Doc:Books/ActionBook/Nodes
From BlenderWiki
Yes, with Nodes, you can truly make magic normally only seen in the Big Boys software before. The idea behind nodes is to graphically program your own new tools by connecting & linking different input/output Nodes. With Nodes you can control different kind of compositing. We can expect many new Nodes and also major Blender UI integration with nodes in the next Blender versions, so, go go go & practice with nodes as much as possible! :)
- Note: Some of these example files were accidentally overwritten with Blender CVS, so you might find some bugs. Please report them to me if you do.
Itten's Garden Lab
Render Layers Composition & Color Manipulation
It's a good idea to keep introductory lessons light & simple. This is especially true for the tools in progress like Nodes (Jan, 2007). That's why I decided to build a 2D scene such as one might create with Photoshop with layers first. Heh, of course it's easy to add 3rd and time dimensions too (check files: Basic DOF and Faces 4 Heroes)!
Johannes Itten was an interesting guy who dedicated his life to the exploration of color. One of his findings was 7 color contrasts, which are a great help for defining harmonic color compositions. You can read more about his color contrasts in the Tips & Tricks section of this ActionBook. What's interesting is that you can apply these color contrasts to music tones, but that is another topic, so let's get back to our Itten's Garden Node Lab.
In the Itten's Garden Lab example file you will find 8 render layers (F10) and hue/saturation/value sliders for each of them.
Btw, don't forget to press these buttons when using nodes: Use Nodes, Do Composite & Render Layers!
Download
- Download .blend File:IttensGardenLab.blend
- Note: Example file is saved with Blender 2.43.
Itten's Stumbling Block
Render Layers Composition; Static Particles, Filters & 2D Manipulation
 | In this Itten's Stumbling Block .blend file you will find a scene with some basic use of static particles and material setup for distant 'plants' (for use of static particles check also this Fur Library by sketchy).
In this file, 3 render layers (ground, plans and stone) and flat RGB value input node for sky color are used. The layer with 'stone' is moved a bit with a Translate node, and the shadows are manipulated with a Defocus node. Download
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Basic AB Materials Fading Animation Nodes Setup
Render Layers Composition; Materials & Time node
 | This is example that explores the usage of the Time Node and Mat: input field (F10 > Render Layers >> Mat:).
Download
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Basic DOF (Distance of Focus) Nodes Setup
Render Layers Composition; Z Blur
 | This is an example of how to setup DOF with Nodes. Note that the Color Ramp in this example is used for the fine tunning of the Z blur. This setup affects 3D space, while the Defocus node affects only the flat 2D space. You can see more of the how to use the Defocus node in the next file, Faces 4 Heroes, and in Itten's Stumbling Block.
Download
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Faces 4 Heroes
Render Layers Composition; Z Combine, Hue, Normal, Defocus, Filters & 2D manipulation
 | In this example you can see the use and combination of different nodes.
It looks complicated, but once you understand basic principles of nodes it's quite easy to build complex post production nodes setup. Here is interesting use of Z Combine node which stands for combining Z layers, similar to 2D layers, but in 3D space. Download
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IK Monogram
Render Layers Composition; Normal Nodes
 | This is example of using Normal nodes as a light setup.
You can see such a setup in a video tutorial made by the excellent animator Daniel Martinez Lara. Download
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Check also
- Feel free to add some useful links here.
