Hi!
I’m preparing to render an animation, but I am not sure of the workflow as I also want to have the renders composited at the end.
I don’t know if compositing should be concluded before hitting “render animation” or if the animation can still be composited after the images are all rendered out.
So, for animations, should compositing be done before rendering, or can still be tweaked after rendering out all the frames? I’m planning to save all the images in PNG, but what benefits do EXRs have?
Render the scene so you then have something to use in the compositor, either as renders of your scene or pre-rendered image files
For animations render out to an image sequence with all the passes you will need (multilayer EXR can hold all render layers and passes in a single file rather than having to render out each pass as their own image sequence). Then when rendered you can load into the compositor and adjust to your hearts content. Assuming you have planned sufficiently ahead of time to know what render layers and passes you’ll need.
If I render a project, can I after that open up the sequence editor an drag a music file in to the project and rerenader it.? Or may I need to do that before I render everything.
Basically, treat it like “a real movie,” in which 3D rendering is the source of all-or-part of the material to be used.
Use “OpenGL Preview” renders (and informationl “stamps” on the frames) to facilitate editing. These frames can be produced very quickly and will correspond exactly to other renders.
(And, for that matter, you can do a lot(!) with “just that!” OpenGL is a fully-developed real-time graphics system in its own right. It’s really much more than “preview.”)
The only twist between this kind of movie-making, and conventional shooting, is that in this case you “edit, then shoot.” As much as possible, you want to decide exactly what will need to be rendered before you render it (other than preview).
Also, learn compositing well. Get the idea out of your head that “what pops out of the renderer is all of what will appear on the screen, and that it will appear exactly as rendered.” Think in terms of stages. Of “sneaking up on” the final image in such a way that you never have to start-over.