Mastering Render Passes in Maya: A Complete Workflow Guide

1. Introduction: Alright, guys. My name is GijosenGupta. I am your sense, your teacher, your professor, a little background about who I am. I love films. I've been doing film ever since I was a child. Yes, I'm one of those people who are blessed who knew what they want to do ever since they were a child. So a little educational background about myself. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in films and animations with a specialization in VFX and CGI from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Upstate New York. So while my time there, I didn't just focus on my courses and curriculum. I went out and about and dealt in every single class and kind of forced myself to learn everything related to film. So when it comes to editing, cinematography, color grading, color science, all of them are under my expertise. I solely and especially love everything about the filmmaking process. And I'm here to teach you whatever I know and put it on this beautiful platform that we have called Skillshare. Over the course of my career, I've had the opportunity and the honor of being blessed with several dozen awards and nominations across the world, including ance 2024, where my latest short film Countless had got nominated, and that was a huge break for me. I met so many beautiful people, so many amazing filmmakers and people in the industry, actors, directors, colorists, DOPs. It was amazing. And in this class, what I'm going to be talking about is something that is not really talked about much, which is how do we get our Maya renders ready for compositing. It's not as simple as just rendering out an EXR sequence. There's a certain technique in which you should do it. It's kind of like getting your renders ready for smart Word. So compositors, what they do is they need a lot of optionality in order to be able to put it into the final image, either with live action or just pure three. Every time they want to change, they can't ask us to render because rendering takes time, and to actually do that in three D is very, very time consuming. So because of that, what I'm going to be teaching is how to create render passes. I'm going to be diving deep into understanding AOVs, which are arbitrary output values with which you can actually manipulate the image and the sequences through various parameters in your compositing software. So basically, you're I'm going to be teaching you is I'm going to be teaching you how to get your AXRs ready for the compositing department. So we're going to be covering how AOVs work. We're going to be understanding how to create those AOVs. A lot of people do not talk about how we can separate the lights. Now, for example, the compositor says, Hey, you know, I want this light to be a little bit more dim. Now, the compositor has to tell the three D artist, which is do the render again by reducing the light. Now, that's a small change and too huge of a ti. So I'm going to be teaching you how to create separate passes for your lights as well, so the compositor can just take that out and actually just adjust it in the compositing software, which is hours and hours of work. Then I'm going to be talking about how we can separate foreground, midground, and background so that it removes the element of otoscopy or roto painting for the compositing artist. Then we're going to talk about an ambient occlusion. What is it? How is it? How do we actually create it and how it is beneficial for the compositor. Then we're going to be talking about shadow pass and material override in the render layer set. We discussing how we can create shadows and separate it from our actual object and how the compositor can use that for their compositing and also how do we take all of that and how do you export it and get it ready for compositing? So in a nutshell, I'm going to be talking about your workflow after you finish animation, texturing and lighting. The step after that is what I'm going to be talking about. So this class is for intermediate people. You should have knowledge as to how to move around Maya, how to basically understand the interface and understand where the settings are. I expect my students to beginner level knowledge and overall navigation and understanding certain terminologies. So this class is intermediate, and I'm going to be discussing about these topics. I am going to be showing you where the settings are, but you will have to navigate those yourself. All right? So let's get started without further ado. If you have any questions, please comment on each of the lessons. I'm going to be dividing it up properly so that you can get ready to send your renders for the compositing department, and they don't have to tell you to re render because you've already done the smart work and given them all the pass that you need. Alright. For this project, basically, I'm going to providing the basic Myofle. I have composed it. I have textured it, I have done the lighting. All you have to do is link the textures, alright? That's something you ought to do yourself. Then you can follow along step by step into my lessons. And as a final project, all you have to do is submit the EXR, basically one EXR sequence because it's a still image, and then I will check it and I will see all the passes that you have done as a compositor, and then I'll let you know if there's any feedback or if there's any constructive critique, right? So let's get started. Without further ado, let's go. 2. What are AOVs?: Guys. So firstly, before we get into it, let's try and understand what exactly are AOVs. They stand for arbitrary output variables. It kind of basically means that in CG, I can render out any type of shading category. Now, you might think, like, Okay, that just sounds like another language. Let me put a real life perspective into this, right? Okay, I'm sitting over here. We have many things that's going on in terms of, like, real life scenarios. And that's what you got to think when you're doing in CG, you got to think about what exactly is going on. So for example, in this frame that you're seeing, have a light, which is right there, a key light, which is directly shining on my face so you all can see. Then you can see this mic over here. It's a little bit blur, but I'm more crisper. If I put my hand, if you see, it's blur, and my face is kind of, like, crisp. So there's depth. That is another thing. Then we have the background, which is, like, overexposed, like completely, like, just blown out light. But so that's a different type of light that's like the sunlight, which is so we have different types of lights, and then you can see, like my glasses. That's like, you know, it's giving a little bit of refraction, a little bit reflection off of things that I'm seeing. So that is something which is there. So if you take a look at it, there are so many different types of values that are there. So what AOVs does, it helps us separate all of these into different images. And what what is the advantage of that is later on in compositing, I can take all of these different images, combine them, adjust them individually. To my liking to my story. For example, if we take this example again, we have the direct light which is there over there. So if I were to just choose an AOV which is direct light, so it will only show the things that are directly lit, no reflections, no refractions, no indirect lighting, only the direct light on my skin. So you'll only see the direct light on my face. Then if you chose, let's say, indirect lights, maybe the sunlight, the cloudy light, the outside daylight, they have an indirect light maybe like over here on the back of my head, maybe on the back of this chair. So only those will be shown. So in compositing, what that does is you can kind of re do the indirect light, maybe increase the indirect light a little bit, decrease the indirect light a little bit, maybe take the direct light, decrease it just a little bit. You know, maybe it's too bright on my face. So imagine that this is live action, so it's easier for me to explain. But when in CG, you have to create everything from scratch, right? Unfortunately. So when you're doing that, you need to be able to give those values as to what the compositor wants. So that is where you need to think. Now, for example, I want to separate this mic from me. Now, if I just render this image out, I could eventually do a rotoscopi of this mic, and then it will separate the foreground and the background, So now for that also we have an AOV pass. Now, that pass is called the ID pass. Basically what the idea is is kind of it assigns a color to each geometry so that you can just choose that color and then separate it. So you don't have to worry about rotoscopy. So that is what AOVs does. AOVs basically simplify the post production workflow. And that is what we're going to be learning. We're going to be learning some of the basic basic AOVs that exist. We're also going to be talking about just the atmospheric volume where we have certain mists. You know, sometimes it's not clear sky. Sometimes it's a little bit misty. When the sun rays fall, you can see, like the sun rays, what we call as good rays in film. You can see some of that. How do we adjust that in post production? Every time rendering is not there? So having these passes separate is super, super important, especially for compositors. So as a render artist, as a three D artist, it is very important for you to learn how to separate it, how to give those specific passes to the compositor. Basically, dividing every single thing. Now, let's say, another final example is, I just want to focus on reflections. So now you can see this is glass over here, my glasses, my rims. These are made out of glass. They're continuously reflecting lights from different sources. They're direct reflections, they're indirect reflections. So how do we separate that? Maybe my glass reflections is too much over here. So I can take out a pass directly out of Maya, just out of reflection, and I can reduce that reflection. So it gives you flexibility to adjust real world scenarios in a compositing software. But in order to do that, you have to have to before you render. Sure that all of these AOVs are also rendered out, which is what we're going to be learning in the next lesson is how to create your basic AOV setup, a rule of thumb as to how AOVs can be broken, and that's how we're going to be going about it. All right, so let's go. 3. Create Basic AOVs: Guys, so welcome to how to create AOVs. We're going to be diving literally into May. Again, keep in mind this is an intermediate lesson. So we're going to be kind of I'm not going to be showcasing how to move around, how to navigate M. There's something that you should know how to do. So make sure you download this file, which is studio set version one. So make sure that is downloaded. That is the one that you'll be working on. That is the thing that you'll get. Immediately, you will see a scene kind of like this. So if you look at it, we have a book. We have a came like a computer over here. We have a con Zoom camera and an old retro photo camera. This is what we will be having. Then let's see. We have a camera over here. We have a camera right here, which is called the render cam. And we have all these different lights which are kind of set up, right? So this is what we will be working with. Now, what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to go over here and kind of choose a two pane view. Alright? I'm going to choos a two pane view and then right over here. And go panels. I will go renderCam. I'll select this over here so I can see. And then I go here to panels, keep the perspective on. So I can see the final view right here. And on my right side, I can see the final view of how the render cam looks. And if you want, we can just go here Arnold. I'll just open Arnold Render view, and I'll just show you how it immediately looks. And just hit the play button here. Okay, so this is how the render looks. This is what I have. I've given a little contrast of the warm light to the old book and, like, screen two cameras, and this is how the render looks, and this is what we're going to be working with for our AOVs. Now, remember how we talked about the basic AOVs, the basic breakdown. The way to do that is understanding that, hey, there are direct lights, there are indirect lights. To those are the basic AOVs that we're going to start with. So the way to do that is number one, we go over here to Arnold. Uh, we go, sorry, we don't go to Arnold. We go to render settings, which is this icon over here. And if you want, you can change your modeling to rendering, and then you can choose render settings as here as well. So let's go Render settings here. And now we have the main menu over here. So what we do is we go to AOVs, which you can see right here. We click on that, and you can see these are the available AOVs on the left side that you have available, and these are the active AOVs, which are the AOVs that you have selected. Now, the way to start doing that is you kind of select what you want. Now, what I want is I want to choose Z, Z is basically it stands for depth. So basically showcasing the depth of field, having that as a pass is important. So we'll put this and put this click on this arrow so it gets added. Then we have diffuse direct, diffuse and I hold Shift and do diffuse indirect as well, and I add them. So over here, this gives direct light, the color and the indirect light color, which all the indirect lights, then I go to specular direct and specular indirect. So all the direct reflections and the indirect reflections is usually added through these two AOVs. Then I will add an ID pass. Remember how we talked about in the previous lesson, ID pass kind of chooses each geometry as one solid color, so it is easy to rotoscope. Then we will choose emission because we have a little bit mist in this, so it's not all clear lights, we'll add a little bit emission in this because we have a laptop screen when trying to emit light from an old computer. And let's see if I need anything else. I think I'm all set for now. So this is the basic AOV setup. Now what I can do is once I add these, I can see all of these are there. Now, immediately what you should do is you should click on this arrow. You select the driver. As soon as you select the driver, you will see the options, which is the attribute editor. And over here, I have to just make sure the merge AOVs is selected. What merge AOVs does, it kind of puts the AOVs in one EXR format, right? It will not be in separate image. So when you render out, you will not get five. So, for example, we have right now, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You will only get seven images. You'll just get one image which has seven embedded AOVs. That is what a multi layer EXR is, which is why we use the file format, EXR because it contains data. It contains information that the compositors can use for compositing, right? So now, I close X out of this and I go back to this little thing called the render option, so I just render it. And as soon as I render, we'll see the render opens up. Now, you can see we have a render. Now, if you see, we can see the word beauty. Now, the word beauty means that is the master masterpiece. Like everything combined together, that is what is called as the beauty pass, which is without your AOVs, light, everything is there. That is what the beauty pass is. Now, if you want, we can switch that, and you see all these AOVs are added. And if I look at ID pass, look at that. Every single geometry is color coded, the background, the laptop, the screen. Lenses of the cameras and the photos, the book, everything is color coded. So now in compositing, this will be a piece of cake, right? Now, we go to the Z depth. This is kind of showcasing the depth of field, the data of the depth, which is the foreground make ground and background. So if you look at it, it's only white. The reason why is because the gamma is all the way high up. So if you reduce it, take a look. If I do like a value of negative ten, like zero. It's about um, negative ten. I mean, it's negative seven, actually. Okay, so as you can see, it's giving like a foggy effect. So that foggy effect is basically showcasing that this has depth data. So the white is kind of like background. The solid black is kind of like over here we see is, um foreground. So you can see, like the depth data exists, that's good. Let's just reset that. Then you have the diffuse direct, which is only the direct lights, and the geometry that is affected directly by the lights is showcased over here, which is super, super cool. Then we have the diffuse indirect light. This is only the light which is the geometries that are affected by the lights indirectly, maybe through reflections, through refractions, that is what is being shown over here. So you can see the laptop over here, you can see a little bit grainy stuff. Now, my samples are low for the tutorial purposes, but we can increase that later on. We have emission. Emission is just like if you look at it, just the screen, the codes that are happening from the computer. Then you have specular direct over here look at that. The lenses, the lenses, the rims of the photo. Then we have some reflections. The glare of those letters, those are also reflections that is being shown. Then that is the direct reflections. Then we have the indirect speculars. So you can see this is the indirect, which is the reflections, which are happening not directly by a light, but indirectly through other lights. So this is basically the breakdown of your basic AOVs, and you can do a lot with this. So this is if you know how to do this, you're way off than most people. So now, in the next lesson, we'll be talking about how we can use all these different lights that we have. So if you take a look here, it's going to zoom out. All these different lights, right? We have these different lights that I've named. All of these, we will be renaming these lights separately, right? And we will be putting them into separate AOV so we can control the lights completely differently, so on to the next lesson. 4. Separating Lights through AOVs: Alright, so in this lesson, as we discussed, we're gonna be talking about how we can separate all of these lights into their own separate AOV, so we can give it to the compositor so they can adjust it however they seem however they seem it fit. Alright, so if you can see over here on the left side, we have many, many, many lights. So this is the outliner, where every single element that you have is kind of present. But I like to use this thing called the Light utility, which is, like, right up over here. It's called the light editor. So if you open it, you have all of these lights already kind of Um, you'll have all these lights already there. I kind of color coded it to kind of understand the difference between what is actually going on. You should also be able to see this. Also, do not forget to save. Just control us all the time. So we see the green ones or for the PC, which is a computer. Then we have for for the photo camera, we have all the blue ones. For the book, we have orange ones because we've used a warmer tone. For the camera, we have the purple ones and the background, we've just kept it same plain and simple, right? So I have that, and that is kind of like the setup of here as you can see the lights. Over here. All right. Perfect. Now, what I'm going to be doing is immediately, I want you to start selecting the lights, right? Once you select lights and you open the attribute editor, if you do not see the attribute editors, make sure you click on this little icon right here, that kind of opens or hides the attribute editor. So make sure that dative is open. Then you go all the way down and you see this thing called the AOV Light group. So now, this is case sensitive, and this is space sensitive. So make sure your spellings are proper and it's something that you remember. So I like to name my lights, and I need to name and I like to name the AOV light group the same. So I have, let's say, PC main. I have it as light. Now, PC rim, if you look at it, I have a PC rim over here. PhotominPhotomin. Book one. Let's look at this, Arnold, open it up. We have book, and this one, we have book. So if you see both of these two lights, I kind of put them together into one group. So need to change both of these because they're not that much of a difference. So that is where, as a render artist, as a three D artist, you need to kind of think on the fly like, Okay, do they actually need to separate these lights? Is it going to make that much of a difference? So, you got to figure that out yourself. I took a decision that these two books are, if you see, they're like point lights over here. So we have Book one and Book two. They won't make that much of a difference in post, and it's not needed. Then we have the Photo one, which is the photo the phototp PhototpPhoto rim. So if you see the two phototops, they're both top lights. I've just kept them in one group. Then you have the photo rim, which is the rim light of the photos. Then you have the CAM, which is the CAM side. And I've kept this cam front as cam front, background as background. Alright, so I have so there's something it would be helpful if you note these down somewhere, so you don't forget because you will have to start typing this, okay? So now, let's go with the PC. So we have PC main. I can see it right here. So what I'm going to be doing is I'm opening render settings again. And over here, what I will do is I will start adding customs. So at customs, I'll do RGPA underscore BC Main. Alright? Create. So it created one. So now let's see what happens when I create one light, right? So let me just open the Arnold Rn review. I'm just gonna hit the play and just see what happens. All right. It's rendered. Let me see over here RGBA PC main. Look at that. We just separated the light of just the computer. So you can give this to your post production artist and they can just do whatever they want. Alright? So take a look. Beautiful. Alright, so remember the code is RGBA underscore your light group, right? So now, next one, we have PC main. Then we have PC Rim. So we'll add another one. We'll call it RGBA underscore PC Rim. Again, keep in mind, it has to be the exact same name. Otherwise, it will not work. Then the next light we have is PC RM is done. Then we have Photomin. So let's add another custom. RGPAUunderscore, Photomin and create Perfect. We have Photomin. Then we have book. So both of these two books are in one. So RGB underscore book. That should be what it is. We have RGBA underscore book and create. A perfect. Then after book, we have the phototop. So these two phototops are the same. So again, at custom, we have RGBA underscore phototo and create that's created. So we have all of these done, and then we have phototop was created phototop. Then we have the photo Rim, photo rim. And then, Okay, let's do photoim RGBA underscore, photo rim. And we create that. Photo rim is created. Now we go to the camera, which is an icon, the Cam side and Cam front. Alright, this is easy. So we do RGBA underscore camside, create and at custom RGBA underscore, Cam side. Create. I'm just going to double check to see the CAM side. Alright, that is what it is. And we have another one called Cam front. Oh, I created two of them by mistakenly if you took a look at it. So I'm just going to, uh, T delete this. So we have RGPA book PC main, PC Rom, photo main, photo Rom, Photoshop, phototop not Photoshop. We do Cam side and Cam front. Alright. Let's redo that again. So ad Custom, we have RGBA underscore, CamSide and Adustom RGBA underscore Cam front, Ar? Perfect. So you have Cam side cam front. Right here, cam site, cam front, PCM and BC room. And then last but not the least we have is um, the background light, which is just BG, right? So we add custom RGBA underscore BG, and we create that. All right, so we have all of these, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So we kind of separated the entire scene into nine lights, nine light groups. Now, I could have done, um what I could have done is I could have just done PC uh photo camera, Nikon camera, book. I could have done it in that way, but I chose to not do it because the rim lights act a bit differently, the photo cameras act a bit differently, the top lights act a bit differently. And I would want the compositor to kind of have more control over it. And the fact that I am compositing it myself, I would like to have more control over it. Alright. So now let's take a look at the render. So what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be again going to Arnold, open Arnold render review, and then what we'll do is we'll see if we did it properly. And if there's any mistakes that we did, we'll fix it on the fly right. So let's hit Play, and let's wait for the GPU to fire up, and let's see if everything works out properly. Okay, beautiful. So it renders. Now if I take a look at it, I'm going to see that we have completely in the AOVs. We have all of these lights kind of separated out. So let's take a look at the background first, right? I'm going to zoom in for you. So we have let me just move this around. Alright. So now I'm just going to center this. All right, and lock mouse. Alright. So now, take a look at this. We had the ID pass which we created. Then we have the background light. Look at that. Isn't that amazing? We just have the background which is created. Then so now the composer can completely work on this on the background if they think it's too bright, too less, they can change it up. Then we have the book just the book just light of the book, right? Then we have the Cam front, which is the front of the camera, which is the reflections of the lenses. Then we have the CAM side, which is showcasing the side of the camera. Then we have the PC main, which is the main light which is there on the PC. Then we have the PC rim, which is showcasing the back light of the PC. Then we have the photomin now, if you see like over here, I did a spelling mistake, so it is pot main, so it's not showing. So if there's an error, you will have completely black. So we'll go ahead and fix that. Then we have photo rim. We'll see the rim light over there. Then let's go down. Then we have photo toop. That's the top. So the two top lights, remember, that's kind of combined together. All right. And we have Z depth, and we have already seen this. So the one that is the mistake is photomin which we will fix immediately. So I stop the render. I go back. And what we'll do is the phot main, we'll just remove that, and we'll go back over here to the photomin over here and we'll see what it is called PhotominO at Cool. So now we add custom and we go RGBA underscore photo main. So keep in mind that, um, spelling is super, super important. It is case sensitive. It is space sensitive. So even if you have camel print, make sure you write that down. So that is extremely important to keep into consideration when you are separating lights as your AOVs, right? Now, let's check the render real quick. So we have a play button. We're going to click that. Let it render. All right, we'll just lock the zoom and finish let it render. And now we'll check Photomin if it works. Perfect. Look at that. So now photomin is properly there. So you look at that. With this, every single aspect of every single light that you have used is kind of broken up, and then these can be later on split up and also added back together with your adjustments to your particular image, particular CG element. So you don't need to re render any light. You don't need to re render anything. That is the whole point of these arbitrary output variables is that we can provide flexibility to the compositor who can be much more vigilant in doing their work and they don't have to bother you continuously. You're giving them all the optionality so they can do their work with ease. So keep that in mind. In order when you work on this, you need to think from a compositors standpoint that, hey, do you think this person will ever need this? So a little bit far fetched thinking and a little bit feeling for the compositor is also needed. Otherwise, it's going back and forth is a waste of time and a waste of time in this industry is a waste of money. And you already know that. If you're redoing work, that, my friend that costs money. So this is this workflow, the smart workflow is what will save money, right? So in the next lesson, we will be talking about the render setup where we will be trying and, um, breaking down foreground, midground, and background and how we can use this to even further make it easier for the compositor to do the shadows, to do this thing called the ambient occlusion and also how to create material overrides and absolute override. So we're going to get into the detail of that next lesson onwards. Still here was the basic split up of your image. Now we're getting into the advanced split up of the image. All right. Thank you, and I'll see you next lesson. 5. Render Layers: Alright, folks, another day, another lesson. This is another day. That's why I'm wearing a different T shirt. So Alright. So in this lesson, we're going to be learning about the render setup. The render setup is a new I mean, not new, but, like, it's not original. And back in the day when we were struggling with my wasn't always there. So this is like, for us oldies, it is a fairly new thing. So yeah, it's been a few years that it's been with the render setup. It used to be different. So basically, just to do a quick recap, we have, um, If I go to the render settings right here, we have AOVs setup already. And yeah, all of these. And let me just open the nor render and let me just show you what we have so far Arnold open under review. I'm gonna do s Alright. So just hit the play. This is our render right now. We have one error, which is Alright, that's fine. Alright, so let's see, we have an ID pass. We have the background light. We have the book light. We have the camera front, camera side, PC Min, PC Rim, photomn, photo im, photo top, the Z depth, diffuse direct, indirect emission from the screen. We have specular direct, and we have specular indirect. All right, so this is where we are. I just want to do a quick recap. Now, what we're going to be doing is we are going to go to this thing right here. If you see this little thing called the render setup, this little icon over here. And then what we do is we click this and then opens a window like such as so what this does is a render setup is usually meant when we want to separate certain elements. Now, for example, if this movement, if this scene, if you see the scene over here on this side, is, let's say there was a camera movement, and there are some images, some geometry which was kind of like going in front and some going in back. During those situations in certain times, it is important to separate, um, the separate the geometry. So that is what the render setup is. So if you see over here, this is the master scene. So this e means this is visible. So if I remove this, this is the only one which is there, something has to be on by default, and this is the render. So if I turn this on and turn this off, that means you are enabling it, which is like with thumbs up. For render. If I remove this, then there is no renderable layers. This will be very, very helpful when we go to when we render stuff, this is going to be super, super helpful. Only the ones that have the blue on are the ones that are going to be rendered. So that is extremely important. Over here, we see the render settings. This directly is correlated with the um render settings over here, which is right here. If you see a common, we have the render settings over here, start frame end frame. So the moment, let's say we do the first ten frames, immediately, you can see this automatically also change the first frame to ten frames. AOVs and light these three things are always going to be there on default. So that is what the render setup is. So it's basically you're setting up your scene for rendering and trying to arrange stuff around so that additional passes additional paraphernalia for the compositor can be ready. All right. So in the next lesson, what I'm going to be talking about is how to switch all of these objects and how to put them in the foreground, midground, and background so that we don't have to we can give these as separate layers to the compositor so they don't have to worry about rotoscoping in case there's a small little camera movement. Let's go. 6. Separating Foreground, Midground & Background: Alright, so now, what we're going to be doing is first, we're dividing this into layers. So you're pretty familiar with a layer based thing. So over here we choose going to zoom in over here so you guys can see, and I'm going to just go to arrange it a little bit for you guys and lock this zoom. Alright. Perfect. What I want to do actually, let me just move it here so you guys can see it properly. All perfect. Perfect. I love this. Alright, so what we're gonna be doing is first, we add a layer. So I'm going to call this foreground. Then I'll add another layer. I'll call this midground, and I'll add another layer. I'll call this background. Alright? So now, um, Basically, I'm going to keep this aside. I'm going to look at my scene. So what I'm choosing is, I want to choose the so minimize this. I'm going to chose this book as a background. Sorry, the foreground. This as midground, and this one as background, right? That is what I am going to do and separate them as layers. And what I can do is I can take this plane, as well. I kind of disabled it over here restricted, so I can now choose it. I'm going to choose this one as part of the background. So actually, what I would think is maybe foreground, midground background, and then we can just do this. This could also be background, honestly. And we'll see. We'll play it by the e, right? So I'm opening render setup again. So let's do foreground. Definitely, foreground is going to be the book. So what are we doing over here is you right click, you create a collection. So collection is basically a collection of things that you want. So the good way to divide this is, let's say we're going to be calling it Geo, which is geometry. And in this one, I'm going to add everything related to the book. So we have the book. So let's say, only geometry. Remember that, middle mouse and drag it here. Alright? So now, if you see all of these, also have these render enables. Now if I remove these now these will not be rendered, alright? And the eye is to choose which one. So if you look and if I click on the foreground, click on the eye if you look on the right side, only the book is seen. Isn't that freaking amazing, right? So now that is foreground. So what I'm going to be doing is I'll keep that as foreground. And if I want, I can kind of, you know, add the let's say, I want to add the plane in every single one of them, so they are there by itself. So let's say I add the plane as well over here, Middle mouse and drag, I view it, then we have the book by itself. So now if I open Arnold and I open Arnold Ren Review, and I kind of play it. Let's give it a second. Maybe you need to have the camera as well. Sometimes. Usually, it wasn't like that before. There you go. Oh, so the reason why is you got to add the lights as well. So, what am I doing is I'm going to make another Oh, I could just take this, drag it here. So all the lights by default will be there. Let's try it one more time. Okay, so that doesn't work because of some freaking glitch. So what I can do is I can create another collection and call this lights and add every single light excluding this. Pop, pop, pop. Middle mouse drag. All right. Still, it's not showing. Let's try to refresh and see what happens. Perspective shape, render cam shape, right, there you go. So, you see, these are some of the common things. Usually what happens is, if you just drag these lights, it should do the job. Alright? So there's sometimes Maya is you got to, you know, three software, sometimes you just got to do these trial and error, so I'm glad this happened. So in case it happens with you, you know how to work with it. So now, for example, in the Geo I have this render cam. I don't want it. It still now works properly, right? So if I close it and let's say I'll re render it, let's see if it works. So kCU you see render cam shape is not there. So it's something that you need to add by default. Only then it'll work, right. So put the render cam. This is technically not Geo, but since there's only one camera, it's okay. I'm putting it here. Render it out. Render cam shape. Alright, perfect. So now you see the book. Now, the same thing where we're going to be doing is I'm going to minimize the render and take the midground, and now I'm going to go over here, review this one so I can see everything. And one more thing, yeah. That I'm going to do is add a collection. We'll do Geo, then add one more collection. We'll call it lights. Now I'm just curious, okay? Now, this kind of struck my nerdiness. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to delete these lights for a second, and I just want to drag this to the foreground and I just want to see whether it works. Cause I don't want to be adding every single light all the time. Okay. I'm going to just view the foreground and then just render it. Interesting. So you have to add lights, right? Control C, Control C, Control C, Control C, right there you go. Let's render it, okay. View this one. Render. Interesting. So these lights are of no use. Now, you know, at least in May 2025 0.3, at least, before you didn't need to put lights before, but now you do. Something new I learned today as well, while I'm teaching this class. Anyway, so now we go to midground, Geo. Same thing for midground. What I'm doing is view this one here. I will look at the PC. So I'll add PC, this one. I'm going to over here. So I have this one and this one, and I will drag it here. HetroPC. I'll take the render cam. I would drag it here as well. Take these lights. I'm going to take my screen light, put this here. Take all these lights as well. Take the background, drag it over here. Alright, so now if I look here, view it. All right, perfect, the PC is visible. The last thing that is left is I need to add the plane. And the geo as well. Alright, so now that is done. Now we can view this one. Hit Arnold Render view. It's on perspective shape. Let's do render cam shape. Beautiful. So now we have the midground set as well. All right. Moving on to the background. So let's choose the background here, and create view the master layer. So this one is basically the master basically everything on your scene, right? So now I do create collection. I do another Geo, I create another collection, do um, Um, let's take the Geo over here. I'm going to be choosing so I'll click here F to view this. So we'll see there's only one. Okay, so we have two geos, so I'll take that drag it here. Take the Nicon super camera, I take these two, middle mouse and drag. Take the render cam, drag it there, take the plane, drag it there. All right. So that's done with the geo. And if I view it, I can see it over there. Perfect. Take the lights as well. I do not want the screen. I'll just takes all of these. Don't check that. Drag it. Perfect. So all lights should be there. Now let me um close this out, render. Perfect. Okay. We see it wonder Cam shape. Beautiful. Alright, so now we have three different layers, which is the foreground, midground, and background kind of selected. So now we have foreground, which is right here. Perfect. We have midground. Which is like that. Now the reason why's taking a little bit time is because my Arnold render is on. That's why it's like taking time to switch. Idly what you should do, you stop this, switch it, play. Basically, that kind of, you know, doesn't overpower your PC, and they'll be happier that way and you won't crash. And before I forget, Control S, save that. Always, save, always save. Right. So now, usually, what happens is sometimes you don't want the background in every single thing, right? So what we could do is we could just rename this layer and call it Cam layer, and then have actually another layer, which is just pure background, right? So basically, I'll show you what that means is basically in the foreground, what I'll do is I'll take out the plane, remove it. Go to midground Geo, take out the plane. Go to the Cam layer, take the Geo, take out the plane. And what I'll do in the background is I'll create a collection called Geo, and over here, I'll add Oh, sorry. Middle mouse drag, and then I'll add another collection called Lights. Lights, and I will take this one, this one, every single light drag. So this one will be just with the background. So if I just play it. Yeah. So this is ideally us. So basically, with this, you would have, like, a complete background plate. So basically, it would be we had foreground midground cameras, and then background. So we could call this PG plate. And then we could call this PG Geo sorry, BG, uh, Cam. We have midground, we can call it BC and this one foreground foreground book. So that way, at least if you name stuff, then it becomes more easier. So when you now render stuff out, it'll have folders as FGBokNGPC BG Cam and BG plate. So that way you have these separate. Now imagine this entire, the master one. Imagine it had completely complete camera moves, you would want you would want to kind of, you know, showcase how separate them so that the composite doesn't have to unnecessarily rotoscope. They can just place it on another, and it would just make life so much more easier. All right. So that is how you separate foreground make ground background, and how you separate geometry in the render setup. Alright? In the next lesson, we're going to be talking about ambient eclusion. What is it and how do we actually benefit from it. And it's a very common pass that is there. So onto the next lesson, fellas. 7. What is Ambient Occlusion?: Alright, people. So in this lesson we're gonna be talking about ambient occlusion, right? So ambient occlusion, what is it? So if you look at the screen right here, I'm going to zoom in real quick over here and have this for you guys. Like, if we take a look at every single nook and corner, every single edge, right? The edge basically like these areas, these are basically the corners, right? If you take a look at the edges over here, you take over here, basically, the corners where the shadows are created, right? Is basically like a shading technique that kind of stimulates how light is blocked in small crevices and corners. So basically what that does, it makes the shadows look a little bit more realistic. That's what this past does. Ambient occlusion is basically a pass that compositors use to make it seem a little bit more realistic using the shadows. So what this does is it creates depth and detail because AO adds subtle shadows in, like, tight spaces, making the objects more three dimensional and more realistic that you would see what your naked eye objects in general, what you would see. And because it enhances those shadows and those corners, it kind of brings better contrast to, like, maybe these areas which you can control in compositing. So it prevents it prevents the whole image from looking flat. And, um, again, because of this pass, the compositors have artistic control to how much they want. You know, from a look, it could be maybe they want it to be a little bit they want it to be a little bit more flat. Maybe you can fine tune that based on, um, this pass that the compositors love doing. And it's, honestly, it's efficient rendering for all three D artists and for compositors because instead of using, like, complex global illumination calculation AO kind of provides like a lightweight way to approximate real world shading, if that makes sense. Alright? So let me um in the next lesson, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be getting into how to create that pass. And unfortunately, this has to be done separately, and there's a particular method. You can't just add it and leave it. There's a particular method. There's a particular calculation to use this AO pass to make it be effective for the compositor, which we'll cover in the next lesson. All right. Thank you so much. 8. How to create the AO Pass?: Alright, boys and girls, let's get into how to create the A O. So I'm going to keep the render pass over here, I'm going to zoom in and just show you the This is how the original image looks. What I'm going to be doing is I'm going to take a snapshot of it so you guys can refer to it later on. Alright. Now, let me zoom back. Now, what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be creating another layer. So in this, I'm going to just call it AO, which is ambient occlusion, right? And in this one, what I'll do is same thing. I'll create a collection one for Geo. And over here, we'll not add lights. I'll tell you why. So in this Geo, basically what I'll do is, I'll try and add each and every single thing. So we have the book, which is the book so middle click drag, open up the outline and just weave more longer. All right. The book, then we have the PC and the screen. Got that going. Then we have this camera, these two at them. We have this camera. These shifts like these two, add them. All right? Then I'll take the render cam as well. Where's the render cam go? There you go. Take that add as well. All right. So now if I just look at this, boom, that's how it is. Okay, so we need to add the plane as well. Boom. Alright, added. So now I have added all the geos. Now, I don't really need lights for this. You'll see in a reason why. What I'm going to be introducing to you is this whole concept called of the whole concept of what is called an override. So an override is basically literally it does justice to his words basically when you want to override certain settings in that particular layer. So basically, in this layer, whatever override you do, it will only affect that layer. It will not affect anything else. It will only affect that layer. So basically, it's like a little setting that you can change only for that particular layer, and I'll show you how what we're going to be doing for A O, we're going to be creating a shader override. Basically, I'm going to change the shader of all the geometry, right? So I create a shader override, boom, and we'll call this Shader over. Let be shader override. I'll click here. Boom, we'll search for ambient occlusion. Done. So what that does is it creates a shader, which is, you know, don't worry about this. Don't freak out. Don't be like, Oh, my God, all the textures, everything is linked. No, we didn't do it in the master. We added it in this layer, which is as an override. Basically, it only affects this layer. All right? Now, what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to take this and I will click here. I'll click over here, and I'll open the attribute editor of the ambient occlusion shader that we chose, and I will hit Render. Let's give it a second. Look at that. Now, this is called, my friends, the ambient occlusion pass. So this layer is basically it will give you that nooks and corners where we're talking we'll look at all these books, the right near the screens underneath the camera. So now, this is too much detail. We need just the nooks, the crevices, the corners. So for that, what you do is you look at these settings over here, you kind of adjust them. So What I'll do is I'll take a screenshot again, so you can see the difference between these two. Take a look. Now I'll add another one. I'll show you the proper way of doing an ambient occlusion, right? So I'll play this. Now what I'll do is I'll take the fall off, maybe. So I'll make sure it's only the corners which are actually there. No everything. So maybe let's look a 0.4. So you see. See, this black this already has natural shadow, so I don't really need to use this. So we could do like a 0.39. I want the crevices, the corners. That is the most important 0.4. That's 20.5. But oh sorry, that's five. Okay. Because again, ambient eclusion you should not have extra crazy shadows where then there's no point of actually, you know, lighting and stuff. This is only meant for minor adjustments towards the corners. The reason why I'm reiterating this is because people think, like, just keeping it like this, Oh, my God, look at the heart shadow. We're going to make it look so three dimensional. No, that's a rookie mistake. More lighter it is, the more better the ambient occlusion passes. So overall, it needs to be white. Only the certain certain corners, only those need to appear. Only then will you have that three dimensional, that contrast that acumen to actually control the Ao pass. So five looks good. Let's bump it up and see if I can do six. Yeah, I think four is good, in my opinion, four is good because these books these crevices is super important. These ones over here are super important. Perfect. Alright, so I'll just stop this. I'll add a snap. So if you take a look, this one, this one, take another snapshot. So this is good ale, bad ale, good o, bad ale, final. Alright? So this is my friend is how you create an ambient occlusion pass. Alright? In the next few lessons, we're talking about shadow passes, how to create and how to create just talk about certain absolute overrides and then we on to finally rendering this out as an EXR, maybe not a sequence. Maybe we'll just do an image and just show the folder structure and then show you guys what exactly you can get out of it. Alright. Thank you. See you in the next lesson. 9. Creating your Shadow Pass with Overrides: All right, ladies and gentlemen, another day, another class. Let's go. Today we will be talking about shadow passes, and we're going to understand this concept of what is called an override. So an override So an override is basically when you want to take a particular layer and you kind of want to do a certain setting of your myocine that will affect only on that particular layer. Nowhere else. You just want that setting to be affected only on that layer. Let's take a look and let's see how we can work with this to develop our shadow pass. Okay, so as you know, we have our layers selected right here. So we have a foreground book. So let's just do a quick recaptulation. So I'm going to kind of go over here. Zoom out. And you can see the right side over here, and then we'll see this side over here. Let me just this thing. So we have a foreground book. We have a foreground a midground PC. We have a background of the cameras, and we have a background plate. Now, we're going to switch the layer, how we design the layers a little bit because of the fact that we need shadow catchers. So if we have a book over here, we need the shadow to catch on the ground, so we need the ground. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to take this background plate, and we're going to delete it firstly. Once we delete it, what we'll do is we'll go to the Geo over here, and we will add the plane in everything. Add, same thing we're gonna be doing for the midground. Since it's selected already, I add, we go to the camera, the background, go to the Geo, and we add. And we see the background plate is added in each and every single one of them. So now the render looks something like this. So we have the book, then we have the PC. Then we have the camera. All right. And obviously, we have the AO, which is what we had created last lesson. All right. So now, the reason why I added the plane is the plane over there so that we can cast shadows. So let's go one by one, and what we will do is we will firstly make layers for the shadows. And the way we're going to be working is, this is the beauty layer, right? This is the beauty layer, and we will be creating a shadow layer. So the beauty layer already, if you look over here, it already has passes. I mean, it already has shadows. What we're going to be doing is we're going to be removing the shadows from there, and we'll add a layer which just contains the shadow. And the way we do the way we do that is through overrides. Let's take a look. Now, what I want is I have the lights selected over here for the book, right? What I want, if you see, I'm going to close this out. Every single light has this option on the right when you open up Arnold. It has this option over here called cast shadows. What we're going to be doing is we're going to turn it off. Now, if I turn it off, this light will turn off shadows for every single one of them for all of the layers, but we just want it for this layer. So the way we do that is create an override called an absolute override. So what we go here right, I make sure the eye is on, it's selected. I go back to the attribute, and I right click and I create absolute override for visible layer. Once I click on that, immediately, you're going to see an absolute override is created. So over here, we have this one. So now you can see this turned orange and also we have this thing over here. So now if I click on this, now the cast shadows is off only for this layer. All right. So now I'm going to turn it on, and I'm going to show you the difference of what I'm talking about. Let's do a quick render. Let's go to render cam shape. All right, so we have the book. So what I'll do is I'll create a snapshot first, boom, like that. I'll delete this one. Do this. Do this. All right, so have this book snapshot. All right? Now, what I'll do is I'll pause this render. I will take off the cast shadows over here and I'll play it one more time. Alright, and I will take another snapshot. What I'll do now is I'm going to set this as B. I'll set this as A. Now look at this. This is with the shadows. This is pure color. So what we are planning what we want to do is we want to ensure that we add all the color information in our beauty layer and keep the shadows separate. So that is why removing the cast shadows is extremely important for these layers. So same thing what we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing it for the midground, as well. So the PC, what I'll do over here, is I'll go take go to the lights. I'll select any light I want because all of them are in this collection of lights, and I'll go to cast shadows here on the right hand side, and I want to just create absolute override for visible layer poop. You can see it's created over here and I create over here, and I uncheck it. Midground is done. Now we go. Now what we can do is we can just quickly do a check. I'll just render out. I will delete these snapshots, delete these snapshots. Take the render cam. All right. Then I will take a snapshot of this, pause the render, turn on the shadows, plate, take another snapshot, and just see the difference again. Look at that. You can see This is the color information. This is with the shadows. So I want just just the color information. So I'm removing the shadows because we're going to be adding a shadow pass later with another type of override, which I will get to in a second. All right. So we turn this off. All right, so I'm just going to make sure that my AI cast shadows are off. This is off. I'll go to the cam layer, view it first, go to the lights, select any one of them. Go to the cast shadows over here. Right click Create absolute override for visible layer. Boop. Then we come back over here, you'll immediately be able to see that over here, cast shadows is there, I switch it off again. Now, it's always good to double check and oops What I want to do is I am going to save it. So I will first now just check at once. Do a quick render. I'll delete these snapshots, delete these snapshots. Uh, turn cast shadows on, take the render cam shape. All right. I look at it, take a snapshot, then take it out and take another snapshot. And what I'll do is set this as B, set this as A. Look at that. With shadow and just color information. Perfect. This is exactly what I wanted, right? Taking a look again. Perfect. All right, take it off. What I want to do is I'll delete these snapshots, delete these snapshots and just, like, have that. Now I have the cast shadows off for all of them. So what I'll do is I will just close these out, pop pop pop and AO. So what I'll do is I'll start doing a little bit, color coding, so it's easy to kind of understand, yeah. So what I'll do is I will label the beauty passes. I will label them, say, red. All right? AO pass, I will label it maybe since it's white. Let's do yellow cause why not? All right. Now we will make the shadow layers for each of them. Same thing. We're divided foreground, midground background, right? So first thing, we'll have the same naming FG underscore, uh, Book Underscore Shadow. Alright? We'll do that. Then we have another layer. We'll call it MG underscore PC underscore, shadow and we'll have another layer. We'll call it BG Cam same as the beauty, we'll just do an underscore shadow with it. All right. Since the S is small, I'll just change this S to small. God is in the details, guys. Alright? Okay. Perfect. Now what we do is we're going to create a collection first of FG book Geo. Actually, it doesn't matter because this is not going to be seen anyway. So I'll just do Geo and they'll add a number, and I'll do one more, which is called Lights. Same thing. I'll add another collection called Geo. It should be six, and then we have lights. Same thing, we do another one. We'll call it Geo and create collection or we'll do lights. Alright, so that is done. So now we just need to add the geo. So what I'll do is I'll just look at the master so I can just it's easier for me to kind of select stuff. So this is the book shadow. So we take the Geo. I'm going to select the book here. So you open this locator, take the book, add it. I remember the error that we had. So I'll remember that. So we'll add a render cam as well. Control S to save. I'll take the lights. I'm going to add all the lights, remove the transform, add all the lights. And when I view this, it should be the book, oh and then we have the plane, add that. So now this should be exactly the same as the original beauty layer. But now the original beauty has no shadow. This has shadow, but we're going to make this a shadow pass. All right. Perfect. This is done. So the book is done. Double check it with the render. Next, what I'm going to do. What I'm going to be doing is, as in when I'm finishing it, I'll label ladder color. So the shadow pass is basically purple, so we'll keep that in mind. Now, this is the PC. So what we will do is we will kind of we'll go back to the master. So we'll add the PC, open it up, select all the Geo, add that, select the plane, at that, set the render cam, at that, and we'll go to the lights. We select all the lights, the transform, add the lights. All right. Then we view this and look on the side. Perfect. We just check the render 1 second, and we're just going to do a render cam. Perfect. Beautiful. We have the PC done. Close this layer out. Label it violet. Let me go to the the geo. I'll click on the master so I can see it again. So I'll open these up, one, two, three, four, holding Control and add them. So I added these. Then I add the plane as well, and I'm going to add the render cam as well. Then we have the lights, selet all of these, uh all of these lights, add them, Control us, save it. View them. Looks perfect. Let's now render it. And just to check. Alright, so now we have officially replicated all these layers. So now, in togetherness, we have the red ones which are the beauty passes. The yellow is the ambient occlusion, and the violet ones are the shadow passes. Now, let's make our first shadow pass. So now we learned what an absolute override is. An absolute override is kind of you take one setting. I don't want it to be enabled for that particular layer. I have done that for casting shadows on these layers. Now I want to re add the shadows, but I want to give my compositor the flexibility to kind of add themselves and kind of, you know, manipulate it, add more depth, add more gamma, if they want to. So the way I'm going to be doing is through this. I will select the Geo. So let's look at the book shadow first, right? We look at the book so we can see it over here. What we're going to be doing this time is not going to be an absolute override. We will add a shader. So it depends on the render engine, but if you're using Maya, it's highly likely you're using Arnold. So what we'll do is we'll select the Geo. We'll right click here. We will create a shader override, right? So create a shader override. And in the override shader, we will click on the checkerbx and we click on the shader here. And what we will be doing is we will be adding an AI shadow mat, which is given by Arnold as a render pass. So now we have now everything is just like this. Now to check it, what we will do is we will do our render. Before that, I just want to make sure that my background is proper. I was going to take this out make sure the lights are there, the background, the plane. Okay. So you see the mistake that I did is I added the plane in the lights. So this should be removed here, and I should go to the Geo and I should add the plane over here. So that was the mistake. So it's very, very important as to where you actually select the um the layers because what happens is I created a shader override for the Geo, so that didn't work, right? So what I'm doing is I will delete this, delete this, go to my hypershade. And if I see an AI shadow at right here, I'm going to delete that first, and then I'll go back. And now I will redo this again. So remember, it's possible when there are so many things, it's possible for you to misplace certain elements in a wrong layer. So you have to be extremely mindful, extremely demure when it comes to these things. So let's go back to Geo, make sure everything is there. Go there, right click. Create a Shader override and then checker box, go to Shader. Click on Shader AI shadow Mt. Boom. Now, it should be proper. Let's check. Arnold render view. Perfect. So this is completely black, which is exactly what we want. So what I'll do is I'm going to choose the render cam first, and now the magic is the entire shadow pass will remain in the Alpha channel. And the way to look at it is through this little button. Boom. Now, you see that white thing that my friend is the shadow pass, and that is what we need. That is what your compositor needs. So when you add this one on top of the beauty layer is what you get, you combine it to form an image with the shadow. So that is what a shadow pass is. All right. Now what we need to do is we need to do it for every single other layer. So we are done with this one now we look over here the Geo, so I just want to make sure my plane is properly selected, Alright beautiful. Lights are there, and go to my PC, and then I go to the Geo again, create Shader override, Checker box, click on the Shader AI shadow Mat. Boom. Now what I'm going to be doing is I'll select this and I will do a render. Beautiful Alpha channel. Look at that. That, my friend is beautiful Shadow passes. When you combine it together, it looks amazing. Alright, beautiful. So PC is done. And last but not the least, we have the CAM shadow. So we take a look at that. And we're going to go here, check the Geo or the plaintiffs and the Geo. I didn't know the same mistake again. It's important to learn from your mistakes, not repeat them. You have the lights here. Alright Geo. Right click create another Shader override, checker box, click on Shader and we have AI shadow Mt. Boom. Save it, and click on Arnold. Either render, go to render cam, beautiful Alpha channel, shadow pass. My friend, that is the magic of the absolute overrides and the shader overrides. That is how we create the shadows. Shadow passes with shader overrides and absolute overrides. So now if you look at it, we have a total of seven layers, three beauty without the shadow. Three of them just the shadow. One of them an ambient occlusion pass and all of these seven layers are extremely important. And in the next lesson, what we will be talking about is how we can use the overrides to enhance our renders and actually improve our workflow so that it doesn't cost us much render time. All right, so see you in the next lesson. 10. More uses of Absolute Overrides: Alright, so now in this lesson, we will be looking at more of the absolute overrides and how we can actually, optimize our file size and optimize our render times, right? So as you know, we have created many AOVs, right? We did the ones which are related to the lights. We did the ones which are related to color. We did the ones which are related to emission and also reflection. Now, but if you take a look at it, our render layers are divided between foreground, midground, and background. We do not need all of these AOVs in all of these different layers. We only need them to the ones that actually are using it. So this is where we can continuously use our absolute overrides to kind of optimize the file size, because if we add, let's say, let's count how many AOVs we have, right? So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 16 AOVs. The more AOVs you add, the file size of the EXR format is going to keep skyrocketing. So we need to adjust, optimize our workflow. And the way we do that is again, through our absolute overrides, because every setting in Maya, keep in mind every single setting can be treated as an absolute override. Always remember, anything you don't need, absolute override it. So let's go. So let's look at the book first, right? So in the book, let's see. What are the AOVs that you need? Let's do a quick render. Let's remove the Alpha channel. Alright. So obviously, you don't need, these ones, the photomin, the photo rim. So we only need the ones which are related to the book, right? We do not need. Maybe we need the background, but we don't need this. It's not affecting our book. We don't need this. Is not affecting our book. So let's remove all of this. So what we will do is, I'm going to exit out of this. And the AOVs which we do not need, we will add them as an absolute override. All right. So we're looking at the book, so keep that in mind, okay? So ID I want, the background I do want. The book we're doing the book, so I definitely want that. The Cam front don't need. So right click Create absolute override. The CAM side don't need the PC main don't need, the RGBA PCRrim don't need, the photomin don't need, the photoim don't need the phototp don't need Z depth, I need. All of these are agnostic to the layer. So yeah, that's what has happened. Now what I do is I open the layer and you see all of these absolute overrides are kind of here. The ones that I don't need, for example, the Cam front, I don't need, so I disable that. Disable that disable disable, disable, disable, and disable. All of these get into a collection of AOVs automatically. Now, if I look at the render, let's do like a render cam shape. All right. Look. So I only have the book. I have the background, and I have these. Some look at how well I optimize my render layer of the book. I don't need. I really don't need any of those lights, right? So the same thing, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing for the PC and the camera layer as well. So let's get on with it. So I'll close this out. What I will do now is I will look at the PC. Actually, let me just look at the book again. I think I missed OV, which I do not need. Uh, Okay, I just want to check whether the emission from the screen is actually creating a difference. It's actually not. So we don't need this as well. So what we'll do is we'll just go back to settings. We'll take the emission. Create absolute override for the visible layer. Go here, AOVs, look for emission. There you go, and check it off. Perfect. So that's done. Now we move on to layer number two, which is the PC. Now, you can see all of these get turned on immediately. All right. So what do we need for the PC? ID pass, yes, background, yes, consistent. Book, not needed. Okay, actually, you know what? Let's look at the render first. Then we can take a call as to which one we need or not. Alright, so let's do renderCam. Let's do a beauty. Alright, so that's beauty. ID pass 100%. Background. Sure. Okay, so you can see the book is actually creating a little fall off light. So we do need the book. The cam front the cam front is not doing anything, so we can remove the cam front. So what would be good is kind of like, you know, noting it down that you don't need it. So let's see if I have a pen here. I can note. Okay, I don't cam front Cam side? Okay, so you can see the cam side is creating a slight rim. PC main, obviously, you need PC Rim. Of course, you need photo main. Not really. Photo rim. Not really. So the only thing that you don't need over here is Cam front. Cam side, let it be a little bit for the bleeding. Alright, so cam front is not needed, and Cam front and photo rim is not needed. Perfect. So I will remember that. And what I will do is I will go to my settings, Cam front, create absolute visible and photo rim. Visible there. Perfect. So these are the ones that I do not need. So now what I'll do is I'll open the PC, take the AOVs, and I will disable them. So look at how easier and just like how things become just easier with our absolute overrides. I save it, render it. Let's see, take it to render. There you go. And it's gone. So now these AOVs unnecessarily will not be there. Now, the book is definitely creating bleeds. Camside is PC Rim is Photomin. Okay, photomin also, honestly, photomin and top is also not needed, actually. So let me remove them. So let's go to our render settings again, Photomin and phototopPhoto main. And phototp not needed. So let's open this up. Here we photo main. Let's take this out. Phototp. Let's take this out. All right. Perfect. All right, close it out and render. Go to the render cam shape. Boom. All right. This is the only one I need because it's giving a little bit bleed, so I want to keep that. You never know the composor might create something fun with it. All right, moving on to the next layer. So imagine how much optimization we're doing. All right. Let's look at the cam. Let's do a render. And let's see how things look. All right. So we go beauty. So ID pass, definitely. Background, definitely. Book, not creating a difference. Cam front, yes. Cam side. Yes. PC main, no. PCRim no. Photomin, yes, photoim. Yeah, perfect. So it's based on nomenclature because I named everything properly, so it just becomes easier. So what I'll do is take out the book, create absolute override. Cam front, cam side, PC I don't need. So I don't need four do I need, four do I need, four do I need. All right. Perfect. There you go. And close it out. That's it. The only thing we need to do is uncheck it. So we go here, click here, Uncheck, click here check, click here and Uncheck. Now if we play it, go to Render Cam, these will not be visible anymore. So background is there, or book is not there, right. Let's remove the book. So basically, sometimes what happens is there's a glitch. You need to kind of close the render and then redo it. So let's now, again, reopen the render. It takes Imagine think of it like a refresh to your browser. See now book is gone. All right. I just want to check whether emission is necessary. Okay, emission is not necessary either. So let me remove emission from here. Settings, take out the emission. All right. Emission, remove it. Perfect. And render. Let's take a look. Let's give it a second. Render cam shape. All right. So now I have ID. Diffuse direct, indirect. It's a little bit there secular specular indirect. Perfect. And now I'm happy with my AOVs. I have completely optimized every single layer with every single AOV with my absolute overrides and I've created shadow passes, and I am happy. Now in the next lesson, we'll be talking about render settings and exporting and finally getting it out there for the compositor. All right. That will be my last lesson in the next lesson. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Onto the next one. 11. Render Settings & Export: Um, Alright, so in this lesson, which is the last lesson, we're going to be covering the render settings and the exports. So there are ways over here where also you can use absolute overrides. I will touch up on it a little bit, so you get the fair idea. I know you guys already have a fair idea, but I'm just saying when I say you can use absolute overrides anywhere, you really, really can, which I will get to in a second. But before that, let's do a quick render setting to see whether everything is on point. So the way to do that is you click here at these little settings with this gear icon. You click on that, and then we go here and we have render layer. We have this thing, which is the master selected. So as you can see, um, I'm just going to arrange it over here so it's easier for us. Alright. So this thing, what this means is that this render this render layer is enabled to render. So if you do not want if you do not want renders to if you do not want certain layers to not be rendered, you can just switch them off. So, for example, in this one, I do not want the master. I do not care about the master because I will make the master or else my compositor will make the master. So I do not want that so we have this one enabled, enabled enable. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. We have seven of them enabled, right? So now, make sure it is Arnold Render. You can choose over here, but it doesn't matter. Over here, you don't need to worry about the layer. You can change it later on over here, but honestly, this is fine. Alright. Because you turned it off here, so it's okay. Now, I want an EXR sequence. My compression zip is fine. My color space is use Al put transfer. Leave it as it is. Frame padding is good. Now, I have a five second one, five second video, which is I want the start frame to be one and the end frame to be 120, so that this entire frame is so my entire frame is rendered, and I'm shooting and I'm not shooting. I am the project is at 24 frames per second. Alright. Then scroll down renderable camera. I just choose render cam here. Then we have choose your presets. 1080 is good. Then, uh, yeah, that's pretty much it. Arnold Wender over here, I'm shooting not shoot. I keep saying shooting. I am doing it at four, which is a high anti aliasing system. I do GPO, which is fine. AOVs have already selected it based on the layers which are selected. Now, the issue that happens when you have absolute overrides and when you have animation is here. So now let's say I have X out of this. Let's say I'm going to frame 120, and I'm selecting, let's say, this one over here. I'm selecting both of these, and I hit S, which is Mario key frame, and I come here to frame 80, and let's say I move it to the right, S. Alright? So now We have an animation, which is here. Now what I'm going to do is I'm just going to quickly just go to Windows Shouse animation. Windows, I go here. Animation editors graph editor. It's going to check this one out. Take that, and I'm just going to ease it in. So it's eased properly. So now we kind of see. It's eased in. Now, in situations like this, right? I want this, for example, this Nikon camera to only appear to only render from frame 79 to frame 120. Now obviously, if I look at my render setup here, my camera, which is my background camera, which is like these two. Now, let's say, Okay, let's say I animate this one as well. Alright because they are in the same layer. Let's take these two as well. I'm going to go to frame go 80, frame 80, and just move it to the side. Hit S, click on this one and it is these out? So now, if I this didn't work, let me just see where the where this one is. There you go. Okay. Is that Is that, so all of these are es. Alright, beautiful. So I just have this one, too. This one is left. Ease that perfect. Just easing everything. Alright, perfect. Alright, beautiful. So over here, if you see, um, from frame 80, we have just the background camera which is not appearing from frame one all the way to frame 80. So imagine, do I need to render 80 frames of something which is not going to be there? No, right? So that is where you use absolute overrides to kind of fix that. Right? Let's take a look of how we can do that. So same thing, I click on my camera set on that layer. So you can see it's appearing from frame 80 is when I want it to start. So I go to my vendor settings again, this one. I go to my vendor settings. And what I can do is here, I can create an absolute override for a visible layer as well. Alright? So let me do create absolute override, boom, frame, again, create absolute override for a visible layer as well. Boom. So now, when I open this render settings. Start frame instead of one over here. What I will do is I do 80, and this one is the same, but I'm just doing it for safety, 120. So now I want again, I don't need the first 80 frames in the shadow layer as well. So we will do is go to the Cam shadow as well here. Same thing. We Create absolute override for visible layer. Absolute overwrite for visible layer. Boom. So now I go here, start frame. We do 80, and end frame is 120. Perfect. File increment and save. Perfect. Always good to save. Do not forget saving at all. Alright, so now with this setting, what this means is that the Cam layer, when you render it is only going to render from frame 80 to frame 120. The first 80 frames are not required. So this is how you optimize and save file sizes because you don't need so many frames. You don't need that big of a sequence. People rookie mistake is they just render every single layer. And without optimizing this, this is what causes files to get unnecessarily big. This is how you can save it because EXRs are extremely, extremely heavy because they have a lot of data, lot of AOVs, a lot of depth maps. So you need to be super, super careful as to how you're sending the compositor. If you're just sending everything with every single layer that doesn't even require, that looks bad on a professional level in the industry. So keep that in mind, yeah. Alright, so once you have Alright, so once you have everything set up, so we have this one. Oh, this is 800. Let me just make it 80. 80 to 120. So this, my friend, is what our final work is. So this is the shadow, the midground, foreground shadow, the amboclusion, and the beauty passes. So Look at this. Look at us. We did all of this work together. And all the AOVs, beautiful AOVs, all the lights. Added some nice absolute overrides here for casting shadows. We had some nice collections. We had some shader overrides. Over here, we had some more shader overrides. Amazing. So now all you need to do is make sure these are enabled. You go to render sequence. You choose renderCam. You make sure all the render enabled cameras. There's a little camera button that I was talking about. Render region, ignore local overrides, choose your location, select that. And all you need to do is add to render view, if you want and render sequence and Bob's your uncle. That's it, guys. That is how you set up the entire renders render setup with its passes for your compositors. And yeah, this is the professional way. This is the industry standard way of doing render passes. Whether this is Maya, blender, Cinema four D, real engine. They all have similar concepts. It's just the workaround of the software as a wee bit different. And otherwise, the concept is the same. And this is how the VFX industry works, and I hope you guys had a wonderful time. And yeah, export it. And hopefully, I'll make another class where we talk about how we do this, how actually we get this back together in compositing. So if you're interested in knowing how to do that in foundry Nuke, please hit the description. Hit the discussion button below and type away your comments and all your questions. I'd be more than happy to answer all of them, yeah. See you in the next one. 12. Thank You!: Alright, guys, thank you so much for watching. Hope this class was good for you. I hope you understood and got a fair idea as to how to break down your image in CG and get it ready for compositing. Now I am working on a class which is going to be based on how to actually take this entire thing and actually how to composite and how to separate the passes in the compositing software for the VFX people, for the compositors don't feel left out. And if you want, I've also done a complete ACS workflow, a round trip between DaVinci Resolve, Maya and Nuke. I have that class as well. Make sure you go through that because ACS is the standard color pipeline for VFX and CG. So if you haven't seen that, definitely watch that. It's something that does not exist in the world yet, so you need to understand how to do it. In theory, it's good. But in practicality, how to do it is very, very confusing. I have kind of laid out the path for you. So make sure you watch that course of mine, and it's super super helpful. But again, thank you for watching my Maya vender passes class. It was an honor having you. Have any questions again? Him me up on Discord. We're in the common below, alright? Thank you, and cheers.