Reaction Compositing and Effects			Basic Compositing in Reaction
Chapter 8, Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects

The Reaction tool lets you create 2D multilayer compositions and perform 3D compositing with applied transformations and other effects.

Note: You can also use the 2D Compositor tool to create multilayer 2D compositions, but without integrated transformations--see 2D Compositor.

Basic and Advanced Workflows

The following shows examples of a typical workflow you might follow when working with Reaction to perform multilayer compositing, or to create and integrate compelling 3D effects into your compositions.

1. Add a Reaction tool to your composition and set the composition background (optional).

2. Add sources and create layers.

3. Set layer priority and modify their properties.

1. Add a Reaction tool to your composition and set the composition background, which is optional. An empty background is set by default.

2. Add sources and create layers.

3. Modify or enhance the scene by:

   • Adding objects, such as lights, cameras, and material nodes, and edit their properties.

   • Selecting and manipulating objects. You can transform (scale, rotate, and translate) any surfaces, cameras, and lights in your scene using the 3D manipulators and icons. You can also organize objects into hierarchies for easy manipulation.

   • Working with cameras. You can add cameras, transform cameras, and define other properties, such as depth of field and field of view.

   • Working with lights. You can add different types of lights and place them in your scene. Then you can set the color and falloff, and define different types of shadows.

   • Animating properties. Move a camera, dim a light, or change the color of a material over time. All properties in Toxik can be animated.

   • Setting visibility properties. All objects, geometric objects, lights, and cameras are defined by their visibility and rendering properties. For example, you can determine whether a geometric object is visible, whether it casts shadows, and whether its reflection is visible.

   • Working with materials and shaders. You can use the hardware renderer for fast results, or use software shaders to create special rendering effects, such as flares, fog, and flames. A shader modifies the behavior of the renderer while rendering an object in a scene.