3D Render and Render Passes

[Jaffa]

Have just been viewing the Official James Ritson video tutorial on Blend Modes. Whilst it looks very impressive indeed to me and I can follow quite a bit of it, I am completely lost on one aspect. At the beginning, he talks fairly quickly about "3D Render" and "Render Passes". I have just looked in Help and not much there to enlighten me.

 

Does one have to use a Plugin to do this? Or can I activate "Open Colour IO"? Is there a video tutorial to start to learn 3D rendering?

[firstdefence]

Open Colour IO website

Affinity Photo doesn't have 3D rendering, What he is probably using is a 3D rendered as an image with separate layers for things like specular. That part of the video really should have been explained at the start to avoid confusion.

[Jaffa]

Thanks First Defence, so I gather from your response that a plugin is required, or perhaps to process the image in a third party program first?  Am still trying to understand?

[casterle]

On 6/7/2019 at 3:08 AM, Jaffa said:

Thanks First Defence, so I gather from your response that a plugin is required, or perhaps to process the image in a third party program first?  Am still trying to understand?

Perhaps firstdefence was pointing you to that page as an educational resource. 

As I understand things, OpenColorIO is a color management system supported by many applications and designed to move image content through the film production pipeline with consistency. Although not acknowledged as such on the OCIO website, AP is one of the image editing programs that support OCIO, and is this thus a good fit for use in that pipeline. I watched a video demonstrating this feature, perhaps the one that led you here, and was impressed with how closely you can match a rendered image in AP using OCIO. 

If you want to play with producing rendered images, I'd recommend taking a look at Blender, a free full-featured open-source 3D modeling package. I've been hours a day for several weeks with the 2.80 beta and I've gotta say, it's not your father's Blender. What used to be In (not only) My Humble Opinion a wretched mess of a UI has been totally revamped and is more that usable. There's a new real-time pseudo rendering engine (Eevee) and Cycles has been vastly updated (or so I've heard - I never got that far with the Blender of old).

Anyway, the UI and Python API's are frozen so now is a pretty safe time to start looking. There are lots of YouTube videos, many highlighting the new UI which has been in development for years as I understand it. Udemy has several courses, as well, some with 2.80 updates. Pre-2.80 videos are courses are a problem because the UI is completely different. Release is scheduled for mid-July.

Beta here: https://www.blender.org 

 

[Jaffa]

Thanks casterle, you have been very thorough in your explanation, however,  you really need to speak to me as though I am in kindergarten ---- in this particular instance.  I did look at First Defence's link, but when I saw "geared towards motion picture production", my eyes started to glaze over.  

Do I need a plugin - seems NO

Do I need specialised knowledge - seems clearly - YES

Where can I start (from an EARLY POINT in the process)  -  Not identified, I would love to know!

Am struggling here!   

[firstdefence]

The 3D subject is big learning curve but I have to say very rewarding, the best place to start is the beginning: https://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/ there are some great tutorials from beginner to advanced. Download Blender: https://www.blender.org/download/ watch the tutorials and don't be in a hurry to make something lol! The interface for blender can seem daunting at first but it soon becomes familiar. Once you can move about in blender, find something simple you want to make in 3D and use the tutorials to create it

Practice makes perfect.

[casterle]

15 hours ago, Jaffa said:

Thanks casterle, you have been very thorough in your explanation, however,  you really need to speak to me as though I am in kindergarten ---- in this particular instance.  I did look at First Defence's link, but when I saw "geared towards motion picture production", my eyes started to glaze over.  

Do I need a plugin - seems NO

Do I need specialised knowledge - seems clearly - YES

Where can I start (from an EARLY POINT in the process)  -  Not identified, I would love to know!

Am struggling here!   

Sorry I wasn't more clear. You are right; no plugin is required, but man, the specialized knowledge factor is off the charts. firstdefence has pointed you to the right direction and given excellent advice on getting started started with Blender. 

There are many good tutorials on YouTube. chocofur has a great tutorial series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYVR0A4acpNbm91RK_9l-P6dv2jPuUHU7) that I started with. I do better with more comprehensive courses, so I found one on Udemy called "Complete Blender Creator". The first 4 sections have been updated for 2.80, and they are working on converting the rest (it took me weeks to work through the first 3 sections; there's lots of content). They answer questions on a daily basis, which isn't true of other Udemy courses I've taken. Whatever you do, make sure the Blender course you take has been updated for the new version.