Table of Contents

This page gives an overview of the Global Illumination color channel and explains how it is used in compositing.

 

Overview

The Global Illumination channel is a color image that stores indirect lighting information coming from reflected diffuse light in a scene (without direct light and reflection contributions) when Global Illumination is enabled in Render Settings. This element may be used directly in Back to Beauty compositing and adjusted for brightness and color to control the final image easily.

For even more control of indirect illumination without re-rendering the scene, the Global Illumination render channel may be re-assembled by multiplying the Raw Global Illumination by the Diffuse channels:

RawGlobalIllumination x Diffuse = GlobalIllumination

 

UI Path

||Node Editor|| > Add > Render Channels > Color Channel > Type > GI


 

Common Uses

The Global Illumination Render Channel is useful for changing the appearance of Indirect lighting after rendering, using a compositing or image editing software. Below are a couple of examples of its use.

 

 

Global Illumination Render Element

Original Beauty Composite

Brightened GI

Tinted and Brightened GI

 

 

Compositing Formula

Raw GI x Diffuse = GI