Render Elements tutorial

[tbarnesarc]

Does anybody know of a good tutorial on how to use Render Elements correctly? I can't figure out how to make it owrk correctly. I understand the basic principle and setup, but I can't get the compositing right. I render out Difuse, specular, shadows etc etc as Tiffs with alpha channels, but when I bring them into Photoshop there is no shadows or refections etc in the apha channel. All I get are black images.

 

Thanks for any help

Taylor

[Tim Saunders]

this is something i would like to get more experienced with as well. i am just using vray free right now so there aren't render elements, but last week i was trying to get some blurred reflections, and the only way i could figure it out was by using a default scanline material (flat mirror) and adjusting the blur. in order to get that to work with my vray rendering, i had to run a reflection pass with the scanline renderer, then switch to vray and composite in ps. the problem is as you said, i couldn't get it to just have an alpha channel (for easy selection). i just used the majic wond. i'm sure this wouldn't always work though. let me know if this interests you and i can fill you in on how i did it. if anyone else has better input on the subject i would also love to hear it. the image on the left is after adding a reflection layer. i just turned off reflections on the vray render.

[tbarnesarc]

I tried that technique with the alpha channel. For some reason the elements would just be black images. There was an alpha channel in the channels tab in PS, but nothing on it. I used tiffs with alpha channels and the elemnets were diffuse, specular, etc etc. I don't get it, but either way I would like to know how to do it correctly. Seems to be a standard for stills and animations in the industry. Thanks for replying none the less.

 

Taylor