Fundamentals of Compositing
Last updated: Oct 2025
Fundamentals of Compositing
Instructor: Kent Trammell
☆☆☆☆ (1 Review)
When people say "fix it in post", this is what they mean.
Compositing is sort of like Apple TV -- in that it's very useful but can be difficult to explain and understand. So let's break it down into a problem --> solution explanation.
The Problem
Rendering is always the bottleneck of a production pipeline due to the extended time required to render a CG animation. So when we commit to render a Blender animation, wait hours or days for it to finish, only to decide after the fact that we want the [metallic material] to reflect 50% less, our only choice is to make that change in the blender material, then render and wait again. This is where compositing comes in.
The Solution
Someone had the brilliant idea to separate rendered elements - like objects, material color, reflections, blender lights, etc - so they could be tweaked individually after rendering. Now to continue with the previous example, we could reduce reflections by 50% with the compositor in 5 seconds instead of waiting hours to render the whole scene again. That's the meat and potatoes of compositing. We can take this blender basics workflow to our advantage.
And in this course we're going to explore how we can disassemble and reassemble a 3D render with Blender's Node Editor. CC Music: "Outer Planet" by Robbero
Course Features
- Access to this course and 272 others by joining CG Cookie
- 100xp + Fundamentals of Compositing Badge upon completion
Course Curriculum
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
Chapter 1 - Pre-Render Dissassembly
The first step in the compositing workflow is to separate your 3D scene into its individual render elements.
Chapter 2 - Post-Render Reassembly
Once your separated elements are rendered out, we need to re-combine them using the Blender's Node Editor.
Chapter 3 - Treatment
The bread and butter of compositing is the ability to quickly tweak and perfect your image without waiting to render the scene again. This chapter covers some common treatment techniques.
Chapter 4 - Quiz & Exercise
Put your new compositing knowledge to the test!
Student Review
Martin Aversa (cgtin) - Jan 10, 2023
I knew I was missing this course so much.
With this fairly short course your renders go from "Meh.. nice... i guess" to "dang... nice photo!"
Not much more to say. Just take the course, you will not regret it!
🚀Direct Download Link
Contact us on 💬WhatsApp for premium access and support.