CompuServe Messages

Gary, >> Could you explain a little more how you render layers then reassemble << a good example would be a rendering of a house with it's garden. If the camera does a 180 degree orbit around the front of the house you could split up the foliage into quadrants (front left, back left, front right, back right) and delete everything in the quadrants you are not rendering. You render against black and with alpha on. You can later composite the house, the four quadrants of foliage, and any background elements together with your favourite compositing software (video post works fine). It gets a lot more complicated than this and you need to be aware of things like shadows crossing into other quadrants or being cast on other layers. Also, if there are any foreground objects you will need to leave those in and make them matte objects. I can't cover every issue in this message – I'd be here all day – but hopefully you get the idea. Our latest project a Japanese national TV commercial for a home builder is a massive undertaking. As you orbit the house you pass through a tree, changes of season, changes from evening to night to morning, snow, rain, a dog, leaves falling, trees blossoming, flowers blooming etc. Layers are being rendered in 3ds, Alias, and our in-house renderer "VS". Spring has 27 layers alone. Autumn and Winter have a few less, but not by much. I pity the poor compositor, should be spectacular though.