Tip of the Week: December 2006 Archives

It's become a staple of compositing life. RGBA channels used as masks. Using simple reorderers, switchmattes, and copies, you can easily move any color channel and use it as a mask or matte. Why would you want to do this? Well, a couple of different reasons. It can clean up the appearance of your script, it can make rendering out sequences easier on the 3D artist, and you can have more information in less places to look. Shake has a limit of five available channels, rgbaz. Flame has a limit of four at last count, rgba. Nuke has a limit of 64, rgba, and another 60 of your choice. Read on to see how using a number of different channels can make your life easier.