(EEVEE) Composite Nodes and Materials Broken After Hiatus

This is most definitely user error, as I have been away from Blender for over half a year after my computer’s power unit died, and I am a bit rusty with this new version of Blender. Could someone be so kind as to check the attached demo file and let me know what I’m missing? Thank you so much in advance.

The error:
I was working on different comicbook-like filters in the compositor, Frankenstein-ing a couple pre-made node trees together to get the desired effect. I’ve never been very knowledgeable when it comes to nodes, but I had previously managed to get the filter to:

  • Create a hard outline around elements within a Mist pass (still works)
  • Adjust and posterize the colors to give it a more painterly look (still works)
  • Incorporate a texture and color shift to make a similar effect to ben-day dots (no longer working)

I’m not sure why the dots are no longer displaying in the final render. I’ve been playing around with the nodes and old files and deduced this may be due to the updates Blender had received while I was gone.

In addition, I had used brass and bronze materials from Polygoniq’s Materialiq, and I noticed the materials no longer behave as they did before. The metallic sheen and reflections are no longer as rich, the bloom is gone, and I cannot seem to locate what settings are creating the issue, as material settings seem to have gone through some changes while I’ve been gone. Maybe I need to update the addon?

Here is a render I took last year (6.20.24) of the demo file beside a new render taken with 4.3, so you have a better idea of my plight:
Old (Noice) -


New (Gross) -

I humbly ask for the guidance of more experienced compositors in what I need to do to achieve the effects from before. I would like to remain with the EEVEE render engine as it meets my needs (and is easier on my tiny brain).

Here is the file. Thank you!

Most old shaders are gone, bloom needs to be composited

Go back to 4.1, 4.2 has a new Eevee that doesn’t work

Your file is in the trash, so I can’t see it.

In blender 4.0, principled shader was changed.
There are more settings for reflection and they are using different ranges.

In 4.2, Bloom became an effect achievable, via compositor’s Glare node.

It looks like nodegroup effect was based on ability to tile images through Transform nodes.

This ability is progressively gone in 4.1 (for Translate and Scale nodes) and 4.2 (for Transform node). So, in 4.3, compositor is creating a mask, made of one small dot scaled to zero (so no mask at all), instead of filling the frame with a lot of them.

Tiling should come back in 4.4, for Translate node only, as a Wrap option, renamed Repeat option.
Repeat option should be generalized to all nodes of Transform category, later.

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