MOON
WALK.

1. Play the finished demo. Count the layers you can see: the far moon, the astronaut, the rocks in front.
2. Open the first plate (Shot 1) and scrub it. The camera tilts down while he climbs into view.
3. List everything in the plate that is not astronaut and not green: the roof, a lamp, a black flag, a ladder.
4. Look at the light on him. Which side is bright? Where would the sun have to be on your moon?
5. Write a three-line plan: what you key, what you build, what you composite.

1. Open the Compositing workspace. Add an Image node, open the first frame of Shot 1 and set it to an image sequence of 171 frames.
2. Add › Keying › Keying. Connect Image to Image. Click the Key Color swatch, choose the eyedropper, and click the green cloth near the astronaut.
3. Connect the Keying node’s Matte output to a Viewer. White is kept, black is removed. Grey is half-transparent, and is where keys go wrong.
4. Raise Black Level until the cloth is solid black. Lower White Level until the astronaut is solid white. Stop as soon as each is clean.
5. Connect Image to the Viewer again. Scrub to three different frames and check the matte on each.

Click by click (real Blender screenshots)

1. The key removed the green, but the roof, lamp and stands are still there. Open a Movie Clip Editor, load the plate, and switch to Mask mode.
2. Click New. Ctrl-click a loose shape around the astronaut, about a hand’s width away from him. Close it.
3. Move to a later frame, move the points to follow him, and press I. Repeat every 15 to 20 frames. He must never cross the line.
4. In the compositor add a Mask node, choose your mask, and invert it (Math › Subtract, 1 − mask). Connect it to the Keying node’s Garbage Matte input.
5. Check the matte again. Everything outside your shape is now black.

Click by click (real Blender screenshots)

1. Open the starter file. Press Numpad 0 and play: the camera tilts exactly as the real one did. Do not move it.
2. Add › Mesh › Grid. Give it at least 300 × 300 squares and scale it until it reaches well past the camera in every direction.
3. Move it down to the height of the studio floor, so the astronaut’s feet will land on it.
4. Add a Displace modifier with a new Clouds texture. Keep Strength low near where he walks. The ground should be bumpy, not hilly.
5. Add two or three craters: in Edit Mode turn on Proportional Editing (O), pick one vertex, and press G then Z to push it down.

Click by click (real Blender screenshots)

1. Shading workspace. Give the ground a new material and set Roughness close to 1. Moon dust is not shiny.
2. Add a Noise Texture and a Color Ramp from dark grey to mid grey. Connect it to Base Color.
3. Add a second, finer Noise Texture into a Bump node, and connect the Bump to Normal.
4. Use Texture Coordinate › Object for both, so the pattern stays on the ground.
5. Look through the camera in Material Preview. It should read as dust and grit, with no repeating pattern.

1. Add › Light › Sun. Rotate it so the light comes from behind the astronaut on the same side as the studio lamp, and low to the ground.
2. Set the sun’s Angle very small. With no air, shadows on the moon have sharp edges.
3. World properties: make the background black. On the moon the sky is black even in daylight.
4. For stars, plug a large-scale Noise Texture through a tight Color Ramp into the Background strength. Use Light Path › Is Camera Ray so the stars are seen but light nothing.
5. Switch to Rendered view through the camera. Long black shadows should fall towards you.

Click by click (real Blender screenshots)

1. Far from the camera, raise the ground into mountains: a second, coarser grid with a strong Displace, or sculpt the far edge of your first one.
2. Add a very large UV Sphere far behind the mountains for a planet of your own design. Give it a noise-based material and a soft glowing edge.
3. Select your foreground ridge and rocks (anything nearer the camera than the astronaut). Put them in a collection called fg.
4. Render the animation with everything visible to a folder called bg (PNG).
5. Hide everything except fg, tick Film › Transparent, and render again to a folder called fg (PNG, RGBA).

1. Add your bg and fg sequences as Image nodes.
2. Add an Alpha Over: Background = bg, Foreground = the keyed astronaut.
3. Add a second Alpha Over: Background = the first result, Foreground = fg.
4. Play the shot. He should rise behind the foreground rocks and walk towards the horizon.
5. Check his feet at the end of the shot. Do they meet the ground, or float?

Click by click (real Blender screenshots)

1. Put an Exposure node between the key and the first Alpha Over. Lower it until his suit is no brighter than the brightest ground.
2. Add a Hue/Saturation node and lower Saturation a little. Studio light is warmer than sunlight in space.
3. After the last Alpha Over, add a Glare node set to Bloom, with a high Threshold so only the brightest edges glow.
4. Compare the black of his shadows with the black of the ground’s shadows. They should be the same black.
5. Turn each node off and on (M) and decide whether it helps.

1. In your moon scene add a new camera where the astronaut stands, looking back the other way and slightly up.
2. Render one still from it, a little larger than 1920 × 1080.
3. In a new compositing scene, key Shot 2 the same way as Shot 1. The cloth fills the frame, so you may not need a mask.
4. Put the key over your still. Blur the still: in a close-up the lens is focused on his face, so the background is soft.
5. Key a slow drift on the still with a Transform node, so it does not sit dead still behind a moving actor.

1. Read your director’s card (below).
2. Decide which stage it touches: key, world, light or composite. Change as little as possible, in a copy of your file.
3. Render both shots and cut them together (FFmpeg, H.264).
4. Screen it and explain one keying choice and one lighting choice.
5. Credit the footage and any models or textures in your evidence.

Independent evidence: the main achievement evidence for this tutorial.