Autodesk Composite 2011 Operating instructions

Composite User Guide

Composite 2011

©

parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form, by any method, for any purpose.

Certain materials included in this publication are reprinted with the permission of the copyright holder..

Portions relating to MD5 Library Copyright

©

obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including

without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit

persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice

shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY

KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE

AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER

LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE

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),

ATC, AUGI, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Learning Assistance, AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD Simulator, AutoCAD SQL Extension, AutoCAD SQL Interface,

Autodesk, Autodesk Envision, Autodesk Intent, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Map, Autodesk MapGuide, Autodesk Streamline, AutoLISP, AutoSnap,

AutoSketch, AutoTrack, Backburner, Backdraft, Built with ObjectARX (logo), Burn, Buzzsaw, CAiCE, Civil 3D, Cleaner, Cleaner Central, ClearScale,

Colour Warper, Combustion, Communication Specification, Constructware, Content Explorer, Dancing Baby (image), DesignCenter, Design

Doctor, Designer's Toolkit, DesignKids, DesignProf, DesignServer, DesignStudio, Design Web Format, Discreet, DWF, DWG, DWG (logo), DWG

Extreme, DWG TrueConvert, DWG TrueView, DXF, Ecotect, Exposure, Extending the Design Team, Face Robot, FBX, Fempro, Fire, Flame, Flare,

Flint, FMDesktop, Freewheel, GDX Driver, Green Building Studio, Heads-up Design, Heidi, HumanIK, IDEA Server, i-drop, ImageModeler, iMOUT,

Incinerator, Inferno, Inventor, Inventor LT, Kaydara, Kaydara (design/logo), Kynapse, Kynogon, LandXplorer, Lustre, MatchMover, Maya,

Mechanical Desktop, Moldflow, Moonbox, MotionBuilder, Movimento, MPA, MPA (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Advisers, MPI, Moldflow

Plastics Insight, MPX, MPX (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Xpert, Mudbox, Multi-Master Editing, Navisworks, ObjectARX, ObjectDBX, Open

Reality, Opticore, Opticore Opus, Pipeplus, PolarSnap, PortfolioWall, Powered with Autodesk Technology, Productstream, ProjectPoint, ProMaterials,

RasterDWG, RealDWG, Real-time Roto, Recognize, Render Queue, Retimer, Reveal, Revit, Showcase, ShowMotion, SketchBook, Smoke, Softimage,

Softimage|XSI (design/logo), Sparks, SteeringWheels, Stitcher, Stone, StudioTools, ToolClip, Topobase, Toxik, TrustedDWG, ViewCube, Visual,

Visual LISP, Volo, Vtour, Wire, Wiretap, WiretapCentral, XSI, and XSI (design/logo)..

Python is a registered trademark of Python Software Foundation. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective

holders.

All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Disclaimer

THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS MADE AVAILABLE BY AUTODESK, INC. “AS IS.” AUTODESK, INC. DISCLAIMS

ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE REGARDING THESE MATERIALS.

Published by: Autodesk, Inc.

111 Mclnnis Parkway

San Rafael, CA 94903, USA

Autodesk Composite 2011 User GuideTitle:

2Document Version:

March 11, 2010Date:

Contents

Chapter 1 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

About Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Part 1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2 About Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

About The Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 3 Interface Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Basic Interface Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Gate UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Drop Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The Composite Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Tools, Views & Pick List tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

The Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Zooming and Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Navigating and Browsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Working with Schematic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

iii

Chapter 4 Start Compositing Now! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Try First, Read Later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Start Composite, Create Composition, Import Media and Go . . . . . . 77

Add Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Add Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

To Render the Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Part 2 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Chapter 5 About Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

About the Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Chapter 6 Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

About Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Example Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Setting Project Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Archiving or Restoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Chapter 7 Wiretap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Accessing the IFFFS Libraries on the Network Using Wiretap . . . . . . 111

Accessing Media Via Wiretap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Accessing IFFFS Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Chapter 8 Importing Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

About Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Physical Location of Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Supported Media Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Importing Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Using the Image Import Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Log to Lin Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Moving Imported Compositions into Project Folders . . . . . . . . . . 126

Image and File I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Premultiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Chapter 9 Getting Familiar with Your Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Working with a Task-Based UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Pick List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Tool Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Animation Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Layer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

View Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

iv | Contents

Color Picker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Calculators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Hotkey Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Setting User Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Previewing Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Creating User Defined Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Other Workspace Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Chapter 10 The Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

About the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Player View Default Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Setting the Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Setting Context Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Playing Back in Multiple Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Playback Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Setting the Target for the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Setting the Channels for the Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Setting the Mark In and Mark Out Points for Playback . . . . . . . . . 197

Setting the Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Setting the Frame Rate for Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Setting the Real-Time Playback Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Synchronizing or Separating Playback between Views . . . . . . . . . 199

Setting the Playback Point when the Player Updates . . . . . . . . . . 200

Setting the Resolution for a Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Setting the Grid in the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Setting a Region of Interest (ROI) in the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Displaying Masks and Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Showing or Hiding Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Turning Hardware Rendering On or Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Setting the Pixel Aspect Ratio of the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Displaying Player Option Information in the Player view . . . . . . . 206

Displaying Manipulators in the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

In-player Pixel Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Adjusting the Zoom or Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Applying a LUT or Color Conversion Tool to the Player . . . . . . . . 210

The Mini-Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

The Fullscreen Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Chapter 11 Working with Compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Creating Compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Rendering, Caching and Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Linking Compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Closing a Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Contents | v

Chapter 12 Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Reaction Compositing and Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Compositing Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Basic Compositing in Reaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Working with Maya Pre-Comps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Working with Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Working with Geometric Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Using Parenting Axes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Working with Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Working with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Working with Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Camera Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

3D Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Transforming Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Reaction Rendering Effects and Output Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Setting up a Stereo Camera Rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Chapter 13 Pre-Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

About Pre-Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

The Pre-Compositing Import Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

About Anchors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Using Pre-Compositing Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Pre-Comp File Creation and Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Chapter 14 Importing FBX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Importing FBX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

FBX Import Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Chapter 15 Premultiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Premultiplied Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

When to Premultiply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Common Problems with Premultiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Premultiplication Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Chapter 16 2D Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

About 2D Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

2D Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Alpha Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Channel Processing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Composition Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Multi-stream Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Stereo Viewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

vi | Contents

Chapter 17 Image Processing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

About Image Processing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Filtering Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Formatting Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Image Generation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Transform Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Chapter 18 Pixel Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

About Pixel Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

PXL Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

CTL Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Chapter 19 Warping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

About Warping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Warp 2D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

2D Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Cropping and Filtering the Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Warping Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

Chapter 20 Effects Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

About Effects Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Drop Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Glow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498

Chapter 21 Managing Film Grain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

About Managing Grain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Adding Grain to a Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Removing Grain from a Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Fine-tuning the Grain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

Saving and Loading Grain Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Chapter 22 Pulling Keys and Creating Mattes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Keying Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Keying Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

Extracting a Key Using the Diamond Keyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

Creating a Difference Matte Using the Difference Tool . . . . . . . . . 517

Extracting a Key Using the Luma Keyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518

Removing Color Spill with Color Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Keyer Super Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522

Chapter 23 Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

About Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Contents | vii

Masking Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Garbage Mask Tool Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Creating Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

Editing Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Transforming Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

Creating and Editing Edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

User Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Output Tab Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Options Tab Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559

Pixel Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Masking Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Chapter 24 Raster Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

About Raster Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Paint UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

Layer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

Paint Brush Controls and Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

Paint Stroke Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

Working with Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

Adding, Deleting, Clearing, and Wiping Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Layer Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578

Stroke Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582

Chapter 25 Vector Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

About Vector Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

Vector Paint Image Inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Shape Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Vector Paint UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597

Chapter 26 Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

About Color Correcting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Applying LUTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Working with ASC CDLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624

Broadcast Safe Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625

Transforming Color Space with the Log and Delog Tools . . . . . . . . 627

Color Correcting with CC Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630

CC Histogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

Clamp Color Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

Color Space Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645

Processing Images with Photo Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Inverting an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

Remap Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

Set Fill Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654

Solarizing an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654

viii | Contents

Creating a Monochrome Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Modifying a Display With the Pass Through Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

Setting the Amount of Gray in an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

Converting an Image to sRGB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

Chapter 27 Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659

Animation Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660

The Animation Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661

Composition Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661

Animation Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662

The Animation Property Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666

Player Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

Working with Cue Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668

Contextual Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670

Keyframing Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Marking Attributes for Keyframing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Setting Keys Manually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Setting Keyframes Automatically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

Editing Keyframes in the Tool UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Editing Keyframes in the Animation Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682

Adding and Deleting Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683

Modifying Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687

Modifying Extrapolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688

Temporarily Modifying Attribute Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688

Customizing the Layout when Working with Animation Curves . . . 689

Global Time vs. Local Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690

Time Offsets, Keyframing, and Instancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690

Chapter 28 Time Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691

Retiming Footage with the Retimer Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691

About Timing Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692

Converting the Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695

Offsetting Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696

Chapter 29 Customization Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699

The Macro Super Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699

Chapter 30 Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

About Motion Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

Importing Motion Vectors From Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712

Computing Motion Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714

Show Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716

Contents | ix

Chapter 31 Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

About Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720

Short Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721

Expression Input Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Visual Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Visual Linking Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Navigating the Expression String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728

Validating and Applying the Expression String . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

Viewing the Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

Associating Comments with an Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Editing an Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731

Removing an Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Setting Expressions Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Expression Reference Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745

Arithmetic Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

Comparison Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

Operator Precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

Math Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

Vector Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748

Random Number Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749

Rounding Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Trigonometric Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Time Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Profile Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Conditional Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752

Chapter 32 Tracking and Stabilizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

About Tracking and Stabilizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754

Tracking Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754

Stabilizing Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

Tracker UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

Tracking Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757

Choosing a Reference Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762

Positioning the Reference Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763

Resizing the Reference and Tracker Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

Resetting the Reference Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766

Resetting the Tracker Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

Changing the Color of a Tracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768

How the Tracker Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769

Tracking Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770

Tracking the Scale of an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 773

Tracking the Rotation of an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

4-Point Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777

Tracking Difficult Shots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780

x | Contents

Correcting Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782

Stabilizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783

1-point Stabilizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786

2-point Stabilizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 788

Simultaneous Stabilizing and Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

Chapter 33 Video Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795

About Video Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795

Deinterlace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795

Interlace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801

Pulldown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 802

Chapter 34 Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805

About Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805

Comparison Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 806

Notes Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 812

Pass Through Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813

Switcher Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814

Appendix A Hotkeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817

Hotkeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

Windows and Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

Login Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

User Interface Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819

Browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Composition Hotkeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827

Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 832

Mac OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837

Login Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838

General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838

User Interface Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839

Browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 842

Composition Hotkeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 846

Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 851

Appendix B Composite Executables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859

Working with the Composite Executables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859

composite Executable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 860

txcheck Executable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 860

txperf Executable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862

txversion Executable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 866

Contents | xi

Appendix C Python Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867

About Python Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867

Appendix D Initialization Variables and String Substitutions . . . . . . . . 873

Initialization Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873

String Substitutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874

Appendix E Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877

List of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887

xii | Contents

Preface

Topics in this chapter:

■

About Composite on page 1

■

About This Guide on page 2

■

Getting Help on page 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. It primarily

features a database-less workflow for data management, one Composite seat,

one scripting license, and unlimited rendering capabilities.

The Composite creative toolset includes keying, color correction, tracking,

camera mapping, paint, spline-based warping, motion blur, and depth of field.

Furthermore, it can be updated with extensions that add functionality to the

product by means of new tools and core fixes.

1

About This Guide

The Composite User Guide is made up of two major sections: Getting Started

and Reference.

Getting Started

This section describes the basic information you needs to know in order to

get up and running with Composite quickly. Topics ranging from key interface

features and accessing the Help provide you with everything you need to start

compositing now! It is strongly recommended that you read this section before

exploring the Reference portion of the User Guide.

Reference

This section provides in-depth information about all the tools and key features

associated with Composite. Some features discussed in the Getting Started

section are described in further detail here. The reference section includes

advanced topics and is most useful for users who have a good understanding

of Composite basics.

Getting Help

There are two ways to access Help for Composite, depending on whether you

want more information on a particular subject or whether you need assistance

with a specific problem

Viewing Online Help

Autodesk provides documentation in an HTML help system displayed in a

Web browser. The Help is automatically installed with the software.

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.

The Help appears in the browser window.

2 | Chapter 1 Preface

Contacting Support

For further assistance, please contact Technical Support at the following

address: http://www.autodesk.com/subscriptionlogin.

Contacting Support | 3

4

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

5

6

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.

Interface Fundamentals

This chapter provides the first detailed descriptions about some essential

Composite interface features. Composite interface mechanics like the Gate UI

and the Pick List, as well as critical functions such as zooming and panning,

and working with nodes are explained. You’ll find more in-depth information

about some of the features discussed here, like The Player, in the Reference

section.

2

7

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.

8 | Chapter 2 About Getting Started

Page is loading ...

Autodesk Composite 2011 Operating instructions

Autodesk Composite 2011 Operating instructions

Related papers

Other documents