I’ve got a project coming up in which I need to composite a 3d character into a video. I’m trying to do this in YafRay… as I like the way the global illumination works. This is proving difficult. My questions:
Can a video be inserted onto an object with yafray? All of the tutorials I have seen have involved the default blender internal renderer. When I apply a video as a texture to a plane and then render with yafray, all it shows is a white plane. When I render the same scene with the scanline… it works. I’m using an MPEG as the video. Would yafray support an AVI, or is it still images only?
If I cannot use yafray to composite in the 3d space… then I would like to use the composite tool. Can a video be added in by adding a texture node, and then somehow cutting out my character from the backgorund and placing it onto the video? How would I go about doing this? I’ve been playing with the compositing nodes for the past few days, but I’m still really at a loss on how to use them.
Thirdly: I’ve seen several references on the wiki in regards to a chroma-key node, and matte system, etc. This would be very handy for me, as it will save me from having to use shake or combustion for a short sequence I’ll be keying. However, I have the latest version of blender… 2.42a, and I dont have this feature. Is it a patch I can download somewhere? Where from? Or is it, like I’ve heard mentioned, a seperate version of blender entirely? If so, is it safe to use?
Dont mean to scare anyone with all of the questions, 've just fallen in love with blender and I’m eager to learn all I can. Thank you in advance for any responses.
As far as I’ve understood yafray doesn’t handle movie files. Infact, it doesn’t even handle
all kinds of image formats as well (I believe it for instance is png’s it can understand, but
my memory might be wrong).
You can import a video into a texture slot and use it in the compositor (just remember to
check the little “movie” button).
The chroma-key node is in 2.43. People are alreday talking about it because (Blender
being an open-source development) many already have current an more or less stable
versions of Blender 2.43. It should be due for release next week, I believe.
Until then, remember you can always pick up latest versions of blender at these sites, but
remember they’re not guaranteed to be completly stable. http://www.blenderbuilds.com/ http://www.graphicall.org/
Being new to Blender, I suggest you hold your horses for a second if it seems too big
for you. 2.43 is going to be released soon anyway.
Taking your advice, I managed to composite my character into the video. It took quite a while, but its working now.
Thanks for the suggestion on the Matte, as well. I didnt realize there would be a release date for that, and that it would be so soon. I’ll get it once it comes out