Maya & Nuke Tutorial: Lighting for VFX Part 3 - Separating CG lights for Compositing
0:00 - Recap of part 2 and video summary
3:00 - Naming your lights for pass separation
3:45 - Adding the AOVs (render passes) we need to separate lights and rebuild in comp
7:35 - Light group (separating lights) rendering fix (re-cap from part 2)
8:40 - What does the diffuse pass give us? Comparing the beauty to diffuse & looking at our separated lights in Renderview
12:20 - Render layers, quick recap on how to build a render layer
18:00 - Creating a shader for your light blockers/ shadow geo. Quick realistic method for colour spill/reflections.
19:13 - I added an edit in with extra information so if you want to continue from here jump to 22:45
19:20 - Methodology/ uses of projection in maya (projection shaders)
22:00 - Texturing with projections, explanation
22:45 - Continuation from 19:13 (creating a projection shader)
25:00 - Applying a material/shader overide to a render layer (recap from part 2)
25:50 - Test render of a projection shader on our shadowing geometry
26:20 - Pros and Cons of a projection shader on our shadow geometry
31:00 - Why we are separating CG to different layers/ checking our render layer test renders
33:00 - Looking at our separate light render passes (AOV) be aware of how many different passes you will get!
33:30 - How to render frames/ batch or sequence rendering a teset frame for our project (on our personal PC!)
34:45 - How will our passes come out?
36:00 - How to avoid getting an arnold water mark on student licenses = SEQUENCE RENDERING!
37:00 - Skip to 42:00 if you wish to continue from 37:00, I just added an extra clip about adding specular indirect to your AOVs
38:00 - How to use light separation (AOVs) efficiently as a CG artist (just render them on the masterlayer if you can)
39:00 - NOTE* I do construct the nuke comp from scratch later in the video, this was just an edit in due to the specular indirect
42:00 - Continuation from 37:00 - Looking at our renders/ folders that were created
43:10 - Bringing our renders into nuke - COMPING STARTS HERE
44:00 - How to see merged nodes (nodes with a little green icon on the right hand side!)
46:20 - Organising our renders in nuke
47:00 - Creating our nuke comp by combining our diffuse and specular renders (Keep in mind we
48:40 - Shuffling out a merged light render (The HDR gets merged with the main diffuse pass when “merge AOVs“ is turned on in maya)
51:10 - Missing alpha fix, our light AOVs are missing an alpha so we now add one back in
52:30 - How we can control the CG lights in nuke
55:00 - Combining our light controlled AOVs in nuke
56:30 - Testing our light controller (nuke)
1:00:25 - Copying our light controller setup for the next render layer
1:02:45 - Our renders are see through in nuke, transparency fix for the CG light aov’s
1:06:20 - Altering your lights in maya after you have used your nuke light controller
1:08:00 - How to control the lights for all layers at the same time (when you have already rendered light groups for all layers*)
1:11:25 - How to link on arrow to another quickly (linking a postage stamp, hit Y!)
1:13:25 - Adding our footage to the comp/ CG renders
1:14:00 - Using your CG alphas to easily composite renders
1:15:20 - How to cut out your CG from your footage, basic Roto example
1:17:10 - Adding points to your roto shapes, sharpening the points and inverting
1:18:50 - Easiest way of explaining masks...
1:20:00 - NOTE** WHEN COMBINING/ ADDING ALPHAS YOU NEED A PREMULTIPLY NODE. I FORGOT TO ADD IT SORRY
1:24:00 - Altering our lights in nuke ontop of our footage (plate)
1:25:00 - Masking our foreground cg (ontop of the footage) from the actors
1:31:00 - Bounce lighting quick fix in nuke (I address this in the video earlier by saying to add the specular indirect AOV)
1:32:20 - Adding specular indirect AOV light groups in maya
1:42:00 - The most basic comp example (what you could do once your happy with your CG lighting)
1:43:00 - What the CG looks like without the specular indirect (bounce reflections)
1:48:00 - How to approach lighting for a sequence (many shots in the same environment)
1:49:00 - Applying our exposure changes from nuke to maya
1:54:00 - How to reload your renders
1:55:20 - Adjusting the colours of lights in nuke based on the plate
1:57:00 - Adding in a new light in maya
1:59:00 - Examining our CG lighting, how to improve it
2:00:00 - Reloading renders in nuke (try find a script!)
2:06:00 - Concepting our lighting, quick paint over our comp in photoshop to see where we want to take the shot and improve it
2:10:00 - Keying green screen, really quick example to help us visualize the shot
2:11:45 - Knowing when to separate more objects/ layers in CG to comp
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The videos on this channel are created by a professional Visual Effects Generalist with experience across Films, TV & Commercials.