Compositor Intro

This entry is an introduction to the Compositor.  I'll go over the Compositing View as well as the standard output nodes that are used.

To start off, using [Ctrl + Left Arrow], you can change to the compositing view which should look like the image below.  My example scene is suzanne within a light blue box.

To get started using the compositing nodes, check the Use Nodes box.  The following nodes will appear.  These are the Render Layer Node (in our case we only have one render layer), and the Composite output which is the standard view displayed when you render [F12].

Nodes read left to right, and are connected by the wires in between.  Any out-node can have multiple wires coming from it, however, each input-node can only have one wire.  New nodes can be added just like objects can be added in the 3D view with the [Shift + A].  We'll cover a couple other standard output nodes.

The Viewer node allows for the rendered image to be displayed and updated in the background of the node view.  Note the output of the Render Layer Image must connect with the Image of the Viewer node.  As well, the Backdrop checkbox must be checked.

Another common output to use is the File Output.  This does simply what is in its label, it outputs the render to a file specified in the BasePath.  Again, the Image field must be connected to the Render Layer node.

Compositing can add much greater control of the when applying post-processing effects.  All compositing builds off of this foundation.