Render Layers Tutorial Lesson

 This tutorial was to teach us about how to add different render layers so when we composite it into our video using After Effects, we have a lot more control to editing the appearance to create an overall better look. I did not have to create the objects in the scene, this exercise was simply to teach us how different render layer passes can benefit the way you work.

The image below is just to remind me what the ''render settings'' symbol looks like when an attribute is overridden, it turns red as the indicator. It does seem to be a common sense fact to know but sometimes the most simple facts are easily forgotten so this way when I look back at my notes I know what this means.

This is the screenshot of the process when bringing all the items into AfterEffects.

The image below is a screenshot from first video I rendered out didn't have the ''reflection pass'' layer showing, I put the ''Alpha Track Matte'' option on the wrong layer in the composition, this made the overall result wrong. I made note of this in case a similar mistake occurred. 

The image below is the mistake corrected and as you can see the cube's reflection on the table mat is visible. I am happy with the result.

https://vimeo.com/76698166: this is the link

Points to remember:

• The shadow render pass requires transparency as it works through alpha channel.
• TIFF file format has an alpha channel and holds more information when rendering out frames from Maya
• The colour render pass requires transparency, similar to the shadow render pass
• The main render passes are: OCCLUSION, COLOUR, REFLECTION and SHADOW, more can be added but these the main ones used