Compositing

Compositing is, in essence, the culmination of everything, the various layers that have been rendered out can now be bought together to create the final images, so whilst one layer may have the lighting on it, another may have the background, another the texture and so on. These are then brought together to create what will become the final image. Should there be something wrong with a frame, for example the lights dim too much then that frame can be singled out, the lighting layer taken into photoshop or another editing programme, the brightness notched up and the newly edited layer can be returned. Doing things this way makes the editing process a far more simple one, and you must have true faith in your animation to render it out as a complete file. There are very few jobs in composition, this process is normally done by the editing team or, in smaller companies, simply by the animators. Below is an image giving an idea of how layers are combined to create a final image.