Dull colours

[Marc Lucas]

After going through some of the individual files/layers of the multi pass I can see that the ‘diffuse layer’ & the ‘matt colour layer’ have the original rgb values and look how I want the colour to look. Its only when the whole accumulation of the layers happens that the colour becomes washed out. The only think that I can think of is that it is something to do with the reflective surface that I have put on in C4D???

Don’t really understand what is going on.

[Walter Soyka]

[Marc Lucas] “After going through some of the individual files/layers of the multi pass I can see that the ‘diffuse layer’ & the ‘matt colour layer’ have the original rgb values and look how I want the colour to look. Its only when the whole accumulation of the layers happens that the colour becomes washed out. The only think that I can think of is that it is something to do with the reflective surface that I have put on in C4D???”

That makes sense.

On the C4D side, what is in the scene for the surfaces to reflect? If they are just evenly reflecting big lights or a big bright sky, your objects can easily wash out. Using a Fresnel shader in the reflection channel will make the amount of reflection dependent on the viewing and lighting angles. Using an environment channel instead of a reflection channel can let you cheat and get nice image-based reflections.

Back in AE, the beauty of doing multipass renders is that you have total control over how all those passes are composited. You can lower the opacity of the reflection pass to decrease its effect on your scene, or even manipulate the reflection pass with other effects.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Marc Lucas]

Hi

That has definitely I didn’t know that about the Reflection & Environment, thanks!

Now I’m having trouble exporting the file from AE because even though I have selected Alpha in the C4D render settings AE is not rendering out the file with an Alpha channel….what could that be?

Much appreciated!

[Walter Soyka]

[Marc Lucas] “Now I’m having trouble exporting the file from AE because even though I have selected Alpha in the C4D render settings AE is not rendering out the file with an Alpha channel….what could that be?”

I’m a bit unclear on what you’re asking — are you not seeing the alpha channel from your C4D render in AE, or you can see it but are unable to render with alpha from AE?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Marc Lucas]

Hi

When I do a basic render from C4D no multipass just the one file then take the .aec file into AE and open it I can select the ‘Toggle transparency grid’ and see the transparent BG (the alpha)

However if I perform a multipass render and select all the relevant layers that make up the scene and save that .aec file and open it in AE then open that comp there is no transparency (when I use the toggle transparency grid function) Craig alluded to the fact that the combination of the layers are additive https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/19/875152 so therefore I can’t see the transparency. I don’t understand the concept of matting it with the RGB channel like Craig suggested.

After a few renders I have successfully been able to render out a basic scene (top of this post) and use object buffers to change the colours of the text which was the main problem BUT I don’t then have control over the other multipass sections.

Thanks for your patience in this I’m currently climbing a big learning curve which thankfully I’m enjoying!

Thanks