Natron

Using Channels as Mattes

Ever since posting my Natron mural tutorial, I’ve gotten lots of questions about the process of using the color channels of footage as an alpha channel. It can definitely be a confusing technique, especially if you’re new to compositing. I thought it’d be a good idea to make a short tutorial going over that process specifically.

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STmap Lens Distort workflow

I realize after the last few posts I made, this whole process might be a bit confusing, so I wanted to consolidate it all into one video. This is a short demo of the complete workflow to get your lens distortion out of Blender using STmaps, beginning to end.

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Blender Lens Distortion STmap Update & Node

If you watched my last tutorial on exporting STmaps from Blender to apply your lens distortion in whatever compositing program you are using, I’m happy to share that I have an update that improves the process in every way!

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Exporting Blender Lens Distortion Using STmaps

Part of using Blender in a professional studio pipeline is being able to matchmove your scene and use that exact camera setup in whatever compositing application you’re working in. And that means dealing with the lens distortion.

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Christmas Donation Tutorial Contest!

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Hi everyone! The holiday season is here, and regardless of what you celebrate, we can probably all agree it’s a wonderful time to spend with friends and family. Every year at this time, a few friends and I volunteer at a local Los Angeles girls orphanage to throw a Christmas party for the girls there who either don’t have families or won’t be able to be with them during the holidays. For most of these girls, it’s the highlight of their year. (more…)

Intro to Compositing in Natron

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Finally, I’ve finished this up and I’m getting it out there! The first Natron tutorial for OpenVisualFX. If you haven’t heard of Natron, it’s an open source compositing program very similar to Nuke. In fact, it’s similar enough that if you know one, you know the other. I wanted to come up with a fun scene with some relatively standard compositing work, the kind of thing an artist at a professional studio is going to be doing all the time, and the TNT television show The Last Ship gave me the perfect opportunity. (more…)