Blender 2.8 request! collections need the capabilities that render layers had in 2.7
we need this from 2.7 :
to be able to render in one click all the steps needed for compositing
The solution: add the settings available in "ray visibility" from cycles settings to the actual collection.
11 Comments
With version 2.8, blender has lost the ability to produce render layers with a single click for compositing … redo this in 2.8 if you can! see link: youtube.com/watch
@robertandri: I have an answer from the developer team, and this is it: " The plan is to replace this with Dynamic Overrides, which have not been implemented yet."
@robertandri: Any news on this?
@info1: I'm working at the Blender Institute atm. Static and dynamic overrides are indeed in the works, but it's a super complicated undertaking which will require some more work. In the meantime, holdout and indirect are built into a menu (right-click any collection) when the outliner is in view layer mode.
Is there no real artist in the programmer team? I can not believe we still don't have this feature in 2.8 !!!!!!!!! ?????????? Please ! please solve this problem! without it! blender has suddenly become garbage!
code.blender.org/2017/09/view-layers-and-collections/ the last section of the post.
@3rton93: to be honest, it sounds like a bit of a secondary feature - "An exciting future option for the 2.8x roadmap". Maybe it's just the studios that I worked in, and I don't know how it's done at Blender Animation Studio, but I personally can't (yet) envision a workflow without render layers having the option to specify how a certain set of objects is - or isn't - rendered. I'd even say the layer system would lose almost all of its purpose.
In Maya, pretty much every attribute of every object, mesh, curve, you-name-it, has the option to be stored as an override for the active render layer. To be honest, that's very powerful, but extremely chaotic and almost impossible to keep track of. I don't know how you guys envision it at this point, but I would imagine the sweet spot like this:
Say, there's some kind of list control per layer, specifying which Collections are taken into account for said layer, in whatever fashion. Said fashion can then be defined using simple controls within the same list control: primary visibility on/off (on renders everything, off renders only the collection's shadows and visibility in other diffuse and glossy surfaces), matte on/off (also known as holdout), material override, ..
That way we bring back the advantage of having layers in the first place, while avoiding the needle in a haystack that overrides can be in Maya.
It's at least food for thought, but I can't stress enough how important it is for a render layer to be able to only contain another's shadows. Let me know your thoughts on this!
@Sam Van Hulle: What do you think about the new "Render Setup" window in Maya VIDEO
It takes some time to get used to, but this way things are much better organized and it's very powerful as you said.
@zertux: Sorry for the late reply, I'm horrible at keeping track of this :p I also haven't really used Maya for rendering in a while, so it's good to see that new workflow explained.
On first glance it seems like not much changed from the previous workflow, except that they now also support collections. And it now has a visual overview of overrides! Good to finally see that.
All in all, it's pretty similar to the way Blender is about to tackle this. Layers are now nothing but sets of render instructions, including overrides on whatever property needs one. What Blender doesn't seem to have yet is that clear overview of overrides that Maya has now.
I find this solution right click on collection> view layer > set indirect only
I think that the file from the above link is self-explanatory. This feature should be mandatory and none of the other 3d software has implemented it in such a simple manner and with such ease to set up as in blender 2.7. Blender is the only software to offer this feature, and honestly, render layers and cycles renderer are what made me learn blender. If the developers would be kind enough to take a look at this, it would be highly appreciated by the entire blender community, not to mention that this is not a new feature, but an already existing one.
And yes, my guess is that, at least for now, one solution for this, would be to add camera ray visibility and holdout to collections besides the existing view layer>include and exclude.