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A few compositing tips - Toons

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Under: Tips
Hey all!

As you all know, I am a huge fan of the cartoon looks out there and especially how the style is approached. After a while, I realized, by GOD's grace, that essentially, you can treat a finished animation as raw footage from a camera. That allows you to get a very distinct look. This is a very very basic scene, but it illustrates my point:


(Everything rendered and composited in one project)

Okay, now, this also works for video, especially if you have access to render layers, like in Blender. Then you're done as soon as you render :D.

Here is how I composite such a scene:
1) Isolate the 2D element and make the background black (I recommend ID Mask, aka Material- and/or Object Index)
2) Isolate the background and make the 2D element inside it black (I recommend ID Mask, aka Material- and/or Object Index)
3) Make the background painterly and a bit more muted in tones than the 2D elements (in an amount that they still fit together)
4) Mix back together isolated 2D element with painterly background (this process follows like this, so your focus elements are not simplified and will stand out)
5) Composite like you would any other footage:
  - Make sure what you add makes sense
  - Make sure you add only such as will boost your image and serve the point of the message you are conveying
  - Make sure that if you do test renders at a lower resolution, that you composite relatively, so your result remains the same when you render at 100%. A good example of this is when you blur something to create a DOF for example.
  - Make sure if you use the Z-pass, that it is first stabalized, so when something suddenly comes into the scene, like something coming into view from next to the camera, you do not get a jerky reaction. You will notice it and wonder: "What happened there...?!" haha.

You can see an exceptional example of a finished product here:


(I seriously recommend watching this animation for more than just an example :) )
Do you know Jesus yet?

I hope this short post helps you with your toon-shading projects, if this is the look you are going for! :D

Have a great day!

Thank YOU!!!!!!

In : Tips 


Tags: jesus  god  holy spirit  blender  cartoons  shading  compositing 
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