Video Tutorial: Janus/exrTrader/Fusion - Workflow Introduction

Cageman · 12-31-2008, 03:29 PM

Since this is a project-driven tutorial, some things will not be explained in detail or even mentioned.

The focus is mainly on the workflow aspects. However, rest assured that Janus has A LOT (and I say it again, A LOT) of things going for it that is not shown in this introduction. I've focused on showing how Janus and exrTrader works in a very artist friendly way without much tech stuff at all. More videos will be produced in the future that goes into showing some of the finer aspects of Janus.

The content I use consists of 3 joysticks and a Table. One of the Joysticks is broken up into 6 different parts (each part having it's own surface) while the other two are single objects with multiple surfaces.

The list below is a brief description of what I will do/talk about in the videos.

Part01: 29m 54s
exrTrader - Presets
Janus - Preferences
Janus - Adding groups
Janus - Configuration files
Janus - Creating Beauty-renderpasses, introduction to BTY/BTY2
Janus - Applying exrTrader
Janus - Break Out
Janus - Filestructure
Janus - "Global/Local" renderbuffers
Janus - Creating Alpha-renderpasses
Janus - Creating BAT-files for renderscenes
LW - Batch Render Editor (plugin written by Jeremy Hardin)

Part02: 25m 35s
Fusion - What we have so far
Fusion - Multichannel exr workflow
Janus - Customized GroupTypes
Janus - Creating ChromaPasses using GroupTypes (Middle Joystick)
Janus - Creating ChromaPasses using GroupOverrides (Middle Joystick)
Janus - Creating ChromaPasses using Object replacements (Left and Right Joystick)

Part03: 27m 04s
Fusion - Setting up a flow for Diffuse, Specular and Reflection using Chromapasses (Middle Joystick)
Fusion - Setting up flows for the rest of the Joystics based on the flow created for Middle Joystick (timelapse, no audio)
Fusion - Alphachannel screwup *doh* and how to fix it *ahh*

The videos can be found here!

Have a wonderful New Year!

Matt · 12-31-2008, 03:32 PM

Whoohoo, everyone's making video tutorials!

Nice one Cageman!

artstorm · 12-31-2008, 04:19 PM

Excellent! Thanks.

I have been wanting to check out Janus for a while, but haven't found the time yet to do that. Gonna be interesting and convenient to see it in action in your video.

And happy new year!

CC Rider · 01-06-2009, 03:50 PM

I am stoked to check this out.
I have been "powersearching" the last several days on multipass rendering workflows and compositing info.
Just ordered a book today from Amazon about this very subject. (among other things...)
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighti...rdr_bb_product
In my searches, Janus and exrTrader keep popping up. Must be something there...
PSD image sequences just don't get it...at least in After Effects...makes my normally very fast machine come to a screeching halt.

Thanks for sharing this info!

Larry_g1s · 01-07-2009, 03:10 PM

Thanks Cageman.

adk · 01-07-2009, 06:10 PM

Thanks a bunch Cageman ...

Got all of those bits so I'm sure these will come in extremely handy for me.

Cageman · 01-08-2009, 06:57 PM

Thanks guys!

I've done the first additional tutorial...which is about the use of the z-buffer that exrTrader can output.

Look here!

Cheers!

vbk!!! · 01-11-2009, 10:38 AM

wow !!!
i dind't notcie that thread !
thanks a lot Cageman for this.

marchermitte · 01-17-2009, 12:05 PM

Cageman, you're an absolute master and a very generous asset to the community!
Thank you!

Roadwarrior · 02-09-2009, 05:05 PM

Cool Videos Thanks for Posting Cageman!

Cageman · 12-24-2009, 09:10 AM

Hi guys...

Just a repetition of things I've already showed, but maybe somewhat more focused on speed.

Link!

Cageman · 12-24-2009, 09:13 AM

Oh...and another one... again, some repetition, but in this case... how to setup a LightPass!!!!

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Cageman · 12-24-2009, 10:10 AM

I've attached a screenshot from a very recent project at work where we utilized Janus. I had to add black bars everywhere in this screenshot because what we are working on is very secret at the moment.

As you can see, there are 41 groups and 55 renderlayers within Janus. To say the least, this particular project is very compositing heavy and the fast workflow with Janus made it a breeze to setup. Some of those renderlayers have either surface overrides or object replacements, and one of them is actually using a different camera. As you may understand, this scene, if setup with the oldschool LW way of doing things, would have taken ages... and even worse would be if you need to change something... PAIN!

No pain with Janus.