Film emulation in the viewport compositor | Blender tutorial

[@robinsquares]

Get the nodes here 👉 robinsquares.gumroad.com/l/compositor

[@BoobLaser420]

Does it come with animated film grain so that this setup could be used for animations without having fixed pattern noise? If not, can you please add it? Will buy if yes.

[@ZERO_DESIGN]

Blender 4.2 can use GPU for Compositing. You can turn it on by pressing T in the Compositing window, going to Options, and changing the device from CPU to GPU.

[@robinsquares]

Finally! Thanks for mentioning that. I should've updated before recording.

[@Parth5d]

lol i should've read it before making the node tree anyway tanks a lot dude

[@Baudryvincent]

Aw man I've lost so many hours since yesterday and didn't find this ! Thank you!

[@DerekElliott]

haven't ever done much compositing but this looks like a great place to start!

[@dfgoijoi]

exactly

[@mulanmiller5000]

Your channel really is a breath of fresh air within the Blender community. Such unique and helpful content presented in a professional manner. No distracting background music, memes or silly cuts. Keep it up!

[@robinsquares]

Thanks! But you're gonna hate the silly intro to my next video.

[@danialsoozani]

man you're killing it! the best compositing tutorial I've seen on blender till now!

[@alexvith]

This is cool! Another thing I like to do to simulate halation is splitting the image color into RGB, slightly blurring the red and the green channel, and then combining it again. You get that classic reddish bloom around strong lights by simulating how light interacts with the film.

[@robinsquares]

Excellent tip!

[@docm7735]

Hi, will any blur do the job or does it have to be done in a specific way?

[@robbie_]

My name is also Robin and I'm learning Blender, so I'm giving you a follow. Us Robins need to stick together.

[@amirnetwork8629]

As a full-time KZbinr. I'm selective with my notification bells, but yours definitely earned a spot.

[@cgnovice2969]

Robin uploads and i take a coffeebreak from work

[@flannel.and.film.9045]

I've watched this video so many times now. I've been looking for this kind of compositing workflow for so long and this was so easy to follow and understand. I can't wait to see what else you come up with! I'd love to see how you take an EXR multilayer image like you showed how to get to the beauty pass in Davinci and to see how you do your workflow there as well to get the film/lens look. Keep up the great work!

[@krysidian]

That is so cool! Ever since the viewport compositor was a thing this has been what I was doing so much! Developing a look in realtime while still modelling is just really fun to do. And I always wanted to create that film look in the viewport! Man, I can't wait till render passes will become a real thing in the viewport compositor, hopefully in both eevee and cycles

[@10Exahertz]

Mind Blown!!! Seriously bits of brain everywhere, awesome!

[@Artist.Verse1]

This was really inciteful as I use blender compositor. Looking forward to seeing your next Blender Compositor tutorial

[@BennXdesign]

For the halation, you should kill the effect with a reversed ramp in the fully white areas. halation affects only the darks zones of the film when there is a very bright light on the side. the light is "pouring" on the film from the light zone to the dark (especially for the red, as you said), and it shows only on the dark areas. as every other colors are captured normally in the brightest areas, you shouldn't increase the red values in those (the light itself doesn't turn red, is what I try to say). This will result in a physically accurate halation. ...but to be honest, if you are serious about your delivery, let's do this inside davinci anyway :D

[@yesdadbut960]

I needed these for so long

[@RomboutVersluijs]

Ive adjusted the Amaranth addon so i can save Color-Management with the curves as well as presets. Its saves so much time without to be finicky with those settings

[@jhalanddesign]

Many great tips, not sure if I like the end result, but good to go through all the different steps. Noise shouldn't just be slapped on. There are more noise in the shadows then in the highlights.

[@RomboutVersluijs]

in retouch photos, we normally set the white balance at the start. Isnt it better to the same here? You also set the black and the mid gray, thats how you do a normal white balance. Its not only setting the white point

[@RomboutVersluijs]

PS you took a white in the shadow part, thats normally not a good idea, it totally ofsets the proper white

[@Nickel3D]

Absolutely insane channel. Awesome content. Classy edit. Keep it up bro!

[@blenderdiscord]

I suggest starting by rendering the image in raw format instead of limiting the range. Then, use the compositor to adjust the values and push them into a suitable range.

[@fajarhimansyah910]

Mann, always waiting for your new tuts. Great work

[@seankennedy6076]

Nice tips! Great explanations of low pass and high pass, good useful stuff!

[@maxleveladventures]

Aside from being able to adjust in post without having to re-render, is there a reason you're using the Lens Distortion node instead of just rendering with distortion in the first place using a fisheye lens? I find that I'd rather avoid stretching pixels for a final render and the fisheye lens looks a lot better. Just curious :) I like stacking two glare nodes. The first one has a high threshold with a low size. The second is has a lower threshold (sometimes just 0) and the highest size. I'm definitely going to give the halation emulation a shot though!

[@alexandrearaujo4256]

Greatings from Brasil. Thank´s for the video, very handy, easy to follow. Full of good stuff.

[@matthewwilson3673]

Great tutorial on the compositor, EDIT - you can set compositor to be GPU if you are using the latest 4.2 LTS version. It is in Render Tab - Performance - Compositor - Device (cpu or gpu, cpu by default). Another note, in the same area you can choose auto precision or full., auto is half detail in compositor but full detail in image render. I usually leave this on auto

[@robinsquares]

I can't get the same performance with this as in the viewport compositor. Am I doing something wrong?

[@matthewwilson3673]

@@robinsquares I doubt its you, I am lucky to be using 4090 founders edition with a 7800X3D so it could be the performance makes that difference less noticeable to me. If we are in the same 4.2LTS version of blender then maybe I am not perceiving the difference accurately

[@robinsquares]

@@matthewwilson3673 You know, it might just be that the viewport compositor works in screen space. If the viewport is small, there's not much to calculate.

[@matthewwilson3673]

@@robinsquares probably my secret sauce, I am on a 6 year old 1080 24inch monitor so not much real estate to render, hoping to get an ultrawide soon

[@ettiSurreal]

Small tip, by default Cycles and EEVEE renders aren't perfectly sharp, since they are slightly softened by default to avoid aliasing. You can control this under Film > Pixel Filter

[@DexterHe24]

what should be turn into?

[@sobreaver]

Yes, now this is 3D in all the glory of its dimensions !!!

[@rajanbingi1269]

Hi by any chance you do grading in davinci resolve... If do then can you plz make a video for resolve users Thank you ❤

[@artofvibration]

Amazing tutorial!

[@Covingsworth]

fantastic tutorial robin!

[@icarusgaming6269]

How did you figure out the sensor tones? The hue looks pretty precise

[@robinsquares]

Eyeballed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@arnavgoyal2450]

if isolating different tones of the image for particular changes does the job so well, then why do we work in different CST's like log/row etc...? (taking dynamic range in account). let say rendering in ACEScg->log->"doing the grading and compositing"->sRGB/rec709, how can I improve this workflow?

[@editingdudevfx]

Dope bro 🔥

[@FedirSnes]

Thank's for the great tutorial!

[@narensoni3705]

Very informative Robin!!

[@Christopher-vt6zt]

Awesome! Thanks for the tutorial. Just a quick question (i'm learning so bare with me). I've set my whole compositor up like your render like the big boys, so all file output and OpenEXR Multilayer etc. Would I add these nodes to this node setup? Or is that node setup (the big boys) only usefull for animation renders? I make both stills and animations. Thanks again, learning a lot!

[@robinsquares]

If you're rendering like the big boys, you probably don't want to use Blender for compositing, so this whole video is sort of irrelevant. You'd want to do this process in Fusion, Nuke, or (if you're feeling masochistic) After Effects. This workflow is more for smaller projects where you don't want the extra steps, and want the render to look finished straight out of Blender. Though if you really wanted to combine the workflows, you would render like the big boys, open the render in a fresh compositor, do the "back to beauty" process, and add all this to the very end of the graph.

[@displaced_vertex]

This video brought you a subscription. And a sale! Woah :O

[@badejoolatuiyi1365]

amazing, thanks for this

[@robinsquares]

Some people can't drag a file into the compositor for some reason. If that's you, add an image node and find the image in there.

[@neuvatn]

Should usually work the same if the viewer uses the same blender version. Which not all do when following tutorials.

[@superherosenpai]

I have a question like if there is hell lot of compositing which I'm going to do in After effects or davinchi then why not do all these filmy stuff there too. Like why would i do this in blender.🤔

[@robinsquares]

No reason. But there's value in being able to render a finished product from Blender too.

[@chasingdaydreams2788]

You can work on the scene while being avle to see the compositing effects

[@iKaGe01]

Hey! Followed the steps appending etc but for whatever reason, 1) slow CPU probably but it takes about 2mins per frame to finish compositing, but 2) the output is black. Not sure what I have done wrong :( Could it be that I'm using 4.1 and not 4.2?

[@Dracorubio76]

Looks Awesome. The Gumroad only has a Blend1 file. I wouldn't mind a little install guide to add it to my own Startup File.

[@robinsquares]

Haha, sorry about that. I've sent you the right file. I'll make a guide for that! You append the whole scene into your file, copy the nodes into your compositor, and close the scene.

[@jamesheller9185]

pls try to upload 1440p videos youtube locked 1080p high bitrate in a paywall and original 1080p looks like 720p

[@RomboutVersluijs]

Wow the left was the end right. I would perhaps use 25-50 percent of it, it was kinda heavy for my liking

[@nafizjubaer1717]

can anyone explain the first "knee" step and what its actually doing/why we need it. Thanks

[@robinsquares]

It's just to mute down extremely strong lights if you have any. The Blender compositor doesn't handle those very well, and can result in some unpredictable behavior in some steps.

[@canoksas2979]

does this also work with a transparent background?

[@AgustinCaniglia1992]

Is there a way to append the compositor nodes into a new project? I tried but didnt work.

[@RomboutVersluijs]

WHen you make a highpass, its better to have a neutral gray, since you overlay it. White is not good. you need mid gray, white and blacks

[@D29.H45]

bro know what he doin

[@WaterShowsProd]

It seems strange to me, having a background in film, that the bleach bypass node comes before the lens effects, as bleach bypass was/is a method employed during film development, which would come after the image had gone through the lens. Was just curious how you came to find it should go first in the chain.

[@robinsquares]

You're right, it's super no-no in grading. But I really like the effect it has at the start of the chain! Whatever makes a better image, right?

[@bibamann]

Stupid question - and completely the opposite of this video: But are there also some render tricks where you set the output super raw as needed when you want to compose in an external video editor? So avoiding high contrasts / any pre-made filmic looks? Otherwise great video!

[@robinsquares]

I have a video on that! It's called "Render like the big boys"

[@mechaboy95]

Oky but I'm still sort of stupid in your 'how the big boys render' you separate everything and then stick it all back together later so do you just stick this at the end of your last node group from you last vid or do you make a new scene to add this effect to the final image of your last effect

[@robinsquares]

The "correct" workflow is to render everything out separately like I showed in that video, then import the files into a new scene, where you do the "back to beauty" compositing. Then, finally, you add this to the very end. BUT for "proper" projects, I don't composite in Blender at all. I use Resolve and Fusion. This workflow is for quick projects that just need to look fine straight out of Blender.

[@yegorkatrechko1736]

It's lame that there's no built in vignette node in Blender. But it's still possible to add vignetting effect thru combination of other nodes. Adding a little bit of it might help to achieve film look

[@Arjjacks]

There's no built-in single node for it, that's true, but if you turn on the built-in Amaranth addon (or install it in 4.2+), you'll see a new Templates menu option appear in the topbar of the compositor. Select the node in the chain that you want to add a vignette to, then go to that dropdown and click Vignette. It'll automatically setup the nodes for vignetting for you.

[@yegorkatrechko1736]

@@Arjjacks oh, thanks for pointing out! I've never heard of that addon somehow

[@Arjjacks]

@@yegorkatrechko1736 Yeah, it's actually made by Pablo Vasquez, the guy who used to do Blender Today. It's got all these random helper functions scattered throughout Blender when you turn it on. Like double clicking on a image texture node will open the image in the image editor at the same time. Or the lighter's corner in the scene properties tab for listing all the lights in your scene. Or adding the passpartout slider in the right-click menu when in a camera. Random stuff like that.

[@aradarvid1750]

The Before Image Looks more filmic/cinematic than the After does to my eyes

[@robinsquares]

Cinematic perhaps. But not filmic. Keep in mind that I exaggerated the effects for demonstration.

[@aadityayadav85]

Can you do it in after effects also please

[@yoman4802]

Me 26 minutes ago: Pff as if it's possible to make THAT image look interesting Me now: Huh, that looks pretty interesting

[@pierrecottanceau-l8l]

" viewport compositor setup not fully supported " how can I fix this ?

[@pierrecottanceau-l8l]

not supported by OPTIX ?

[@voicehead]

i was literally just thinking about this last night

[@Y3DS]

This is amazing, I'm using davinci but I need to give it a chance.

[@Enite]

Highpass that I know of is inverting the image, blurring, and mixing it back over the original @ 50%. Word.

[@SUVO_RAW]

The most expensive lenses are known for their significant amount of distortion, as they are anamorphic lenses!

[@UncleBurrito15]

Hey, I like the backdrop 😠

[@fernandoruiz5794]

this looks great, but the knee thing didn't understand it very well

[@robinsquares]

I didn't explain it very well. Basically, light in Blender gets really bright. A sun has a value of like 100. But the compositor works best in a range of 0-5 ish. So it's a way of clamping down super bright pixels. If you don't do it, some effects don't turn out great.

[@ak24789]

i love u :3

[@ablt_tlba]

So good 🥲

[@bUildYT]

damnnnn !!!

[@ak24789]

what do you think about the raw workflow from jonathan at CG Cookie?

[@robinsquares]

It's useful! And very much compatible with this compositor setup.

[@_us-studio]

@@robinsquares You wouldn't be able to use the exposure/looks in the color management tab like you did in this video though, those are broken in the Render Raw workflow that Lampel uses. Your workflow above places all your edits before the AgX transform so the Exposure/Looks menu is in play. If you combined this setup with Lampel's, you'd need to move some nodes before the manual color transform, and most others after, which might alter/break the stylistic look you've achieved here. You can see Lampel's rough node setup at 8:05 in his video to see what I mean.

[@robinsquares]

@@_us-studio True! You'd have to fiddle around a bit. And I confess, I haven't tried to combine them, so maybe there are even more unforeseen consequences. If either of you try it, tell me how it goes!

[@BlackburnZ_INDIA]

Now it’s gpu sir😊