings
Select: Comp Choose which compositing mode will be used —see Global Composite Operators on page 564. Correlation Specify how input mattes are correlated. This can be used to improve the quality of the composite in special cases. For example, if you com- posite two mattes that share a good portion of their outline, you should indicate if they are Adjacent or Superposed.
Page 572: Pixel Masking
Use: Keyframing Set how mask points will be keyframed. Choose from Selection, Point, or Shape. If a mask control point is moved (animated) the following attributes will be keyframed based on the Key- framing mode. Shape (default) X, Y positions, Tangent Angles In and Out, and Tangent Lengths In and Out for all points of the shape.
Page 573: Masking Parameters
Masking Parameters The masking parameters are in a separate tab in the Tool UI. This tab is immediately to the right of the tool tab the mask will originate from. Select: Create Create an instance of a masking tool selected from the pull-down list. The tool is created in the current composition and its output is connected to the Mask input of the current tools.
Page 574 input. If there is already a tool connected to the masking input, there are two behaviors: If the new masking tool has an image input, the current masking tool output is disconnected from the masked tool, and connected to the new masking tool's primary image input.
Page 575 (a) Original Image (a) Sky corrected (b) Water corrected (c) Sand corrected (d) Chairs corrected Compositing Operators The following table lists the compositing operators applicable between generated masks and previously composited masks: Operator Result: Over Composites the generated mask (front) over the previously composited masks (back).
Page 576 Operator Result: Outside The output will be equal to the generated mask (front) except that the part of the front overlapping the previously composited masks (back) will be missing. No part of the back will be visible in the output in any case. Cutout The output will be equal to the previously composited mask (back) except that the part of the back covered by the generated masks (front) will be...
Page 577 Operator Result: any case. Basically this operator is equal to the Outside operator with the front and back roles reversed. Both previously composited masks (front) and input image alpha channel (back) are copied to the output except for the part where they overlap. Pixel Masking Example | 565...
Page 579: Raster Paint
Raster Paint Topics in this chapter: About Raster Paint on page 567 Paint UI on page 568 Layer Editor on page 568 Paint Brush Controls and Attributes on page 569 Paint Stroke Controls on page 572 Working with Layers on page 572 Adding, Deleting, Clearing, and Wiping Layers on page 574 Layer Behavior...
Page 580: Paint Ui
the composite view is constantly maintained. Individual layers can also be muted selectively. Committing and Undoing Operations You can undo multiple paint strokes in layer-based Paint. In the context of undo, a stroke is whatever you paint on the canvas until you commit. Do any of the following to commit paint strokes to the undo stack: Press any key.
Page 581: Paint Brush Controls And Attributes
(a) View checkbox (b) Reveal checkbox (c) Alpha (d) Name (e) Opacity/Blend controls (f) Canvas controls (g) Layer controls Use: V (view) Mute or view a layer. R (reveal) Conduct reveal operations with this layer. Alpha Select the alpha channel to paint on. Name Use Name to give the layer a name.
Page 582 Stamping Patterns The brush stamping pattern is a bitmap image that is used as a pattern to create a stroke. They can be resized from 1 pixel to 512x512 pixels. Composite comes with a set of predefined brushes and they are stored as an image file in the Composite installation directory under \Resources\Brushes.
Page 583 (a) Brush size 100, opacity 1.000 (b) Brush size 25, opacity.500 Rate The brush rate is the rate at which brush strokes are applied to the canvas. A high value produces a smooth continuous stroke, and a low value produces a less continuous stroke with larger gaps between brush images.
Page 584: Paint Stroke Controls
Paint Stroke Controls Strokes are rendered based on the brush attributes and the stencil. The stroke shape is formed by stamping the brush shape along the path created by the pen (or mouse) movement. The paint stroke controls have the following parameters: Operation Paint materials define the material used to render the brush.
Page 585 Raster Layer Format When you create a new layer in Raster Paint, you can change the layer's format as long as you haven't committed any paint strokes to the layer. To change the layer's format, double click the paint node, then click to highlight the raster layer node.
Page 586: Adding, Deleting, Clearing, And Wiping Layers
If you want to change the format settings of a layer, you must create a new layer and start over. Adding, Deleting, Clearing, and Wiping Layers All layers appear in the Layers list. The Layers list allows you to view and rearrange layer ordering in the Paint node, as well as select layers to be hidden or revealed.
Page 587 (a) Internal layer - front (b) Internal layer - alpha (a) External layer - front (b) External layer with its alpha To add an internal layer: Click the Add Layer button at the bottom of the Layer Editor. (a) Add Layer button Adding a Layer | 575...
Page 588: Deleting Layers
To add an external layer: Do one of the following: Select the Add Layer button at the bottom of the Layer Editor then connect an input image to the new layer node's input. Drop a composition (or compositions) containing a rendered result onto the Paint node and select Create Layer from the drop gate.
Page 589 (a) Delete Layer button The layer is deleted. Clearing a Layer Clearing a layer is the same regardless of the layer type. When an entire layer (not just the front or alpha) is selected for clearing, the front input is set to be cleared by default.
Page 590: Layer Behavior
(a) Clear Layer button (b) Selected layer to clear The layer is deleted. Wiping Layers Wipe a layer when you want to apply a uniform color. For example, you can wipe the color of the bottom layer in the Layers list to change the background color.
Page 591 The image doesn't yet have its own alpha channel. By default, the Paint tool creates one for it and is shown as a proxy beside that of the input image illustrated in the following graphic of the Layer Editor. The following graphic displays the result of painting a black stroke across the front input image.
Page 592 In this case, only the alpha portion of the image was manipulated, however, since a black stroke was used, part of the alpha has become transparent. If a white stroke were used there would be no change to the alpha. If a color other than black or white were used, varying transparencies would occur on the front image and varying shades of gray would result on the alpha.
Page 593 (a) Composition output view (b) Tool output view (Keyer) When a stroke is added to the front image (in this case using black), the stroke is constrained to the white part of the alpha, and since the alpha was not selected, no change to the alpha was made.
Page 594: Stroke Operations
If a white stroke is used, the transparency of the alpha is decreased. Stroke Operations There are four paint stroke operations available in the Paint tool. Operation Description Paint Lets you paint on a selected layer's front or alpha—see Paint on page 582.
Page 595 To hide the lower half of the sun so that it lines up with the horizon, a sharp-edged square stroke was used, and the stroke operation was changed from Paint to Erase. The sun was then painted out. Paint | 583...
Page 596 The last step is to add the sun's reflection to the water. 584 | Chapter 24 Raster Paint...
Page 597 Drawing a Straight Line To draw a straight line: 1 Click the location in the image where you want the line to begin. 2 Press Shift and click the location in the image where you want the line to end. The line is drawn between the two points.
Page 598 Unwanted areas can be removed from the image by painting on the alpha of the image. Revealing Parts of an Image The Reveal operation lets you use the contents of one or more layers as the paint source for a different layer. You can include the contents of as many layers as you like.
Page 599 5 To reveal the contents of a different frame than the one you are currently viewing, enter its frame number in the Slip field. 6 In the Layer Editor, click the layer that you want to paint on. (a) Layer to paint (b) Layer to reveal 7 To see the layer or layers selected for reveal, select the V (view) option, and adjust the opacity.
Page 600 To reveal and offset a layer: 1 Perform steps 1 to 6 from the previous procedure, “To reveal one or more layers”. 2 To set the source area, press Ctrl and click the canvas. When you click the canvas, the red brush is anchored and the green brush reappears. Setting source area Setting destination 3 Position the green brush over the destination area and click the canvas.
Page 601 4 To set precise coordinates for the reveal offset, use the X and Y Offset fields. 5 Click and drag on the canvas to apply offset strokes that reveal the contents of the selected layers. Revealed portion of layer using Average blend method. Cloning a Region of an Image The Clone tool lets you copy a region of the layer and paint it on a destination area.
Page 602 destination occupy the same layer. To clone part of one layer on a different layer, use the Reveal tool—see Revealing Parts of an Image on page 586. To clone part of a layer and paint it on the same layer: 1 Under Stroke, select the Clone operation.
Page 603 6 Position the green brush over the destination area, then click + drag the canvas to create the clone stroke. The offsets are made and immediately shown in the X and Y Offset fields. The green and red brushes are now locked into positions relative to each other and move in tandem.
Page 604 Erasing Paint Strokes When you erase paint strokes, you can select the brush size and type for different effects. To erase paint strokes: 1 Under Strokes, select the Erase operation. 2 From the Layer Editor, select the layer on which you want to erase strokes. 3 Set a brush type and size—see Paint Brush Controls and Attributes page 569.
Page 605 Stencil: Result: Matte Off Default setting, no stencils are used. Use Layer Strokes will be constrained by the matte inputted into the layer. Use Stroke Forms a stencil from what is currently available in that layer. Invert Inverts the stencil. Using Stencils | 593...
Page 607: Vector Paint
Vector Paint Topics in this chapter: About Vector Paint on page 595 Vector Paint Image Inputs on page 596 Shape Properties on page 596 Vector Paint UI on page 597 About Vector Paint Composite's Vector Paint tool can be used to draw, to rotoscope, to clone parts of an image in a different location, or to reveal a completely different image.
Page 608: Vector Paint Image Inputs
Vector Paint Image Inputs You can optionally connect images to the Vector Paint image inputs. The Vector Paint node in the Schematic has two image input tabs. The top-most tab is the background image input. Connect an image to this input to use as your canvas background.
Page 609: Vector Paint Ui
line strips cannot be edited. To edit them, make a Bézier curve out of the line strip. Shapes in Vector Paint have a duration: they appear at their Mark In frame, and are removed at their Mark Out frame. Vector Paint UI The Vector Paint UI is composed of five tabs: the main (Vector Paint) tab, the Transform tab, the Brush tab, the Output tab, and the Settings tab.
Page 610 Use: Control the visibility of the shape (mute or view). Name Provide a meaningful name for the shape. Opacity Set the shape opacity. Mark In Set the frame at which the shape becomes visible. Mark Out Set the frame at which the shape disap- pears.
Page 611 Use: Channels Which channels will be affected by the shape. Anti-Aliasing. Filled shapes (without a gradient) will have sub-pixel antialiased rendering, and stroked shapes will have sub-pixel positioning of strokes. In general, all columns (except Lock) have their equivalent in the main tab's main section.
Page 612 tools form the first row of the shape creation and editing tools, and the editing tools form the second. Use: Freehand Create a freehand line strip shape. Bézier Create a Bézier shape point by point. Rectangle Create a rectangular (or square) Bézier shape.
Page 613: Main Tab
Use: Tolerance Set the pixel tolerance when converting freehand shapes to Bézier. Pen Pressure Controls Use: Size Have pen pressure control brush size. Opacity Have pen pressure control opacity. Main Tab Vector Paint's main tab contains the most common settings that affect a shape. Main Shape Attributes The leftmost section in the main tab contains the basic shape controls.
Page 614 Use: Opacity Control shape opacity. Blend Control the blending mode of the shape. See Blend Modes in the Blend Alpha page 344 section. Stream Set the stream in which the shape will be drawn. Note that this parameter is not animatable.
Page 615 Use: controls whether smoothing will be applied to pixels that are only partially covered by the shape. Reset Reset all parameters described in this sec- tion. Clone/Reveal Attributes This section contains attributes relevant to shapes that use an image source as their color content, when the shape Operation is Clone or Reveal, as opposed to a solid color, when the shape Operation is Paint.
Page 616 Use: an absolute frame index, disable to inter- pret the Frame value as an offset relative to the current frame. Edges Control how pixels outside the clone/ re- veal image source are generated. Transpar- ent sets them as transparent, Edge extends the edge pixel of the clone/reveal source, Repeat repeats the clone/reveal image source, and Mirror mirrors the clone/reveal...
Page 617 Use: Position X,Y Controls the point's position. Presssure Controls the point's pressure. This can be used to change brush size or shape opa- city. Active Controls whether the point is used for drawing the shape. Since this parameter is animatable (as almost all other Vector Paint parameters), deactivating a point over a range of frames may be useful if you want to keep points part of the shape, but...
Page 618 Use: Distance: Control edge gradient point distance from the shape. Negative means inside the shape if the shape is closed. Position: Control gradient point position on the shape relative to the shape's point indices. For example, 2.5 represents a gradient point midway betweeen points 2 and 3, while 2.75 is 3/4 of the way from point 2 to 3.
Page 619 transformation will be composed by the shape transform. If the "x Shape" toggle is off, they will be absolute. In Reveal mode, all parts of the transform are absolute, with scale, rotation and shear with respect to pivot, as expected. The "x Shape" toggle controls are not used.
Page 620 Rectangle rotation at 30, x Shape button enabled. Clone/Reveal rotation at 20, x Shape button enabled. 608 | Chapter 25 Vector Paint...
Page 621: Brush Tab
Rectangle rotation at 30, Clone/Reveal rotation at 20, x Shape button enabled. NOTE Clone/reveal transform controls are also found in the main tab for translation x, y and rotation. Brush Tab The brush tab has controls that affect drawing of stroked shapes. As for other tabs, it has the shape and tools pane at the left.
Page 622 Use: Anti-Alias Enable/disable anti-aliased brush rendering. Transform Enable/disable whether brush transform is affected by shape transform. Airbrush Toggle to create stamps when no pointer movement is detected Flow Factor applied to the brush profile when Airbrush is enabled. Brush Profile Editor The Brush Profile Editor allows you to specify a radial profile for your brush.
Page 623 Brush Preview The brush preview displays a rendered preview of the brush, with all parameters applied, including its profile. At the bottom of the brush preview are brush center controls. Use: Set brush center x coordinate, relative to the brush size. -1 is left, 1 is right. Set brush center y coordinate, relative to the brush size.
Page 624: Settings Tab
Output Tab The Output tab provides controls that are used when Vector Paint does not have an image connected to its background image input. In such a case, Vector Paint behaves as an image generator. For more information about image generator properties and formats, see Setting Image Generation Properties and Formats on page 420 section in the Image Processing and Tools chapter.
Page 625 Use: Handle Color Set the Bézier handle color in the player. Edge Color Set the edge gradient curve color in the player. Edge Visible Enable edge gradient curve visibility in the player. Brush Color Brush outline color in the player. Brush Visible Brush outline visibility in the player.
Page 626 Performance Notes Here are some notes on the following topics: Rendering, Clone/Reveal Filtering, Mulit-Shape Editing and Manipulators. Rendering Vector Paint uses the normal Composite high performance computation engine when rendering images used by the nodes connected to its output (downstream nodes). This provides the best overall performance and throughput, but can introduce noticeable lag (or latency) when drawing shapes in a player.
Page 627 Changing the brush profile, in the Brush Tab. Resetting parameters through ctrl-click or right-click. Manipulators As for the other shape-based tools, many aspects of the the shapes' appearance and positioning can be modified by manipulating them directly in the player. One notable exception to this is the shear parameters which, for both shape and clone/reveal transforms, can only be modified through the Transform tab.
Page 628 tool. This manipulation tool is available for single-shape selections, and its manipulators will only be drawn if the selected shape's Operation is set to Clone or Reveal. The manipulators appear in the player at the pivot position for the image being used.
Page 629: Color Correction
Color Correction Topics in this chapter: About Color Correcting on page 618 Applying LUTs on page 618 Working with ASC CDLs on page 624 Broadcast Safe Tool on page 625 Transforming Color Space with the Log and Delog Tools on page 627 Color Correcting with CC Basics on page 630 CC Histogram...
Page 630: About Color Correcting
About Color Correcting Color correction describes any process that modifies the perceived color of an image. The CC Basics tool options include a complete selection of color manipulation tools that give you precise control over color values. You can modify luma ranges in an image (shadows, midtones, and highlights), sample colors, and set the color balance.
Page 631 Working with 1D LUTs A 1D LUT is generated from one measure of gamma (white, gray, and black) or a series of measures for each color channel. You typically work with a pair of 1D LUTs: the first converts logarithmic data to linear data, and the second converts the linear data back to logarithmic data to print to film.
Page 632 LUT: 3 256 Each line following the header contains a single entry indicating the value to which the source is converted. For example, a table converting 10-bit logarithmic values to 8-bit linear would contain 1024 entries, corresponding to the 0–1023 intensity range of pixels in the source file. Each of these entries would be in the range 0–255, corresponding to the intensity range in the destination.
Page 633 Applying a 1D LUT LUTs are typically stored in a folder within the application or on a network, you should store LUTs created externally in the same folder for ease of use. Three formats are supported: 8-bit unsigned integer 16-bit signed float 32-bit signed float Working with 1D LUTs | 621...
Page 634 To apply a 1D LUT to an image: 1 From the Tools tab, drag the 1D LUT tool from the Color Correction folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. 2 In the 1D LUT tab, click the LUT Browser button. Locate the 1D LUT you want to use and drag it to the dependency graph in the Schematic view.
Page 635 Working with the Lustre Color 3D LUTs Lustre Color LUTs provide a wide range of generic, out-of-the-box display and conversion capabilities. There are two main types of LUTs: display and conversion. It is important to note that the LUTs were built for generic use in production, meaning that, while delivering an accurate print film rendition, it may not match that of a particular film lab.
Page 636: Working With Asc Cdls
(a) LUT Browser button The LUT Browser appears, displaying the Lustre_Color_3DLUTs folder. 3 Open the folder and select a LUT from the Conversion folder. Drag it to the dependency graph in the Schematic. 4 In the 3D LUT tab, set the Exposure, Negative Film Gamma, Cineon Reference, and Linear Reference—see Modifying Negative Film Gamma, Cineon Reference, or Linear Reference Levels...
Page 637: Broadcast Safe Tool
intended look—see Applying a LUT or Color Conversion Tool to the Player on page 210. Within the3D LUT tool, the CDL is applied after the (optional) linear to log conversion but before the 3D LUT. Note that you may use the CDL even if you don't select a 3D LUT (and vice-versa).
Page 638 About Broadcast Safe Colors Since most computer monitors and television displays have different color ranges, the same image on a computer display can appear very different on an NTSC or PAL monitor. Colors appear much brighter on a television display. This is because video uses a different gamma curve for luminance than a computer monitor.
Page 639: Transforming Color Space With The Log And Delog Tools
To use the Broadcast Safe tool: 1 From the Tools tab, drag the Broadcast Safe tool from the Color Correction folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. 2 From the Format list, select NTSC or PAL (your video format). 3 From the Method list, select one of the following: Select: Reduce Lu-...
Page 640 The log space in Composite is very similar to that used by Cineon encoding, but it does not clamp high dynamic range values, and it is scaled with respect to the Cineon codes. That is, a Cineon code of 1023 corresponds to a value of 1.0.
Page 641 Select a single channel that you want to modify by deselecting the Lock button. Drag the red channel field to the right to increase, or to the left to decrease, the level of the red channel. The green and blue channels are not affected. However, the overall luminance field updates to reflect the change.
Page 642: Color Correcting With Cc Basics
NOTE To reset the trackball, channel, and luminance levels, select the Reset button below the trackball or the Reset button in Tool Options area on the right side of the UI (this button resets the entire tool). Color Correcting with CC Basics The CC Basics UI contains the controls used to perform color correction.
Page 643 Correct the saturation Color Correcting Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights When you modify saturation, gamma, gain, offset, and contrast, you can color correct the shadows, midtones, and highlights ranges in the image individually or all together. To color correct shadows, midtones, and highlights: Under Ranges, select a luma range to modify.
Page 644 Select: Normal Return the footage to its original values. Mono Create a monochrome (black and white or grayscale) version of the image. Negative Create a negative version of the image. Custom Redirect information from one color channel to another. The following rewiring options are available. Select: Use color values for the red channel.
Page 645 NOTE The green and blue channels are rewired in the same way as the red channel (described in the previous table). To rewire a color channel: 1 Select a rewire mode from the Rewire list. 2 Select a rewiring option. You can redirect the information from one channel into any of the other channels.
Page 646 Setting Hue Shift Shifting the hue changes the colors in the image. You can use hue shift to compensate for material that is too hot or too cool, or simply to correct undesired tones present in the images. Note that in a monochrome or very low saturation image, a hue shift produces no results, since there is no hue to begin with.
Page 647 To set the contrast: Set the Contrast field by either dragging inside the field or typing in a value. Color Balancing with Hue and Gain The two parameters used with color balancing are hue and gain. The value of hue determines the color to add and the value of gain specifies the amount of color to use.
Page 648 Quick Gain The Quick Gain controls are used to set the Gain in three specific ways: NOTE The main Gain value is applied after the other Gain fields, so changes to main Gain do not change the separate channel Gain fields or the Quick Gain fields. Modify: Temp Set gain using a scale from warm (-100) to cool (100), which results in...
Page 649 2 Drag the Gamma field to change the value (you can also type values into the field). Lower the gamma value to increase the contrast or raise the gamma value to decrease the contrast. Setting the Gain and Offset You can boost the colors in an image by increasing the gain and offset values. Gain and Offset controls multiply the pixel color values by the gain and then adds the offset value.
Page 650 looking colors or one predominant color, which gives the image an unwanted color cast. You can dampen the channel information for one or more channels. It is available for all channels. To suppress a color or channel: Under Suppress, disable the color or channel by selecting it. NOTE Suppressing blue may result in a subtle overall pale yellow cast, since yellow is the spectral complement of blue.
Page 651: Cc Histogram
3 Ctrl + click in the Reference field to invoke the eyedropper and sample a pixel in the player for that tonal range. The sampled color is displayed in the Reference field and stored as the value for the selected tonal range. 4 To match other tonal ranges, repeat the preceding steps.
Page 652 You can view histograms for the red, green, or blue channels, or you can view the histogram for the entire image (RGB). NOTE If vertical lines are too small to be viewed, you can zoom in by placing the cursor in the histogram viewer and then using the Up arrow and Down arrow keys.
Page 653 (a) Input (b) Output NOTE The CC Histogram's input and output level controls' fields are animatable attributes—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and Validating and Applying the Expression String on page 729. Input Sliders The Input sliders below the histogram viewer are used to control the range of input color values in the image.
Page 654 2 Select Master, Shadows, Midtones, or Highlights to select the areas of the image that you want to modify. 3 Select Main, Red, Green, or Blue to select the channel that you want to work with. 4 Do one of the following: Position the cursor on the black slider below the histogram.
Page 655 4 Do one of the following: Position the cursor on the black slider below the Output levels bar. Set the level until the value that you want to use as the lower limit for the color range appears in the Minimum field. The shadow areas are lightened.
Page 656: Clamp Color Tool
To see the effects of the curves on color balance: 1 Open the CC Basics UI. 2 Under Balance, adjust the Hue and Gain to set the color balance for each of the Shadow, Midtone, and Highlight ranges. 3 Go back to the Ranges controls and set the curves. 4 Go back to the CC Basics controls.
Page 657: Color Space Tool
represented in blue, all the ones above the range in red, and the ones within the range are desaturated, almost turned to grayscale, to provide context and better locate the out of range pixels with respect to image features. To view the Clamped Mask or Clamped Map: Normally, you will not connect the secondary outputs to other tools, but you may want to look at them in the Player by cycling through the tool outputs by pressing the 6 hotkey.
Page 658: Processing Images With Photo Lab
Y'CbCr (YUV) 709 Y'CbCr (YUV) 601 CIE XYZ CIE Yxy CIE L*a*b* CIE L*u*v* Processing Images with Photo Lab The Photo Lab tool lets you simulate camera exposure and photo development changes in images. You can change the exposure to brighten or darken an image in incremental steps, providing perceptually relative uniform changes in luminance.
Page 659 NOTE Many of the Photo Lab tool's fields are animatable attributes—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and Validating and Applying the Expression String page 729. Setting Exposure, Contrast, Pivot Point, and Lift of an Image Exposure Exposure can be expressed in terms of F-stops, printer lights, or gain.
Page 660 To uniformly modify the levels on all channels or on a single channel of an image: 1 From the Tools tab, drag a Photo Lab tool from the Color Correction folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. 2 Select exposure and contrast units. 3 Set Printer Lights per F-stop by dragging the field to the right or to the left.
Page 661: Inverting An Image
To modify the levels of an image using the trackball: Drag the trackball to modify levels in the image. NOTE To reset the trackball, channel, and luminance levels, select the Reset button below the trackball or the Reset button in Tool Options area on the right side of the UI (the latter resets everything).
Page 662 2 From the Remap Color UI, select a mode in which to remap the color: Linear: Maps a given range of the input values to the output interval. You can specify which luminance value in the input maps to black and which one maps to white.
Page 663 Mode: Use: decrease to darken. EXRD- Set the exposure of the image. You can lighten or isplay darken the image to reveal detail in the high or low end. Defog Compensate for fogging due to stray light in the recording device.
Page 664 NOTE The histogram is not updated during playback. To frame the histogram: Under Histo View, click the Frame button. To view the source or result histogram: Under Histo View, click the button beneath the Frame button and select Source or Result. To zoom the histogram: Under Histo View, enter a value in the Zoom box.
Page 665 a dashed color bar indicates the changes you've made to the color, relative to the source color you set. To set the source color: Click the Source color pot and select a color from the image in the Player. The result color is automatically generated. Working with Curves You can view and set values for the red, green, or blue histogram channels individually or for the curve representing the entire image (RGB).
Page 666: Set Fill Color
2 Do any of the following: Click the control point in the middle of the curve and adjust the tangent handles. Add control points by pressing the Plus (+) sign and clicking the curve. Press the Esc or zero (0) key when you're done. Delete control points by pressing the Minus (-) sign and clicking the points to delete.
Page 667: Creating A Monochrome Image
To solarize an image: 1 From the Tools tab, drag the Solarize tool from the Color Correction folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. The Solarize tool UI appears with the Threshold set to zero and the image inverted (by default).
Page 668: Modifying A Display With The Pass Through Tool
Modifying a Display With the Pass Through Tool Applying a LUT or Color Conversion Tool to the Player on page 210. Setting the Amount of Gray in an Image You can set the amount of gray in a color image. To set the amount of gray in an image: 1 From the Tools tab, drag the Gray tool from the Color Correction folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view.
Page 669 To convert an image into sRGB color space: 1 From the Tools tab, drag the sRGB tool from the Color Correction folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. 2 Select the output depth and set the exposure. NOTE The sRGB tool's Exposure field is an animatable attribute—see Setting Keys Manually on page 676 and...
Page 671: Chapter 27 Animation
Animation Topics in this chapter: Animation Concepts on page 660 The Animation Tab on page 661 Composition Browser on page 661 Animation Editor on page 662 The Animation Property Area on page 666 Player Controls on page 667 Working with Cue Marks on page 668 Contextual Menus on page 670...
Page 672: Animation Concepts
Animation Concepts Simply defined, animation is a simulation of movement created by displaying a series of pictures, or frames. From one frame to the next certain values are changed. Almost all values can be animated. A value can be anything from the position, rotation, scaling, or transparency of an object, to the gamma, gain, or offset in a color correction.
Page 673: The Animation Tab
The Animation Tab The Animation tab is where you can edit animations in the tool UI. It is composed of three areas: Use: Composition View tool parameters and set keyframes in the current anima- Browser tion—see Composition Browser on page 661. Animation Editor Display the animation curves and tracks for a composition—see Animation Editor...
Page 674: Animation Editor
You can also select other filter types from the Filter list. Animation Editor The Animation Editor allows you to work in either a curve view or a track view. Click the View button in the Animation Tab Property Area to choose one or the other.
Page 675 (a) Time cursor The time cursor is displayed as a vertical yellow line and can be moved along the time range by dragging it. The time cursor position represents the current frame. You can move to any frame by dragging the yellow current frame cursor to the new frame number.
Page 676 You can move the contents of the Animation Editor using the following keys while the cursor is focused on the Animation Editor: To pan: Spacebar + drag. To zoom: Do one of the following: Ctrl + Spacebar + drag (Windows and Linux) or Cmd + Spacebar (Mac Up Arrow to zoom in and Down Arrow to zoom out.
Page 677 (a) Blue channel of Photolab's Lift attribute (b) Cursor on curve Keyframe values highlighting When you position the cursor over a keyframe, the keyframe coordinates are displayed beside the cursor, just under the name of the input. When you move a keyframe, the updated value is displayed, as well the translation offset from the beginning of the manipulation.
Page 678: The Animation Property Area
The Animation Property Area The Property Area is used to switch the display from curves to tracks, apply curve functions, and edit keyframe parameters. The Property Area contains the following parameters. Select: Auto Tan- Toggle Auto Tangent on or off for selected keyframes when fine tuning gent a curve.
Page 679: Player Controls
Select: Interpolation Select from a list of extrapolation types to set the interpolation of selec- ted keys. Extrapolation Select from a list of extrapolation types to define the shape of a curve after the selected keyframes. Move to previous keyframe. Move to next keyframe.
Page 680: Working With Cue Marks
Select: Move to previous keyframe. Set keyframe. Move to next keyframe. Set keyframes automatically—see Setting Keyframes Automatically on page 680. Working with Cue Marks Cue marks are time-based points of interest with annotations. They function as high-level keyframe controls that let you associate a keyframe with a mark. Instead of viewing a clip over and over again in order to evaluate and record (usually on paper) important timing points, you can view footage and add cue marks.
Page 681 (a) Cue marks in Animation Editor To set a cue mark to a specific frame of a film clip: 1 Do one of the following: Drag the time cursor in the Player navigation bar (or type in the frame number) to the frame on which you want to set a cue mark. Play the composition, so that you can add cue marks during playback.
Page 682: Contextual Menus
Adding and Renaming Cue Marks You can keep track of your cue marks by renaming them. There are several ways you can do this: To rename to a cue mark using the Cue Marks tab: 1 Select the Cue Marks tab in the tool UI. The list of cue marks appears (by default, unnamed cue marks are numbered in succession).
Page 683 Navigating the Animation Editor Contextual navigation controls are available for both Keyframes and Cue Marks. They let you perform the following operations: Select: Next (Keyframes) Move the time cursor to the next keyframe among the selected curves. Previous (Key- Move the time cursor to the previous keyframe among the selected frames &...
Page 684 Select: Select Next (Key- Select next keyframe or curve. frames & Cue Marks) Select Previous Select previous keyframe or curve. (Keyframes & Cue Marks) Select All (Key- Select all keyframes or curves. frames & Curves) Deselect All (Key- Deselect all keyframes and curves. frames &...
Page 685 Selecting Keyframes For the Contextual selection controls, see the Contextual navigation controls, Navigating the Animation Editor on page 671. Setting Cue Marks There are several options related to cue marks. For more information see, Navigating the Animation Editor on page 671. NOTE The first two options are always available.
Page 686: Keyframing Workflows
5 Press Shift + Ctrl + F (1,2,3,4) to delete the layout view or select Delete from the View Layout sub-menu. Keyframing Workflows The following is the workflow for setting animation keyframes: Mark the attributes for keyframing—see Marking Attributes for Keyframing on page 674.
Page 687: Marking Attributes For Keyframing
You can also mark attributes by right-clicking a value editor and choosing one of the following options: Select: Mark Tool Mark all animatable attribute labels of the current tool. Note that this is only available if no attribute is presently marked in the tool node. Mark Mark current attribute label.
Page 688: Setting Keys Manually
Right-click the attribute field and select an unmarking option. Select: Unmark All Unmark all animatable attribute labels of all current tools in the depend- ency graph. Unmark Tool Unmark all animatable attribute labels of current tool. Unmark Unmark current animatable attribute label. You can also unmark attributes in the Composition Browser by right-clicking over an attribute field where you will be given the same Unmark All and Unmark Tool and Unmark options provided in the tool UI.
Page 689 NOTE When you use the K hotkey in the Animation Editor, keyframes are added as follows: If none of the inputs of the selected node are selected, a keyframe is added at the current viewer's time for every input in the selected node (as if you selected every input in the tool).
Page 690 2 At the first frame leave the value at 1.00000. 3 Select the Set Keyframe button in the Tool Options (see Node-Specific Tabs on page 26) or the Player controls. A green line appears at the top of the attribute label, indicating that the attribute is now animated and has a keyframe at the current frame.
Page 691 Example: Animating Using the Composition Browser You can also use the Composition Browser to manually set keyframes. The following procedure uses the same example of adjusting the amount of gray in an image. NOTE It is assumed that the film footage is loaded and that the Gray tool has been added to the dependency graph.
Page 692: Setting Keyframes Automatically
NOTE When you move the time cursor to the next frame, you will notice that the green line turns red, indicating that the attribute is animated, but has no keyframe at the current frame. 6 Click in the value editor in the Composition Browser and either type the new amount of gray, then press Enter, or drag inside the value editor.
Page 693: Editing Keyframes In The Tool Ui
Editing Keyframes in the Tool UI Aside from modifying attribute values, you can also perform a variety of common operations by right-clicking in a value field, then selecting an operation from the menu. The following table lists these operations and describes their function: Select: Copy frame...
Page 694: Editing Keyframes In The Animation Editor
Editing Keyframes in the Animation Editor The Animation Editor gives you precise control over keyframes and animation between keyframes. You can also move a keyframe in time in the Animation Editor. To edit a keyframe in the Animation Editor in the Animation tab: 1 In the Property area, select View to Curves.
Page 695: Adding And Deleting Keyframes
Adding and Deleting Keyframes You can add or delete keyframes in a variety of ways when focused in a Animation Editor. To add a single keyframe to an animation curve: 1 Press and hold the Alt key. 2 Place the cursor on the curve at the point where you want to add a keyframe.
Page 696 5 Click once. The keyframe is deleted. To remove more than one keyframe with a single mouse click, enlarge the cursor so that it encircles several keyframes. 6 Click once. All keyframes within the area of the cursor are deleted. To quickly delete a series of keyframes along an animation curve: 1 Press and hold Alt + Shift.
Page 697 Precision Keyframe Editing There are several precision keyframe editing controls available to you in the form of hotkeys. The following section lists the hotkeys, their function, and how the keyframe appears in the editor—see Animation Editor on page 662. Hotkey and Function Keyframe in Animation Editor Shift + T Locks keyframe time...
Page 698 Hotkey and Function Keyframe in Animation Editor Shift + O Locks tangent orientation Ctrl + Shift + L (Windows and Linux) or Cmd + Shift + L (Mac OS) Unifies tangent length Ctrl + Shift + O (Windows and Linux) or Cmd + Shift + O) (Mac OS) Unifies tangent orientation NOTE To return the keyframe to its previous state, press the hotkey again.
Page 699: Modifying Interpolation
Modifying Interpolation Once you create keyframes for a channel, you can use interpolation to determine the channel values for the in-between frames. The appearance of the animation in the Animation Editor depends on the interpolation method used. In the Animation Editor, the interpolation method is represented by the shape of the curve that joins the keyframes.
Page 700: Modifying Extrapolation
Modifying Extrapolation Extrapolation is used to determine the behavior of a channel before the first, or after the last, keyframe. Extrapolation is useful when you want to create a cyclical effect, such as shutter flicker (as you would find in an old-time movie). You create one period in the flicker cycle, then use extrapolation to repeat the period over and over again.
Page 701: Customizing The Layout When Working With Animation Curves
Modifying the current editing time (the time at which the editors are currently parked) in any way, clears the temporary modifications if the attribute is animated. You can change the editing time using the Player controls. This is how existing applications usually deal with temporary modifications, but you can display the same film image at different times in two different players.
Page 702: Global Time Vs. Local Time
Global Time vs. Local Time Global time is the time a Player, Schematic, or Animation Editor view uses. This time may be either master or standalone time. Remember, you can use master and standalone time to synchronize or separate playback between two or more views—see Playing Back in Multiple Views on page 192.
Page 703: Chapter 28 Time Tools
Time Tools Topics in this chapter: Retiming Footage with the Retimer Tool on page 691 About Timing Curves on page 692 Converting the Frame Rate on page 695 Offsetting Time on page 696 Retiming Footage with the Retimer Tool The Retimer tool lets you generate output footage at a frame rate that is different from that of the input by retiming the image.
Page 704: About Timing Curves
About Timing Curves Time warps are created by modifying the timing of the source footage or by changing its playback speed. When you change a clip's timing, you are essentially changing the time that it takes for a clip to reach a given frame. For example, in a 100-frame clip, you can adjust the timing so that only the 50th source frame is reached by the end of the clip's 100 frames.
Page 705 Use: Editor. For example, you can add keyframes and have the output frames jump ahead, repeat, run backwards, slow down, or speed up. The Current Frame field will display the input frames and the Frames value editor will display the mapped output frame. Use: Seconds Control the mapping of output time to input time.
Page 706 Use: updated with respect to changes in start and end times. Remem- ber to set clip link Repeat parameter to Loop to avoid indexing black frames. Use: Quality Control the quality of the internally-generated motion vectors in warp mode by applying the motion analysis only to lower-resolu- tion versions of the input image, up to the resolution specified by the quality parameter.
Page 707: Converting The Frame Rate
When in Blend interpolation mode, the Retimer has the same frames, seconds and speed controls as in the Warp interpolation mode. In addition, it also has the Mix control: Use: Control the number of next and previous frames to blend. Converting the Frame Rate You can convert the frame rate of an input source with the Rate Convert tool.
Page 708: Offsetting Time
Offsetting Time You can define a time offset (in units of frames) for an input source with the Time Offset tool. Time offsets are useful when you need to animate local time (tool time) to a master cue. To define a time offset for an input source: 1 In the Tools tab, drag the Time Offset tool to the Schematic view and connect it to the dependency graph.
Page 709 2 Under Display, select the Tool option. Note that the animation curve changes to reflect the time offset that has been applied and global time frame markers appear. (a) Global time cursor as shown when Animation editor display is set to Composition Offsetting Time | 697...
Page 710 (a) Tool time cursor (b) Global time frame markers 698 | Chapter 28 Time Tools...
Page 711: Chapter 29 Customization Tools
Customization Tools Topics in this chapter: The Macro Super Tool on page 699 The Macro Super Tool The Macro super tool lets you design your own tool. You can drag tools from the Tools tab directly into the Macro super tool in order to customize it for your composition.
Page 712 To use the Macro super tool: 1 Do one of the following: Middle-click your mouse or press the tilde key (~) to open the Gate UI. Swipe to the east to open the Tools tab. From the Tools tab, select the Macro super tool or select a Macro super tool preset, if you have previously created one.
Page 713 Or, from the Schematic view, select the nodes that you want to include in the Macro super tool, right-click and then select Create Macro. 2 Click the Macro super tool to display the Macro tab in the Tool UI. Notice that most of the tab is empty.
Page 714 On the left side of the tab, the Customize UI button allows you to customize the Tool UI. The Customize UI button is enabled once you are in edit mode. Just above the Customize UI button, there are six more buttons. Once you have added tools to the Macro super tool, you can assign each of these buttons to a tool.
Page 715 Once inside the Macro super tool, what you see will depend on whether you connected the tool to a dependency graph or not. If the Macro super tool is not connected to a dependency graph, you will see an input and an output image, which are simply placeholders that represent the Macro's potential connections outside of edit mode.
Page 716 You'll notice that when you click on any of the tools you've added to the Macro super tool, the tab corresponding to the tool in the Tool UI will specify that it is part of the Macro super tool. To customize the Macro super tool: 1 Once you have added tools to the Macro super tool, click the Customize UI button.
Page 717 4 Click the Macro sub-menu to reveal the tools that you added to the Macro super tool. 5 Now you can open each tool individually and load the tool inputs that you want into the Tool UI of the Macro super tool. The Macro Super Tool | 705...
Page 718 You can do that by dragging and dropping tool inputs from the Macro sub-menu of the Composition view into the Tool UI of the Macro super tool. As you drag tool inputs into the Tool UI, either a green arrow or a red x will appear, indicating whether it is possible to drag the input into the Tool UI or not.
Page 719 You can remove an input at any time by right-clicking it and selecting Remove. You can rename an item by double-clicking its name and entering a new name in the field. 6 Once you have determined which inputs you want to include in the Macro super tool, you can save it as a preset by clicking the Save button in the Tool options area.
Page 720 the Tools tab. Select the Macro super tool. In the lower menu, right-click the Macro super tool and select Presets. To use a preset in a composition, click it and drag it into the Schematic view. 708 | Chapter 29 Customization Tools...
Page 721 NOTE Adding a preset to a composition does not prevent you from modifying it. You can continue to add or remove tool inputs from the Macro preset and modify its UI. However, these changes will not be reflected in the composition that the preset has been added to since there is no direct link between the preset and the composition that it is added to.
Page 723: Chapter 30 Vectors
Vectors Topics in this chapter: About Motion Vectors on page 711 Importing Motion Vectors From Maya on page 712 Computing Motion Vectors on page 714 Show Vectors on page 716 About Motion Vectors Motion Vectors are 2D vectors that represent the displacement in normalized pixel units of a pixel in the current frame to the next frame (forward motion vector), or its displacement from the previous frame (backward motion vector).
Page 724: Importing Motion Vectors From Maya
NOTE To avoid nonsense backward vectors on the first frame and nonsense forward vectors on the last frame, the repeat mode of the clip should be such that the image before the first frame and the image after the last frame are similar or identical to the first and last frames, respectively.
Page 725 To set the motion vector options on import: 1 Open an Import Browser. 2 Browse to the render pass and select it. 3 Next, from the tool UI, enable the “Motion Vectors” button and set the Type menu to “ReelSmart.” 4 Finally, set the Max Displacement to the same value that was set in Maya.
Page 726: Computing Motion Vectors
Importing 2D Motion Vectors from SmoothKit If your motion vectors are coming from SmoothKit, then you have to set the Motion Vectors type to “SmoothKit”. Once you have imported your motion vectors, refer to Vector Blurs in theAbout Blurs on page 385 section in order to know how to set motion vectors. Computing Motion Vectors The Motio tool uses the assumption of brightness consistency of an image to generate motion vectors from one frame to the next.
Page 727 To compute motion vectors inside a composition with the Motio tool and compare retimed footage: 1 Drop a Motio tool into the Schematic view of a composition you want to retime. 2 Connect the output of the footage to the input of the Motio node. 3 Add a Retimer tool to your dependency tree, and rename it HalfSpeed.
Page 728: Show Vectors
Show Vectors The Show Vectors tool is a three input, single output image pass-through tool that allows in-player viewing of 2D vectors as overlays on an RGBA image. Images representing a 2D vector per pixel can be used as image inputs to indicate pixel displacement from one frame to another.
Page 729 Backward vectors Forward and backward vectors The Show Vectors tool has the following parameters: Show Vectors | 717...
Page 730 Select: Interval Set the interval between shown vectors. By default, this value is 16 (shows a vector every 16 pixels). This controls the density of the displayed vectors, and is applied to both the forward and backward vectors. Display Scale Set the display Scale of the shown vectors.
Page 731: Expressions
Expressions Topics in this chapter: About Expressions on page 720 Short Expressions on page 721 Expression Input Paths on page 722 Visual Linking on page 722 Visual Linking Methods on page 722 Navigating the Expression String on page 728 Validating and Applying the Expression String on page 729 Viewing the Expression on page 729...
Page 732: About Expressions
Profile Functions on page 751 Conditional Functions on page 752 About Expressions Expressions are mathematical formulas that let you control any parameter that can be animated, such as translation, rotation, scaling, material, or texture. You can create almost any association between parameters, from simple A=B relationships to very complex ones using predefined variables, standard math functions, random number generators, and more.
Page 733: Short Expressions
What attributes can expressions refer to? Expression strings refer to sockets by name. The sockets can be either input or output sockets. Expressions perform operations based on numerical values, therefore you do not access pixels in the context of expressions. However, you can still access numerical values of image attributes such as height and width.
Page 734: Expression Input Paths
This applies to all grouping levels, be it inputs on a node, or inputs in a structure, or inputs on a node that is in a group. Expression Input Paths To avoid having to manually enter a long expression based on the input of an attribute, you can right-click on that attribute's value field either in the tool UI or Composition Browser and select Copy Path, then use Ctrl + V (Windows and Linux) or Cmd + V (Mac OS) to paste the path into the Expresso...
Page 735 Visual Linking in the Tool UI The Tool UI displays editors (value editors, toggle buttons or menus) and labels. Visual linking relies on the attribute labels as zones to trigger a link gesture. Labels are already used for marking. To link the Red and Blue components of a color input in the same group: Click the Red channel label, drag and drop on the Blue channel label.
Page 736 Once the visual link has been established, the target attribute's value assumes that of the reference attribute. A green E then appears in the A column of the Composition Browser. 724 | Chapter 31 Expressions...
Page 737 Linking Structured Inputs Linking structured inputs is done by dragging and dropping a structured input onto another. If the target structured input's topology doesn't match the source one, the drop is not accepted (i.e. the drop feedback is not given to you while dragging the pointer).
Page 738 When the source and target structured inputs match (that is, when they have the same number of inputs) an expression per input is set, linking inputs individually. 726 | Chapter 31 Expressions...
Page 739 Visual Linking between the Composition Browser and the Tool UI You can initiate a drag from the Composition Browser and drop it on a label on the tool UI, linking the source and target attributes with an expression. Visual Linking between the Composition Browser and the Tool UI | 727...
Page 740: Navigating The Expression String
Navigating the Expression String You can type an expression into the text field at the top of the calculator or press the buttons to generate an expression string. All the text field hotkeys are enabled when editing the expression string. You can therefore navigate the string normally.
Page 741: Validating And Applying The Expression String
Validating and Applying the Expression String Once you have entered the expression, you need to validate it. This is done by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard. If no error is found, the expression is parsed and validated. An invalid expression string returns an error message in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
Page 742: Associating Comments With An Expression
NOTE You can zoom the view by placing the cursor inside the view and using the Up and Down arrow keys, or by using Ctrl + Spacebar + click (Windows and Linux) or Cmd + Spacebar + click (Mac OS). You can also pan the view by simultaneously holding down the Spacebar on the keyboard and the left mouse button.
Page 743: Editing An Expression
NOTE To return to the main Expresso Calculator view, select the Comment button again. Editing an Expression You can easily edit an expression. To edit an expression: 1 Right-click the parameter field that contains the expression you want to edit. 2 From the menu select Edit Expression.
Page 744: Removing An Expression
3 Edit and reapply the expression. To save time, you can cycle through the various expression tokens that make up the string by using Alt + slash (/) on the keyboard. This is particularly useful when you are not sure of the exact sequence or writing convention of the expression string.
Page 745: Setting Expressions Examples
Setting Expressions Examples The following examples will show you some of the ways expressions can be used to save time in building your animations. You can create an expression for one channel and use the same expression for other channels so that the other channels automatically behave in relation to the first one.
Page 746 5 In the Radial Ramp tool UI, modify the following attribute values with the following settings: Attribute New Setting Start Color Green (G) channel 0.500 X Radius Y Radius X Falloff Y Falloff The Radial Ramp should look like this. You can now set an expression for the Y Center attribute that enables it to be driven by the Photo Lab's Gain, Red channel attribute.
Page 747 6 Right-click inside the Y Center value field. And select Set Expression. The Expresso Calculator appears along with a dashed green line at the top of the Y Center value field. This indicates that an expression has been applied. Example: Using Linked Attributes to Drive Animation | 735...
Page 748 (a) Bar above value changes to a dashed green line 7 In the text field at the top of the calculator, type in the following expression string. This string is typical of what an expression looks like. The Y Center of the Radial Ramp points to the red channel of the gain controls in the Photo Lab tool, and links them.
Page 749 By opening a Composition Browser view, you can see the socket names of each tool attribute once the menus are expanded. You can use these names as a reference when creating expression strings, as this is how they should look in the expression. NOTE When cycling through and selecting a tool's attribute levels, you must separate each level with a period.
Page 750 12 In intervals of 20 keyframes, increase the gain on the red channel, so that it is at its maximum by frame 100. 13 Play the animation. Example: Using Functions to Drive Animation This example shows you how pre-established functions can be used as expressions to drive animation—see Expression Reference Tables on page 745.
Page 751 4 Right-click the Noise Seed value field and select Set Expression from the menu. The Expresso Calculator appears along with a dashed green line at the top of the Noise Seed value field. This indicates that an expression is about to be applied, or has already been applied. (a) Dashed green line appears 5 Select the Random button if it is not already selected.
Page 752 An empty expression appears in the text field. NOTE If you are familiar with the syntax of expressions, you can type them directly into the text field. As the TrueRand function description indicates (see Random Number Functions on page 749) the function returns a truly random value between two given numbers.
Page 753 Another expression that can be used to create random noise with the Noise tool is the Abs math function. This expression indicates the Noise Seed is based on an absolute value (anything between 0 and 1) of the angle (in radians) of the sine wave created by the current time (t).
Page 754 This example has two parts. First you'll set up the display and then you'll create the animation. NOTE It is assumed that you currently have a Player, Schematic, and Composition Browser open. With the focus on Schematic, use Ctrl + N (Windows and Linux) or Cmd + N (Mac OS) to create a new composition.
Page 755 4 At the bottom of the Layer Editor, select Box and click Create. A new layer (a cube) is added to Reaction. Rename the layer by clicking in its text field and pressing F2. Type in the new name, Box1, and press Enter.
Page 756 axes icon in the Player, go to the Player display options and select Tool Output under Display, and Icons under Guides. 7 Mark the X and Y Position attributes for keyframing. 8 Select Autokey. 9 Using the Translate tool, create a motion path with the cube in Autokey to the right-hand side of the Player view.
Page 757: Expression Reference Tables
NOTE Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this guide to provide examples of all the expressions and possible combinations of functions that you can use to drive animations. The examples provided are just a small sampling of what is available.
Page 758: Arithmetic Operators
Expression Table Description Profile Functions Returns values based on curve profiles—see Profile Functions page 751. Conditional Func- Returns values based on explicit conditions—see Conditional tions Functions on page 752 Arithmetic Operators Use the following arithmetic operators to perform basic mathematical operations.
Page 759: Operator Precedence
Comparison Operator Description >= Greater than or equal to && Boolean AND Boolean OR Boolean NOT Operator Precedence When you combine several operators in a single expression, the operations are performed in the following order. Order Operator Description Boolean NOT Negation (as in -1) *, /, ^, and % Multiplication, division, exponentiation,...
Page 760: Vector Functions
Function Description Sqrt (number) Returns the square root of a given number. Mod (number, divisor) Returns the remainder from dividing one number by an- other. Average (number1, num- Returns the average of the given values. ber2) Log (number) Returns the logarithm to base 10 of the given value (for base -2 log, use Ln).
Page 761: Random Number Functions
Function Description Distance (pos1, pos2) Returns the distance between the two points represented by the vectors pos1 and pos2. relangle relangle (point1, point2, delta1, delta2): returns the angle between two vectors (point1,point2) and (point1+delta1,point2+delta2). All parameters are 2D vec- tors.This is used for implementing rotation tracking. relscale relscale (point1, point2, delta1, delta2): returns the ratio between the length of vector (point1+delta, point2+delta2)
Page 762: Rounding Functions
Rounding Functions Function Description Round (number) Returns a number rounded to the nearest integer. Ceil (number) Rounds a number up to the next integer value regardless of its value. Floor (number) Rounds a number down to the next integer value regardless of its value.
Page 763: Constants
Constants Constant Description Archimedes' Constant (PI = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950) Natural logarithmic base (E = 2.71828182845904523536028747135266) Time Functions Function Description Returns the current time in seconds. Eval Returns the value of a given expression at another point in time. Profile Functions Function Description Bell (center, height, Returns the Gaussian (normal distribution) function, also...
Page 764: Conditional Functions
Conditional Functions Function Description If(expr1, expr2, expr3) Returns the value of the second or third expression, depend- ing on the evaluation of the first one: if expr1 evaluates to true, returns to expr2; returns expr3 otherwise. Expr1 is a boolean expression. Expr2 and expr3 can be two values, two vectors, or two boolean expressions.
Page 765: Tracking And Stabilizing
Tracking and Stabilizing Topics in this chapter: About Tracking and Stabilizing on page 754 Tracking Concepts on page 754 Stabilizing Concepts on page 755 Tracker UI on page 755 Tracking Workflow on page 757 Choosing a Reference Point on page 762 Positioning the Reference Box on page 763 Resizing the Reference and Tracker Boxes...
Page 766: About Tracking And Stabilizing
About Tracking and Stabilizing Understanding how to use the Tracker tool and apply the tracking data to elements in a composition, and determining to which parameters you want to apply the tracking data are key factors for producing basic to complex effects.
Page 767: Stabilizing Concepts
Control points of an object The shape of the object changes to reflect the motion of the reference feature its control points are locked to. For example, if you want to replace the label on an actor's clothing, each corner on the new label would track a corner on the old label.
Page 768 (a) Tracker browser (b) Add Analyzer (c) Display controls (d) Analyze controls (e) Reference box controls (f) Tracker box controls (g) X and Y shift controls Use: Tracker Browser View a list of all tracker analyzers you add to the tracker. Right- clicking any tracker analyzer to display a list of options to delete, rename or select all tracker analyzers.
Page 769: Tracking Workflow
Use: if the reference feature undergoes lighting changes, choosing Roaming increases the chances of finding a match at each frame. Tolerance Set how much tolerance for error there is in locating a match for the reference box. A keyframe is only set for the frame if a match is found.
Page 770 To add a Tracker tool to the dependency graph: Do one of the following: From the Tools tab, drag the Tracker tool to Schematic. From the Tools tab, open the Tracker folder and drag the Tracker Analyzer tool to Schematic. You do not need to attach it directly to the dependency graph but rather to the image sequence you want to analyze as it is not going to be modifying the image but rather you will be using data associated with that tracker.
Page 771 To create Trackers and Tracker Analyzers for 4-point tracking using the Create Trackers feature: 1 Add a 2D Transform tool to the dependency graph. 2 Select 4 Point from the Transform Type menu. 3 Right-click the Source label and select Set Trackers. The Tracker Selector window is displayed.
Page 772 A Tracker with four Tracker Analyzers is created in the dependency graph. To add a Tracker and Tracker Analyzer for a single point in a shape (Warp 2D, Remove Dust, Garbage Mask): 1 Select the point you want tracked in the Player. 760 | Chapter 32 Tracking and Stabilizing...
Page 773 NOTE If you want to track all the points in the shape, use Ctrl + A to select all the shapes while your cursor is in the player. 2 Right-click the point and select Set Trackers. The Tracker Selector window is displayed. NOTE You can also right-click the Position label under the Point # label to display the Tracker Selector window.
Page 774: Choosing A Reference Point
3 Toggle the Create Trackers button and click Link. A Tracker and Tracker Analyzer is created in the dependency graph. NOTE If you selected all the points in the shape, a Tracker Analyzer will be created for each point. Choosing a Reference Point A good reference point is a high-contrast pattern that has good definition both vertically and horizontally, which allows for perfect registration in both directions.
Page 775: Positioning The Reference Box
Positioning the Reference Box When you position the reference box, the tracker box automatically moves to the same location so that when you start analyzing, both boxes are positioned over the reference point. To position the reference box: 1 Go to the frame where you want to position the reference box. 2 If the tracker you want to position does not appear on the image, click the appropriate Tracker in the File Browser, and enable Active.
Page 776: Resizing The Reference And Tracker Boxes
4 Click and hold the reference box and drag it over the pattern you want to track (in the example below, the rider's head). The reference box is magnified to make it easier to select a position. By default, the tracker box stays with the reference box.
Page 777 with no other details that may change throughout the footage, you minimize the possibility of the tracker losing the reference point. NOTE Sometimes a small reference point does not give good results. Try enlarging the box to include more of the selected feature. Note that the larger the box, the slower the analyzing speed.
Page 778: Resetting The Reference Box
(a) Resize height cursor (b) Resize width cursor (c) Resize proportionally cursor To resize a box interactively on the frame, position the cursor on the edge of the box you want to resize. The cursor changes shape. Drag the box to the desired dimension. To use the Tracker or Tracker Analyzer menu to move or resize the reference or tracker box for the current tracker, enter values in the appropriate fields.
Page 779: Resetting The Tracker Box
To reset the reference box: Do one of the following: Click Reset at the bottom of the Reference label portion of the UI. The reference box size is reset to its default values and it is positioned in the center of the Player window. Type values into the respective value fields and click Enter.
Page 780: Changing The Color Of A Tracker
To reset the shift values: Do one of the following: Under Shift, click Reset. The shift values are reset to their default values. Type values into the respective value fields and press Enter. To reset a tracker: 1 Select the tracker from the File Browser. 2 Click Reset in the Tool Options.
Page 781: How The Tracker Works
To change the color of a tracker: 1 In the File Browser, click the Tracker that corresponds to the tracker you want to change. 2 Under Display, click the color pot next to Color. The color picker appears. 3 Select a new color that can be easily seen in the footage and click Set. The tracker changes color.
Page 782: Tracking Position
feature to the element that you are tracking, so that the two appear locked together. In all tracking except for stabilizing, the Tracker applies the shift values without modification. With stabilizing, the Stabilizer operator inverts the shift values, resulting in a negation (and therefore elimination) of the motion—see Stabilizing on page...
Page 783 5 Click Analyze Forward to track reference position in the footage. 6 From the Tools tab, open the Composition folder and drag a Blend and Comp node to the dependency graph between the footage node and the Output node. 7 Connect the bird footage to the Back input of the Blend and Comp node. Tracking Position | 771...
Page 784 8 The image of the arrow is then dragged into Schematic and linked to the composition and attached to the Front input of the Blend and Comp node. 9 A 2D Transform tool is then added between the arrow image and the Blend and Comp node.
Page 785: Tracking The Scale Of An Object
The arrow is tracked to the tip of the bird's wing. Play the footage. Tracking the Scale of an Object In some cases, you may want the object to remain stationary and track only changes in scale. For example, assume that a camera is looking down a straight road at a car approaching.
Page 786 2 Select the Tracker Analyzer tool from the Tools tab and drag it to the Schematic. You do not need to attach it directly to the dependency graph as it is not going to be modifying the image but rather, you will be using data associated with that tracker.
Page 787: Tracking The Rotation Of An Object
An expression is automatically created linking the tracking data to the scaling of the new license plate. 18 Play the footage to view the result. NOTE When tracking data needs to be applied to more than one layer in a composition, add an extra axis node to the dependency graph and connect it to the appropriate layers.
Page 788 as it is not going to be modifying the image but rather, you will be using data associated with that tracker. 3 Attach the composition to the input of the tracker. 4 Add a second Tracker Analyzer 5 Place the first Tracker over the pivot point of the rotation you want to track.
Page 789: 4-Point Tracking
(a) Axis node connected to two layers inside Reaction. 4-Point Tracking In order to correctly project images onto televisions, bulletin boards, and other quadrilaterals in an image sequence use the 4-Point tracking workflow. With four-point tracking (also known as corner pinning), you use four trackers to generate tracking data for anchoring the four corners of a bilinear surface to background footage.
Page 790 To corner pin and track a bilinear surface to background footage: 1 In the Schematic view, the basic dependency graph has been set up with the following nodes: Node Purpose Input image This is the footage that will tracked. (front) Input image This image will be corner-pinned onto the front footage.
Page 791 3 Create four Tracker Analyzers and name them as per their corner positions, then position them in the locations that will make up the four corners to pin. 4 Adjust the Display, Analyze, Reference box and Tracking box settings. 5 Analyze each track (do not forget to reset the footage back to the start frame after each analysis).
Page 792: Tracking Difficult Shots
6 Connect the RGBA output from the Keyer to the Front input of the Blend & Comp node, and the output of the second image into the Back input of the Blend & Comp node. 7 Add a 2D Transform tool to the graph between the second image and the Blend &...
Page 793 Positioning the Tracker Box Manually When the reference point is temporarily covered by another object, position the tracker manually. To manually position the tracker box: 1 Click the Analyze Forward button to stop the analysis. 2 Advance the clip to the frame where the reference point becomes visible again, and reposition the tracker box over the reference point.
Page 794: Correcting Errors
Correcting Errors If the tracker box strays from the reference point that it is supposed to be tracking, incorrect keyframes result. If such an error occurs, you can stop the analysis, correct it, and restart it at any frame. There are a number of different methods you can try to correct tracking errors. Try the strategies given below, then redo the analysis to generate new keyframes based on the updated information you provide.
Page 795: Stabilizing
Adjusting the Tracker Box If the Stabilizer cannot find the reference point within the boundaries of the tracker box during analysis, the tracker box strays from the reference point and produces incorrect keyframes. Although you can manually correct these keyframes, it is easier to make the tracker box large enough to accommodate the movement of the reference point.
Page 796 In general, the reference frame is the first frame of the sequence. The choice of reference point depends on whether you are tracking or stabilizing. When tracking, the reference point is a feature you want to track; when stabilizing, the reference point represents the point around which the image is stabilized—see Choosing a Reference Point on page 762.
Page 797 When the analysis is complete, you can fine-tune it if a tracker box has strayed from the reference it was supposed to follow. Once you are satisfied with the results, you can apply the data to the footage. To track, the Stabilizer applies the Shift values as is. To stabilize, the Stabilizer inverts the X and Y Shift values in each frame of the sequence, and moves the image according to these values.
Page 798: 1-Point Stabilizing
1-point Stabilizing 1-point stabilizing is useful when the motion you want to remove is horizontal/vertical (side-to-side/up and down). Hand-held camera and helicopter shots nearly always have undesired horizontal or vertical motion jitter. 786 | Chapter 32 Tracking and Stabilizing...
Page 799 In the following example, the camera was bumped several times during filming which caused unwanted camera motion along the Y axis. To perform 1-point stabilizing: NOTE Although this example uses the Reaction tool, any tool that has position and translation parameter controls can be used to perform 1-point stabilization, such as the Panner tool, 2D Transform, Warp 2D and the vertices in the Garbage Mask and the Remove Dust tools.
Page 800: 2-Point Stabilizing
The Tracker Selector appears. 7 Select the Tracker Analyzer from the list and click Link. An expression is automatically created linking the tracking data to the stabilizing filter for position Y. 8 Play the footage to view the result. 2-point Stabilizing 2-point stabilizing is useful when the motion you want to remove involves changes in scale/rotation (zoom/roll).
Page 801 As in tracking, when you choose to stabilize combinations of position, scale, and rotation simultaneously, the roles of each of the points are additive: If you track both scale and rotation, the first point indicates the pivot point of the rotation; the second indicates the arc of the rotation; and the distance between the two indicates the scaling changes.
Page 802: Simultaneous Stabilizing And Tracking
the values of the Destination 1 and 2 boxes to create the desired stabilized position. 6 Click Link. 7 Play the clip. The unwanted motion is eliminated. NOTE You can also perform 4-point stabilization by adding 2 extra tracker analyzers. Simultaneous Stabilizing and Tracking The fact that you can associate trackers with both source and destination points of the transform means that you can effectively do stabilization and...
Page 803 2 Track the second video clip using a Tracker node with 2 trackers. A moving image of a cat was tracked. 3 Track the second video clip using a Tracker node with 2 trackers. 4 Connect the first clip into a Transform2D node 5 Set Transform Type to 2 Point.
Page 804 6 Click on Set Source Trackers and choose the 2 trackers from the first video clip. Make sure Use Offset is toggled to active, then click Link. 7 Click on Set Destination Trackers and choose the 2 trackers from the second video clip.
Page 805 8 Add any correction using the Translation, Rotation, Scale parameters. Simultaneous Stabilizing and Tracking | 793...
Page 807: Chapter 33 Video Tools
Video Tools Topics in this chapter: About Video Tools on page 795 Deinterlace on page 795 Interlace on page 801 Pulldown on page 802 About Video Tools Use the Video tools to perform the following operations: Inputting interlaced material and converting it to progressive. Outputting progressive material to interlaced format.
Page 808 information on fields to make full frames at particular points in time. A missing pixel can be interpolated by vertical interpolation of the field at the given time or by temporal interpolation using the previous and next field or a blend of the two.
Page 809: Field Selection
the format is Non-NTSC the labels will be Upper First-Field 1 and Lower First-Field 2. 2 Set the value of the Dominance (upper or lower first). 3 If you do not know the field dominance, you can press the Guess Dominance button and it will be determined for you.
Page 810 Adjusting the Adaptive Threshold Adaptive deinterlacing is essentially controlled by the Motion Threshold, which gives a trade-off between interlacing artifacts and preservation of detail. This threshold indicates at what point a pixel is considered to be in motion. All pixels above this threshold are treated as moving and are interpolated spatially, meaning there is a loss of detail because every second line is thrown away.
Page 811 detail, because now all pixels are being vertically interpolated, after throwing away every second line. So you must move the slider down from 100 until all interlacing artifacts disappear, as in the following image, where the Motion Threshold is 30. Here we see that the baton has no interlace artifacts, but the details of the static brick areas of the scene are preserved.
Page 812 Setting Spatial Interpolation The next step is to interpolate the missing vertical scanlines in areas of motion. You can select from four levels of quality with the default setting of Cubic being the best. Cubic is based on information calculated from four scanlines. Linear means to take the average of lines from two fields, whereas Nearest means to just copy the line from above or below.
Page 813: Interlace
or if you want to do a traditional field merge. The long answer is that if the static region of the image is undergoing lighting changes, then you need to use Linear to avoid alternating lines having different intensities. If the static region is not undergoing lighting changes and is perfectly static, then you get the same result whether you use Linear or Nearest.
Page 814: Pulldown
Pulldown 3:2 pulldown is the process of going from 24 frames per second of film to 60 fields per second of interlaced video (30 video frames per second). This is usually what a Telecine does when transferring film to video. Pulldown can also be applied to convert between 24 frames per second and 50 fields per second of interlaced video (PAL).
Page 815 You can then select the pulldown cadence by choosing one of the following five patterns of whole (W) and split (S) frames from the Cadence menu. Whole and Split frames are a consequence of using every second input frame to create three output fields and every other input frame to create two output fields, as in the following list of output field pairs.
Page 816 would only be active if the operation is set to 30i to 24p, or 25i to 24p. This starts to search for which type of cadence (one of 5 or 25 possibilities) exists. While analyzing, the Guess Cadence button will be labeled as “Cancel Guessing”, and provides you with a way out of the guessing analysis.
Page 817: Chapter 34 Utilities
Utilities Topics in this chapter: About Utilities on page 805 Comparison Tool on page 806 Notes Tool on page 812 Pass Through Tool on page 813 Switcher Tool on page 814 About Utilities Utilities are analytic tools that you can use to view images without changing pixel data;...
Page 818: Comparison Tool
Tool Description Notes Lets you add notes to a composition—see Notes Tool on page 812. Pass Through An image tool that passes its input to its output unmodified—see Pass Through Tool on page 813. Show Tiles Lets you..Switcher An image tool that allows you to switch between nodes—see Switcher Tool on page 814.
Page 819 Access to the Display Tools Comparison tool is through the Player options menu in the south gate. By dropping a Comparison tool on the appropriate tab in the Player options, it will replace the current Comparison tool. This is similar to creating a display modifier. Enabling the Comparison tool By default the Comparison tool will already exist in the Player (Display Tools) but will be muted.
Page 820 Selecting the Primary and Reference Inputs The comparison tool s primary input is connected to the output that the viewer would be showing without the comparison tool. The reference input is set to current composition and has all of the display options available in the normal player.
Page 821 Reference processed with Gray tool. To rotate the split bar around its pivot point: Drag the split bar either above or below the pivot point. Reference processed with Gray tool. To move the split bar: Drag the pivot point. You can also Ctrl + click the viewer to place the pivot point under the cursor, and then drag over the viewer to move the split bar.
Page 822 Reference processed with Gray tool. The region rectangle is created and modified through direct manipulation. By default the region will be centered in the viewers. There are pivot points (indicated by small boxes) on each corner and side to change the width and height of the region.
Page 823 Reference processed with Color Space tool. Place the cursor at the location where you want the center of the region to be and press Ctrl + click. To resize the region: Drag any of the pivot points. Reference processed with Color Space tool. To show or hide a particular manipulator: Press Shift + H.
Page 824: Notes Tool
To change which area of the manipulator the reference input occupies: Press Shift + R. Use: Offset Set a time offset—see Linking Compositions on page 234. This parameter applies only to the reference image. Repeat Set the repeat mode —see Linking Compositions on page 234.
Page 825: Pass Through Tool
To add notes to a composition: 1 From the Tools tab, drag a Notes tool from the Utilities folder to the dependency graph in the Schematic view. 2 In the Notes tool UI, type in your comments. Pass Through Tool The Pass Through tool is an image tool that passes its input to its output unmodified.
Page 826: Switcher Tool
To delete a display modifier from the Display Pass Through placeholder: With the Display (modifier) tab active, click the Delete button in the Tool Options area. The Pass Through tool is very useful as a connection point in the dependency graph.
Page 827 visible in the Schematic view. You can also use the S hotkey to switch between inputs. To add a Switcher to a composition: 1 From the Tools & View tab, drag a Switcher tool from the Utilities folder to the Schematic view or directly into a dependency graph. 2 Connect one node to the primary input on the Switcher.
Page 829: Appendix A Hotkeys
Hotkeys Topics in this chapter: Hotkeys on page 818 Windows and Linux on page 818 Login Screen on page 818 General on page 818 User Interface Elements on page 819 Browsers on page 823 Composition Hotkeys on page 824 Views on page 827 Tools on page 832...
Page 830: Hotkeys
Hotkeys The following chapter is divided into two sections: the first section describes the hotkeys for Windows and Linux on page 818, the second describes the hotkeys forMac OS on page 837. Windows and Linux The following are the Composite hotkeys for Windows and Linux. Login Screen The following hotkeys work in the login screen.
Page 831: User Interface Elements
Context Menus The following hotkeys are available for context, or right-click, menus. Press: context menu + Display the context menu. If a keyboard includes the context click or right-click menu key, it is typically located three keys to the right of the Spacebar.
Page 832 Press: Ctrl + M Turn the menubar on or off. Layout Presets The following hotkey is available for the layout presets. Press: Ctrl + Backspace Previous layout preset. Cursor The following hotkey is available for the cursor. Press: Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C Reset the cursor Tabs and Controls The following hotkeys are available for tabs and controls.
Page 833 Press: Double-click Select current word. Backspace Delete previous character. Delete Delete next character. Home Move to beginning of line. Move to end of line. Left Arrow Move cursor left. Right Arrow Move cursor right. Shift + Home Select text from current position to beginning of line. Shift + End Select text from current position to end of line.
Page 834 Numeric Fields (Value Editors) The following hotkeys are available in numeric fields. Press: Up Arrow Increment (with autorepeat). Down Arrow Decrement (with autorepeat). Ctrl + drag Increment * 10. Alt + drag Increment / 10. Ctrl + Shift + drag Increment * 100.
Page 835: Browsers
Browsers The following hotkeys are available in any browser. The Browser view and the File workspace are browsers. Press: Delete Delete Refresh Ctrl + A Select all. Ctrl + drag Copy Ctrl + click Add to, or remove from, the selection. Shift + click Select the range between the last element selected and this one.
Page 836: Composition Hotkeys
Floating Browsers The following hotkeys are available for the Floating Browser. Press: Ctrl + I Activate/deactivate Floating File Browser. Alt + O Activate/deactivate floating view Ctrl + O Activate or deactivate the Floating File Browser. Close the Floating Browser. Composition Hotkeys The following hotkeys are available when working with a composition.
Page 837 Press: Shift + T Toggle Timecode/Frame. Alt + Shift + Right Select downstream node. Arrow Alt + Shift + Left Ar- Select upstream node. Alt + Shift + Down Select next input/output. Arrow Alt + Shift + Up Ar- Select previous input/output. Ctrl + N Create a new composition.
Page 838 Gate UI The following hotkey is available for the Gate UI. Press: Middle-click Display the Gate UI. (backquote key) Display the Gate UI. The backquote key ( ) shares the same key with the tilde key (~) and is located below the Esc key on the keyboard.
Page 839: Views
Press: Cancel. Views The following hotkeys are available in Schematic, Animation Editor, and Player views. Press: Spacebar + drag Home Reset zoom and pan. Up Arrow Zoom in. Down Arrow Zoom out. Ctrl + Up Arrow Integer zoom in. Ctrl + Down Arrow Integer zoom out.
Page 840 Animation Editor The following hotkeys are available in the Animation Editor. Press: + (plus) Add key mode. - (minus) Delete key mode. Cancel add/delete key mode. Shift + T Lock keyframe time. Shift + V Lock keyframe value. Shift + L Lock tangent length.
Page 841 Press: Shift + plus sign (+) Increase brush size in Delete Key mode. Shift + minus sign (-) Decrease brush size in Delete Key mode. Player The following hotkeys are available in the Player. Press: Shift + Z Set a region of interest (ROI). Click and drag to define an initial ROI, then use the cursor to adjust the size or location of the re- gion.
Page 842 Press: Display rendered output. Ctrl + R Reset nodes. Shift + C Toggle Comparison tool. Shift + D Toggle Display Modifier tool. Next stream (stereo) Shift + 0 Previous stream (stereo) Separators The following hotkey is available for manipulating UI separators. Press: Ctrl + click Reset to previous location.
Page 843 Press: Ctrl + drag through Disconnect the nodes joined by that connection or by those one or more connec- connections. tions Group or ungroup the selected node(s). Double-click Edit the selected group. Double-click (back- Exit the group. ground) Mute or unmute nodes. Clean up Schematic.
Page 844: Tools
Press: Shift + O Open visual group. Shift + C Close visual group. V + drag Add to visual group. Shift + V + drag Remove from visual group. C + drag Copy node Tools The following describes hotkeys available in specific tools. Garbage Mask (also applies to Remove Dust and Warp 2D tools) The following hotkeys are available in the Garbage Mask tool.
Page 845 Press: Ctrl + Shift + Left Nudge left (large). Arrow Ctrl + Shift + Right Nudge right (large). Arrow Ctrl + Shift + Up Ar- Nudge up (large). Ctrl + Shift + Down Nudge down (large). Arrow Enter Close shape. Ctrl + A Select all control points.
Page 846 Keyer The following hotkeys are available in the Keyer tool. Press: Sample matte. Shift + [1-9] Sample patch [1-9]. Sample degrain. Spill suppress. Shift + B Adjust blend. Master Keyer The following hotkeys are available in the Master Keyer tool. Press: Sample matte.
Page 847 Spill & Blend The following hotkeys are available in the Spill & Blend tool. Press: Spill suppress. Shift + B Adjust blend. Reaction The following hotkeys are available in the Reaction tool. Press: Orbit the camera. Q + click Orbit grasp. Truck the camera.
Page 848 Press: Shift + 3 View from front. Shift + 4 View from Left. Shift + 5 View from Top. Shift + Home Reset camera. Resize The following hotkeys are available in the Resize tool. Press: Ctrl + drag Symmetrical resize. Shift + drag Maintain ratio.
Page 849: Mac Os
Warping Tools The following hotkeys are available in the Warping tools: Press: Input transform manipulator. Effect transform manipulator. Output transform manipulator. Crop. Insert Set Pivot (also for 2D Transform tool) Twirl Rotation. Comparison The following hotkeys are available in the Comparison tool: Press: Shift + O Opacity.
Page 850: Login Screen
Login Screen The following hotkeys work in the login screen. Press: Enter Log in. Cmd + Q Exit Composite. General The following hotkeys work throughout the application. Exit The following hotkey is to exit the application. Press: Cmd + Q Exit Composite.
Page 851: User Interface Elements
Press: Cmd + V Paste the element. Ctrl + click Add to, or remove from, the selection. Shift + click Select the range of elements between this one and the last one selected. Cmd + Z Undo the last operation. Cmd + Shift + Z Redo the last undo.
Page 852 Tabs and Controls The following hotkeys are available for tabs and controls. Press: Shift + Tab Go to previous control. Go to next control Alt + Left Arrow Go to previous tab Alt + Right Arrow Go to next tab Text Editor and Text Fields The following hotkeys are available in the text editor and in any text field.
Page 853 Press: Shift + Down Arrow Text editor only. Select from current position forward to same position on next line. Alt + Left Arrow Move cursor left by one word. Alt + Right Arrow Move cursor right by one word. Ctrl + Shift + Left Select word to the left of the cursor.
Page 854: Browsers
Press: context menu + Display the pop-up menu. click or right-click Pop-up Dialogs The following hotkeys are available in pop-up dialogs. Press: Enter Accept Cancel Browsers The following hotkeys are available in any browser. The Browser view and the File workspace are browsers. Press: Delete Delete...
Page 855: Composition Hotkeys
Press: Right Arrow Move to next column. Left Arrow Move to previous column. Page Down Move to next page. Page Up Move to previous page. Home Move to first item in list. Move to last item in list. Double-click Open (File Browser). Cmd + D Bookmark path.
Page 856 Press: Shift + Left Arrow Move to the first frame. Shift + Right Arrow Move to the last frame. Right Arrow Move to the next frame. Left Arrow Move to the previous frame. Set mark in. Set mark out. Set cue mark. Ctrl + Right Arrow Next cue mark Ctrl + Left Arrow...
Page 857 Press: Shift + Tab Go to previous tool. Go to next tool. Shift + Home Go to home tool. Alt + Right Arrow Go to next tab. Alt + Left Arrow Go to previous tab. Shift + A Toggle Marking State of Current Selection. Alt + Left Arrow Selection History back.
Page 858: Views
Color Picker The following hotkeys are available in the Color Picker. Press: Ctrl + drag in the Perform an average (rectangle). color spectrum Use the eyedropper to pick a color without displaying the Color Picker. Ctrl + click color pot Pick a color for a color pot without displaying the Color Picker.
Page 859 Press: Cmd + Alt + Home Zoom all scene. [F1 - F4] Activate Viewpoint [1-4]. Cmd + [F1 - F4] Set Viewpoint [1-4]. Cmd + Shift + [F1 - Delete Viewpoint [1-4]. Animation Editor The following hotkeys are available in the Animation Editor. Press: + (plus) Add key mode.
Page 860 Press: Cmd + Alt + A Select all keyframes on selected curves. Cmd + Left Arrow Move to previous keyframe on selected curves. Cmd + Right Arrow Move to next keyframe on selected curves. Cmd + Shift + Left Add previous keyframe on selected curves, to selection. Arrow Cmd + Shift + Right Add next keyframe on selected curves, to selection.
Page 861 Press: Display C4 Output (output of context point 4). Display Tool Input (input of the currently selected tool). Display Tool Output (output of the currently selected tool). Display Composition (output of the composition's output node). Display rendered version. Shift + 8 Display previous rendered version.
Page 862 Press: [1-4] + click the Clear the context point. The number indicates the number of background of the context point to clear. For example, pressing 2 + click clears Schematic context point 2, and pressing 4 + click clears context point 4. Shift + drag a node Connect the two nodes (Kiss).
Page 863: Tools
Press: layout selected. Cmd + L Layout all. Ctrl Increase Auto-pan speed. Decrease Auto-pan speed. (outside of viewer) Create boundary node. Shift + G Group nodes (visual). Shift + O Open visual group. Shift + C Close visual group. V + drag Add to visual group.
Page 864 Press: Transform. Shift + Left Arrow Nudge left. Shift + Right Arrow Nudge right. Shift + Up Arrow Nudge up. Shift + Down Arrow Nudge down. Ctrl + Shift + Left Nudge left (large). Arrow Ctrl + Shift + Right Nudge right (large).
Page 865 Press: Ctrl + click + drag Break a tangent handle. (the handle) Ctrl + Alt + drag Move a curve between points. (over location on a curve) Ctrl + click+ drag Create an edge point. (on the curve) Keyer The following hotkeys are available in the Keyer tool. Press: Sample matte.
Page 866 Paint The following hotkeys are available in the Paint tool. Press: S + drag Adjust brush size. Drag right to increase, drag left to decrease. Ctrl + click Clone brush. Shift + click Line brush. Flip foreground/background colors. Spill & Blend The following hotkeys are available in the Spill &...
Page 867 Press: . (period) Enter Scale mode. Cameras The following hotkeys for the camera are available in the Player when using the Reaction tool. Press: Shift + 1 Switch cameras. If you are using more than one camera, you will cycle through each camera. Shift + 2 View from perspective camera.
Page 868 Retimer The following hotkeys are available in the Retimer tool. Press: Cycle show vectors mode. Tracker The following hotkeys are available in the Tracker tool. Press: Delete Delete track point. Backspace Delete track point and step back. Warping Tools The following hotkeys are available in the Warping tools: Press: Input transform manipulator.
Page 869 Press: Shift + H Toggle tool visibility. Shift + R Swap reference. Ctrl + click Move pivot point or region center. Player hotkeys 1 - Cycle through inputs and outputs. 9 on reference side of manipulator Player hotkeys C, A Cycle between channels and alpha.
Page 871: Appendix B Composite Executables
Composite Executables Topics in this chapter: Working with the Composite Executables on page 859 composite Executable on page 860 txcheck Executable on page 860 txperf Executable on page 862 txversion Executable on page 866 Working with the Composite Executables The Composite executable files let you verify stored information, edit settings, and perform certain tasks.
Page 872: Composite Executable
In general, this provides some form of usage/help message. To access the Composite Command Prompt: In the Windows Start menu, choose Programs > Autodesk >Autodesk Composite 2011> Composite Command Prompt. composite Executable The composite executable is used to start the interactive application.
Page 873 To check the Composite license installed on a workstation: In a shell, enter txcheck license To check the cpu: In a shell, enter txcheck cpu Summarized information regarding the CPU type, configuration, and supported processor features is listed. To get a full report on a cp, in a shell, enter the following: txcheck cpu full To check the graphics:...
Page 874: Txperf Executable
A detailed check list is displayed. The list includes information on the graphics card, driver version, screen resolution, bit depth, refresh rate, ® OpenGL version, vendor string, and available OpenGL extensions. To check the xml: Enter a single parameter to parse the given Composite xml file and check it s validity.
Page 875 of performance tests either individually or simultaneously and covers the following subsystems: Disk I/O File System Content Server I/O Memory Transfers Each test subsystem can be configured with various parameters. Any number of subsystems can be tested simultaneously but each subsystem will only have one configuration during the execution of the performance tool.
Page 876: File System
iteration= <i> where <i> indicates the number of times the test is repeated. File System The file system tests are invoked by the -fs switch. These tests consist of opening files, closing files, listing directories, verifying the existence of files, creating files, and deleting files.
Page 877 The behavior of disk I/O tests is controlled by the following sub-options: Mode Size Blocks Queue mode= where indicates that only read performance is <ro|wo|rw> measured, indicates that both read and write performance is measured and that only writing performance is measured. The default mode is time= <s>...
Page 878: Txversion Executable
blocks= <s> where <s> is the size of blocks copied from memory-to-memory. The default is 512K. freq= <f> where <f> is the frequency in hertz of memory transfers. The default is 96Hz. If 0 is specified than memory transfers will be performed continuously. txversion Executable The txversion executable reports the version of Composite.
Page 879: Appendix C Python Scripting
Python Scripting Topics in this chapter: About Python Scripting on page 867 About Python Scripting Scripting in Composite is implemented by extending the Python language (http://www.python.org). Composite is written in the C++ programming language, so some libraries, known as Python extension modules, allow for a script to invoke the Composite code through Python functions.
Page 880 resources/scripts/examples subfolder of the Composite installation directory. NOTE Example Python scripts are provided with no guarantee of effectiveness or efficiency. There are also scripts that Composite itself invokes (archiving, rendering, pre-comp import, etc.) in the sufolder of the Composite resource/scripts installation directory.
Page 881 Externally An external interpreter can either be set up manually or automatically. Manual Setup In the case of a script ran in an external Python interpreter, the shell from which the Composite Python script is invoked must have the following environment variables set (except on Mac OS which doesn't require any).
Page 882 Embedded To run a python script in the Composite embedded Python interpreter, do the following: 1 Locate the script in a Composite "File Browser" ("Ctrl-I" (Windows and Linux) or “Cmd+ I” (Mac OS) to bring up a floating browser for example). Note that in order for Composite to recognize a file as a Python script, it must have the “.py”...
Page 883 On Mac OS <INSTALL_DIR>/Contents/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin/python myScript.py Scripted Actions Custom actions can be implemented as Python scripts that can be invoked from the UI in the same way as native Composite actions. Action scripts can be located anywhere on the local file system or on the network.
Page 884 previous text. When the scripts complete, the window closes. If there were errors during the script execution, another window is displayed, containing information or the stack trace that was generated when the error occurred. Information and error messages are displayed by default, but you can turn them off in the user preferences.
Page 885: Appendix D Initialization Variables And String Substitutions
To edit the Command Line switches via the Window's shortcut: 1 In the Windows Start menu, choose Programs > Autodesk > Composite 2011, then right-click the Composite menu entry and choose Properties.
Page 886: String Substitutions
2 In the Properties dialog that appears, click in the Target field and add the desired startup option to the end of the line. The option must be placed after the quotation mark. 3 Click OK and close the dialog. The changes will take effect the next time you start Composite.
Page 887 NOTE Two of the tokens, <Time> and <Date>, will return different results, depending when they are evaluated. String Substitutions | 875...
Page 889: Appendix E Glossary
Glossary List of Terms This glossary contains industry-standard terms and terms that apply to Autodesk Composite. 1D LUT A 1D Look-up Table (LUT) is generated from one measure of gamma (white, gray, and black) or a series of measures for each color channel. With a pair of 1D LUTs, the first converts logarithmic data to linear data, and the second converts the linear data back to logarithmic data to print to film.
Page 890 4-point tracking Tracks four features, also referred to as corner pinning. With four-point tracking, four trackers are used to generate tracking data for anchoring the four corners of a bilinear surface to background footage. alpha The name given to a fourth channel matte when bundled together with a three-channel color image.
Page 891 camera A device for viewing scenes from a different angle or “vantage point”. capture 1. To digitally transfer audio or video material from an external device, such as a videotape recorder, to a shared storage location or the local disk storage on your workstation. 2. To convert analog video and audio signals to digital signals.
Page 892 context point A specific tool node you mark as the target for a Player view. Context points are especially useful when you want to see how changes to a tool node that precedes the node with a context point affect the context point. corner pinning A technique used to pin the four corners of one static image (usually) onto another static image.
Page 893 intermediate results The results rendered at any node in the dependency graph, other than the output node. interpolation A mode that automatically defines the shape of an animation curve between keyframes in the curve. Infers a point which does not actually exist by averaging real points near it, either in space or time.
Page 894 A Look-up Table (LUT) is an ASCII file that describes specific pixel values used for image data conversion both on import and export. For example, you can use a LUT to convert a 10-bit logarithmic film image to a 16-bit linear image on import.
Page 895 Phase Alternate Line. The color broadcasting standard used in most of Europe, China, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, and parts of Africa. The PAL standard uses a total of 625 lines per frame scanned at a rate of 25 fps, with two fields per frame of 312.5 lines each.
Page 896 safe action area, safe title area An area in the center of the video image considered safe to place a title or other graphic, or capturing movement, so that none of it is cut off at the edges of the TV screen. The safe action area is 10% percent smaller than the maximum image size, and the safe title area is 20% smaller.
Page 897 tangent A line that extends from a control point that controls the direction of a Bézier curve. Tangent handles also control key points on function curves when the curve point's type is set to Bézier. task group A set of one or more preset UI configurations grouped according to task.
Page 899: Index
Index 1D LUTs formatting tools applying image generation tools floating point file format Invert Alpha tool format inverting alpha modifying Lens Blur tool third party Linear Ramp tool working with Math Ops tool 2D Compositing Median Alpha tool 2D Transform tool Median tool about Noise tool...
Page 900 adjusting gain and offset time offsets with CC basics timeline Property Area alpha using expressions adding Animation Editor clamping adding and deleting keyframes cleaning animation 662–663 creating deleting keyframes dropping from primary input edit keyframe extracting move keyframe inverting Animation Editor feedback remapping animation replacing...
Page 901 images catalogs mattes Hotkey blending mattes CC Basics tool blending modes adjusting color balance about adjusting hue basic shading parameters color correcting shadows, midtones, description of modes highlights glossiness color wheel hardware gain and offset opacity gamma software matching colors Blur Alpha tool quick gain Blur tool...
Page 902 cleaning color palette alpha creating matte Color Picker Cleanup Alpha tool creating color palette closing examining values composition modifying color palette color reverting color palette model selecting from screen removing color spill selecting with pop-up palette color balance switching color palettes adjusting with CC Basics working with color conversion...
Page 903 Image Import super tool imported into project folders importing media database inserting archive, restore linked composition status default UDA tag linking 234, 236 Degrain tool opening fine-tuning publishing 83, 228 profiles, saving and loading setting current result response curve viewing Deinterlace tool viewing status adaptive threshold...
Page 904 Executable about exposure Fade tool adjusting with Photo Lab file name extension expressions on Linux about film grain animating layers in Reaction adding animating with 733, 738 defined arithmetic operators removing associating comments with film look, obtaining comparison operators filtering conditional functions filtering tools constants...
Page 905 functions conditional math hardware rendering profile turn on/off random number highlights rounding redefining with Ranges controls 643 time histogram. See CC Histogram trigonometric hold-out matte vector Hotkey resetting a Hotkey resetting all Hotkey Hotkey Editor about 163–164 gamma accessing adjusting with CC Basics Hotkey format garbage mask hotkeys...
Page 906 viewers in Creative 827, 846 inverting Hotkeys alpha about catalogs inverting an image catalogs with Invert tool conflicting editing managing catalogs Keyer super tool adjusting with CC Basics about features inputs/outputs master keyer icons node select enable display in Player image generation tools workflow 2D Transform tool...
Page 907 matte cleanup set spotlight attributes pulling a key setting basic properties saturation shadow properties See also matte spotlight sharpness working with softness Linear Ramp tool threshold linear reference tolerance linked compositions workflow archive linking composition 234, 236 local time Log and Delog tools Layer Editor 150, 248 accessing...
Page 908 setting color values morphing setting colors Warp 2D tool setting properties Motio tool, vectors working with motion blur materials UI Multi-channel file import shader types openexr file math functions multi-stream compositing Math Ops tool about matte workflow articulate blending 344, 368 cleaning 343, 356 complementary...
Page 909 image processing algorithm categories paint interface with Composite adding layers executable brush controls and attributes numeric constants clearing a layer operators clearing layers point operator deleting layers PXL tool erasing qualifiers layer editor scatter operator stroke controls variable declarations stroke operations pixel expressions about wiping layers...
Page 910 hardware rendering turn on/off 205 projects In-player pixel display definition mini-Player imported compositions into project multiple playback views folders playback performance preferences region of interest preferences, set remove LUT or color conversion Property Area tool Animation Timeline resolution published results selecting layers about set a region of interest (ROI)
Page 911 noise wipe adding to new composition 83, 245 num colors assign layer to source out of range axis output tab basic 3D compositing outputs basic compositing pixel expression language basic compositing workflow pixel expressions basic multilayer compositing point operator building composition using layer polygon blur editor presets...
Page 912 region of interest (ROI) retrieving and storing relocating dependencies pixel aspect ratio information archive rewiring RGB channels Remap Alpha tool Remap Color tool color model working with curves RGB channels working with histogram rewiring with CC Basics Remap Color tool, color correcting Ripple tool, warping remapping ROD (region of definition)
Page 913 Sharpen tool super tools sharpening 2D Compositor images Garbage Mask sharpness Keyer Shell Paint open Tracker Slate tool supported media formats softness suppressing colors Solarize tool with CC Basics accessing suppressing spill solarizing an image surfaces source about about sources bilinear connecting to materials modifying...
Page 914 tool presets Out of Range tools Panner tool 2D Compositor Pick List 2D Transforms Premultiply tool Alpha Levels tools Radial Ramp Alpha tool Remap Alpha Bilinear Ramp Remove Dust tool Blend & Comp Resize tool Blend Alpha tools Set Alpha tool Blend Matte tool Sharpen tool Blend tool...
Page 915 Orient tool Switcher tool Panner tool traveling matte trigonometric functions troubleshooting vector functions troubleshooting Wiretap Vector motion blur with alpha Wiretap vectors Twirl tool, warping computing within a txapp executable composition txcheck executable Motio tool txperf executable Show vectors txversion executable vectors blur Blur tool video preview...
Page 916 shape colors network assessing IFFFS libraries 111 shape drawing tab workflow smoothing source shapes 467–468 administrative tasks timing parameters basic multilayer user settings compositing warping parameters keying workflow workflows Warp 2D tool, warping export warping import 2D Transforms tools about workspace cropping and filtering output other workspace functions...