How to Composite Reflections for VFX

My Patreon Page: / inlightvfx
The Research Reflection Kit (now FREE!): inlightvfx.gum...
It has been a while but I'm excited to be back! In this video, we explore four different methods to composite CGI into footage with reflective surfaces. After a brief overview of all the methods, I go into more detail about how I created the CG elements in Blender along with a detailed look at the compositing process (also in Blender). Hopefully you can learn something and take your VFX to the next level!
LINKS FROM THE VIDEO:
Direct + Indirect Light Explanation: • Composite CGI Around R...
‪@marioCazares‬ ACES Setup Video: • Setup ACES in Blender
SPECIAL THANKS:
Kris (name changed since recording) - / bettinikrisp
‪@CurtisHolt‬
Julius Ilhe - julius-ihle.de...
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Twitter: / inlightvfx
CC-Credits:
3D Violin Model by Giannisimic: blendswap.com/...
Clay Pots Model by BigBadCat: blendswap.com/...

[@ObscureHedgehog]

Your tutorials are cinematic adventures. What a master of his craft.

[@CurtisHolt]

Excellent video Jacob, I'm just in awe at the quality and attention to detail you put into your videos. All of the animations, the careful use of music, the pacing, it's all excellent. And it was lovely meeting you in person of course. 😄

[@InLightVFX]

Thank you, Curtis! It's really nice to have the support of friend/pro like you to help/encourage along the way!

[@soop1711]

This is one of the best VFX tutorials I've watched. Criminally underrated. Fantastic work.

[@tigerroar6071]

Nice to see you back on KZbin! Your presentation style is unbeatable. Thank you so much for making this video, I love it.

[@Undy1]

Instead of blocking the reflections physically as shown at 6:30 you can get a polarizing filter for your camera - it should get rid of most of the reflection in the floor while keeping everything else mostly unchanged.

[@InLightVFX]

That's a really great idea! I'm definitely going to try this in the future.

[@AwesomeDrop]

Honestly you do some of the best tutorials out there. Thank you for all the effort!

[@InLightVFX]

It's my pleasure, Rowan! Thank you for watching!

[@kasmedify]

I don't know how many times I check If he has posted something. This is priceless. Please do a tut every month. Just once a month pleaase

[@InLightVFX]

I'm very happy to hear you liked this one! I would maybe release once a month but they usually take more than a month to make to make! 😂

[@kasmedify]

I know! Given you have other projects running.

[@Butterbilk]

EXCELLENT video Jacob. The visuals, pacing and overall presentation of all this knowledge is so good that it honestly makes me feel guilty that this is free to watch. You should be super proud of this one!

[@InLightVFX]

Thanks, Matt! I had my head down for so long making this one that I had lost a sense as to how it stood as a whole. So thanks for your feedback and encouragement!

[@georgerussell2947]

this is one of the greatest tutorials I have seen

[@AcademyOfEdits]

Wow really well done, you can tell hours and hours were poured over making this. loved it dude.

[@IanLetarte]

After looking up the verse at the end, the channel name makes a lot more sense. :) Keep up the good work!

[@koncretemonki8077]

Talk about master class this is amazing!!! The exposure element is something missing from most movies that fail at CG.

[@InLightVFX]

Thank you!

[@Quikkmaffs]

Your videos are some of the best tutorials out there. So useful and very entertaining. I hope you continue making these, despite the relatively low view count. More people need to see this. Tripple A quality!

[@InLightVFX]

Thanks! I will definitely keep making tutorials though sporadic as the releases may be.

[@Quikkmaffs]

@@InLightVFXI can imagine it takes a ton of work. Quality over quantity, so sporadic is perfectly fine. Have a nice day!

[@kyleheilig255]

Thank you. Lighting has been a real learning curve for me in compositing. I've started to wrap my head around it, and this video has come at a very opportune moment.

[@InLightVFX]

Glad to hear that, Kyle!

[@brokenstudiotv]

I have been literally working on a project for the past week that requires the things you talked about in this tutorial and you released it 2 days ago... Huge thanks for this very detailed breakdown!

[@InLightVFX]

Wow, perfect timing! You are very welcome.

[@Just3DThings]

Wow! Omg this is such an amazing tutorial... the music the pacing the examples and problem-solving everything is jam-packed with information...loved this video jacob. Thanks for making it😁

[@InLightVFX]

Charan! Thanks so much!

[@Didacxyz]

127 / 5,000 incredible, very interesting and fantastically explained, down to the last detail. Thank you very much for this gift to the community.🙂

[@AnsonSavage]

Yeah, this is great! I´ve come to realize that there aren´t really any magical ways to do composited reflections, so this covers a lot of the most important points. Thank you!

[@AlfieVaughan]

Only just discovered this. What an amazing video! Great work Jacob!

[@InLightVFX]

Hey Alfie! Thanks man, I really appreciate it!

[@he.smile_]

The king of tutorials is back

[@Bibliothekaresse]

This is amazing. So is all the rest of your content. Imma share this with everyone!

[@3dvfxprofessor]

As an old school 3d generalist coming from Softimage, I am impressed with your didactic and technical skills. This is a similar workflow that I (try to) teach my students! Well done!

[@InLightVFX]

Thank you very much! I'm glad to hear I'm on the right track :)

[@lucensius]

You're amazing dude! Very well explained. Please make more compositing tutorials like this. It's a need on KZbin. You're filling the gap. Thank you!

[@patricklevar]

Ya making the script will really help 🤓👍🏾

[@bohdance]

That's crazy how few views and subs you got. The most underrated VFX channel I've come across. Literally opened my eyes to a new world of realism. Also, if you are reading this, I was wondering what you think about projecting footage on the ground plane or any other stationary objects to create realistic indirect lighting/reflections for the object itself (I understand that in case of a shot like shown in your video, this won't work. I'm talking more about the generic method when you don't have that much of a control over your footage and custom HDRI)

[@Villio.]

What an amazing quality video..i never knew how or what shadow catcher was ..but this video explains all

[@pianoob6890]

The quality and the details in this tutorial is next lvl💥🤯

[@sanzay.]

Bro you got a lot of patience with editing things! Amazing information! Keep it up!

[@user-fz3en2xj2j]

This was so helpful! Thank you!! As for the reflection matte scripting, I was able to make a work around where I just used sphere to block off the light from the HDRI thus removing the need to disconnect it and render that layer separately :D

[@ceci1017]

Amazing video!! Thank you so much

[@JoshAntonio]

Really great stuff! Always interesting content :)

[@omatoic]

I am really cool apparently. Great video. Thats a heck of a lot of work if you have 100 shots to do in your film and 2 weeks to do them. But i have to admit the results look great.

[@AndyEngelkemier]

for the reflection matte. You could use a new scene? The compositor lets you choose the scene as well as view layers. So you can just include the two instanced objects in that scene, then use whichever settings you want for that scene. This is also how you mix cycles and eevee (or even workbench) renders, which is useful when you're working with eevee for speed, but maybe aren't happy with the refractions there and just want to use cycles for a certain material or something like that. And yeah, a script that lets you select which objects/collections you'd like in your other scene would be cool just to speed that up. I'd rather do it that way then have to use a script to flip back and forth between something like connecting/disconnecting an environment node (not assuming that's what you'd be doing)

[@mariuszurbaniak7314]

been waitin so long for this!

[@Meteotrance]

You can use a polarised filter on your camera to block the reflection, it's truly work for that kind of glossy passe, you can also extract the glossy passe from real element with that.

[@InLightVFX]

Awesome tip!

[@Meteotrance]

@@InLightVFX it's also use for long time with the photogrammetry process use by Paul debevec with his setup he use cross polarised filter on light and camera to extract the glossiness of a face by multiplied trick, adobe substance do something similar by scanning a Tea pot they kill the reflection to scan the color of the asset, it's really powerfull.

[@Meteotrance]

Usualy we use polarised filter for taking picture of the surface of a windows or a lac or a pond to see behind it without the fresnel effect reflection, it's also neutralised cloudy sky in a good way, it's use on photography since a very long time.

[@zainkashif858]

My mind is physically blown

[@TheInfinites]

As always, amazing!

[@Dapps254]

This is a really awesome and great tutorial!!

[@arvyza]

Why did I just discover this amazing channel 😭

[@pinpointping6175]

This is so good except the steps necessary. I mean come on blender! And yes I read your freeze frame monologue in the middle and I would definitely pay for an addon version of this. Just an addon to get a reflection matte even. My projects get clogged with collections and view layers so quickly now 😢

[@gordonbrinkmann]

That's a really amazing tutorial, to composite 3D objects in reflective footage is really something I would struggle with a lot. Your video is awesome. Now the only thing bothering me in the end is, since you explained a lot about what you have to take care of and how the reflections work, it really struck my eye that the violin has a slightly reflective surface too, but the shadows and reflections of the chairs and table's legs in the background are discontinued on the violin. You can see them on the floor behind the violin and in front of it and it looked odd to me when the camera moved.

[@juan_fbx]

I put like on the video before I saw it. I know I won't regret it 😎💯

[@SpaceSTG]

Wow! Nice work.

[@goatpepperherbaltea7895]

Heck yeah best tutorials around

[@marioCazares]

Very awesome that violin looks so good :o! I also love that custom Blender unpremult and premult for color corrections :) For Shadow Catcher I believe clamping anything above 1 will remove all reflections from the shadow (Like in Nuke adding Clamp node checking maximum on and setting maximum to 1). I'm not 100% sure but I believe that'll work. I will be using this video to comp CG through a window reflection so thank you!

[@InLightVFX]

Hey Mario! Thanks for your kind words! I tried your clamping suggestion on my end and it seems like the effectiveness of this approach may depend on the lighting of the scene. With my violin shot, the reflections darken the surface. So the reflection part of the shadow catcher pass mostly has values below 1 to achieve that darkening effect when multiplied. Therefore, when I clamped that shadow pass I see almost no change. BUT, with the clay pots scene, since those reflections are brightening the surface, those pixel values in the shadow pass are well above 1. In this case, clamping the pass definitely does cut out most of the reflection but I'm still left with a bit of some odd remnants. I do think this is still a nice trick to know about, especially for someone who has already rendered out a full shadow pass and didn't realize reflections were coming along for the ride :) Great to have the chance to remove them in compositing. (Btw I'm overexplaining this not for your sake but for anyone else reading).

[@marioCazares]

@@InLightVFX You are correct my bad! I use an old Blender Guru method (kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZu6oJqigr6LeKc) which is NOT the same but can look quite similar to the Shadow Catcher pass. It gives shadows below 1 and indirect light above 1. I don't refuse to use Shadow Catcher by choice it's just the studio I work at hasn't gone above Blender 2.83 yet (for stability reasons). Unrelated but a little fun thing I realized is that the Blender Guru method can be done in real life with live action footage! Using clean plate or sometimes a constant and dividing with the footage will give you shadows and indirect light pass of filmed footage. I've used this on 6 or 7 live action plates already (locked shots with cam not moving too much)

[@InLightVFX]

To celebrate 50k subs, the files are now FREE for everyone! Just use code 'FREE' at checkout: inlightvfx.gumroad.com/l/refkit

[@Benn25]

This is amazing, great tut. But this is so much work! 🤣

[@rajendrameena150]

You should launch course from scratch, people will love it. People like you rarely seen on youtube. Blender people really get vfx confidence from you.

[@REDPanti]

Amazing ⚡

[@sekenjonathan]

Very informative tutorial. Thank you.

[@BECHEEKHA]

Amazing😮

[@stefanguiton]

superb video!!

[@gongyi]

great tutorial！

[@AkanBrownStudios]

Best tutorial in the world. Damn!!!

[@tomvonlanthen5513]

Great as usual :)

[@nuf242]

impresive tutorial

[@jeanbaptistekrauss]

awesome!

[@arupsan]

Superb

[@P9_STUDIO]

Ferrol mola!

[@InLightVFX]

Ayyyy!

[@tracecarrasco3872]

Respect👌

[@InLightVFX]

Ayyy, thank you Trace :)

[@casher307]

Hi,just randomly came across your channel and amazed by your work! Can you please suggest a VFX course to where I can learn to become a master like you

[@___x__x_r___xa__x_____f______]

Would love you to make a tut on how to masterfully composite shadow and contact shadows on rotoscoped action characters used in the Blender scene with Image as Plane. Adding the filmed actor to the 3D scene, it seems hard to accurately project adequate shadows given that the image as plane doesn’t provide the volume of the feet in contact with floor. I’ve played around with this on the fly hidden volume, but it seems just easier to get the contact shadow in compositing.

[@MrZabu365]

brooooo great video

[@ЕфимКлимов-е2е]

Amazing thank you very!!!!!!

[@jkartz92]

Could you share a tutorial series on the compositing part using nuke for these scenes

[@thehypest]

Excellent as usual! Did you do something to add some of the grain back in the cg elements in comp?

[@InLightVFX]

Good question and good eye! Yes, I did add some grain to the cg elements in Nuke. This was a little outside of the scope of the tutorial (especially when compositing in Blender) hence why I didn't mention it.

[@thehypest]

@@InLightVFX yeah no problem, was just curious. Grain in blender is...awkward. So I thought you had done something in nuke to add it back to better blend the elements in. Awesome, Thank you!

[@fabireggedan4031]

I like the tutorial a lot and i try to follow it, but how did you setup the camera in the 3d space in the beginning (to set every thing up and later track it)?

[@DucaSimonLuchini]

Hi ILVFX; I am extremely interested about the 3D text reflecting in the water footage (entirely in Blender, not also in Nuke..., unless you can use it in the free version). Any tutorial about it. And why you didn't make a Kit also for this purpose? Thanks for a reply!

[@TheBostonhollywood]

great work but i guess someday there will be a native reflection catcher build in blender.

[@moomin2162]

Great tutorial! Which program did you use for camera tracking? :)

[@InLightVFX]

Thanks! I used Blender for the tracking

[@NarekManukyan]

great video, can you please tell me, is anywhere available video about water reflection with waves?

[@InLightVFX]

Hi there, hopefully this is helpful for you (you can access it by joining my patreon for free): www.patreon.com/posts/tut-bonus-water-67594049?Link&

[@محمدالعربي-ن9ل1ن]

9:32 Why do you change the background in the first place?

[@pinpointping6175]

I’ve figured out a material override option instead of creating new collections and duplicating objects to get a reflection matte that supports multiple ground objects and materials. Anyone let me know if that interests you.

[@dossantos_films]

Hi Jacob, can`t you just use the reference photo and After Effects to track the floor and add the floor photo? So on Blender itself you render the reflection mate, but no need to also export just the floor.

[@InLightVFX]

That's true! You can create that in After Effects or whatever compositor you use that can do tracking. Since my camera was already solved in Blender I just made it there.

[@stefanforde1315]

sometimes i go to the separate rgb, nd adjust the blacks and whites for each channel, do you think this has a use?

[@rajendrameena150]

Is blender compositor is good enough and can we see preview fasters.

[@mariotriforce]

Care to do another version of this tutorial in fusion?

[@tamilorejoseph4704]

wow, how did you access those values like so in white text covered in a transparent overlay in the image editor 17.10

[@InLightVFX]

Right click and hover over the image with your mouse and they will magically appear :)

[@mallickpriyanshu]

I use Fusion in my composition work... And in most of the composition videos I see on youtube, they are either using AE or Nuke. As someone who has used both AE, Nuke, and Fusion, why do you think that is? I know why people use AE, coz it's easier to understand and master. But why do people prefer Nuke more than Fusion? One thing I can think about is Layout customizability but that shouldn't be a game-changer. Why did you switch from Fusion to Nuke?

[@InLightVFX]

Good question! Nuke seems to handle color management much better than Fusion and has less issues getting hung up on more complicated composites. I have only used Fusion as part of Davinci Resolve so perhaps these issues are not present in the standalone version. Nuke is also the industry standard so it makes sense to use if working at a studio interests you someday. But I also wouldn't say I've "switched" from Fusion to Nuke. I still will probably use both just to keep track of the development of new tools to make sure I'm using the best ones.

[@RobertDeNiro-k7q]

Video was good, but I still understand nothing. Got confused somewhere in the middle

[@mohammadbintareq3085]

I really want to do vfx but my computer is very very slow in rendering animation. Can anyone help me how to fast up the rendering time?

[@nemuncsiabancsi173]

Maybe setting the Device to GPU compute, if it was on cpu. You can look it up, how to set GPU for rendering.

[@zubairillahi1604]

hi after a long time ago you make this video

[@benbunch4159]

Ugh really hoping for a solution that doesn’t require me to render multiple times.

[@edh615]

Why not set the specular to 0 instead of messing with the roughness?

[@InLightVFX]

To make the reflection matte? This is an option. You could then blur the reflection matte in compositing.

[@edh615]

@@InLightVFX I was referring to the shadow pass, I see that you make the roughness to 1.

[@InLightVFX]

@@edh615 I see. I just tested this out. You're right that setting the Specular value to 0 for the shadow material does get rid of the reflections for the Shadow Catcher Pass. But I also noticed it gets rid of some of the color in the shadows (which would come from the indirect light bouncing off the Specular surface). It seems that setting the Roughness to 1 might be better as I get that color information back in the shadows. I do think in general it's probably best not to modify the specular value. But those are just conclusions from this quick test. Thank you for bringing up that idea, Ed! And I'd be curious if anyone else has an opinion on the matter.

[@BRON3D]

thank you so much! are you from Ferrol?

[@InLightVFX]

You're welcome! I am not from Ferrol but I was living there for a little last year. Do you know Ferrol? It's an awesome place!

[@BRON3D]

​@@InLightVFX Nice! No, I don't. But I summered many years in Galicia, but in the province of Pontevedra. In Moaña, in front of Vigo ;) But you know, Ferrol is very well known. Galicia is great heheh Well, thanks for your knowledge again. Peace!

[@InLightVFX]

@@BRON3D Oh nice! Indeed, Galicia is a great region :)

[@maxmaxed2887]

So how do you export that reflection layer on a transparent background? as PNG

[@InLightVFX]

PNG could work, EXR is best though.

[@maxmaxed2887]

@@InLightVFX I just exported Glossy Indirect pass and masked out the rest of stuff. There is no way to automatically mask a reflection like 3ds max or Cinema 4d do for export to png.

[@AntoineVanGeyseghem]

=o

[@virgilfoster5270]

𝓟Ř𝔬𝓂𝔬𝐒ϻ

[@AliAhmedKhurram]

Hi there Jacob! Awesome video, as usual. To render without an environment, in a select pass, is possible in vanilla blender. There is a checkbox for the environment, under the filter tab, in the view layer properties. I've attached a blend file where i've made 2 view layers showing the effect. Have a nice day! drive.google.com/file/d/1itAiBxtznDVYNQn6aLZ_5BrDnfLlNF3P/view?usp=sharing

[@InLightVFX]

That's really nice to know about, Ali. Thanks for the tip and the file!

[@AliAhmedKhurram]

@@InLightVFX You're most welcome