Touring the Interface with a Basic Composite - Nuke 101: Professional Compositing and Visual Effects - page 38

Note
If the file called maya.png isn't Read2, you did not complete the
steps as presented. This is not necessarily a problem, but you'll have
to remember that my Read2 is your Read1.
Let's look at the other image.
6. Click Read1 (background.####.png) and press 1, like before.
This image you are looking at is part of a file sequence. It's a rather dark image
ofa painter'stoolbox. Ishot this image in HD,and indeed if youlook at the same
corners of the image in the Viewer, you can see that the resolution for this se-
quence is 1920×1080. Since this is a defined format (more on this in Chapter 8 ),
thebottom-rightcornerdisplaysthenameoftheformatratherthantheresolution.
The bottom-right corner shows HD.
Yourgoalinthischapteristoplacethedollimageinsidetheartist'stoolbox—and
forittolookbelievable.Let'sstartbyplacingthedollimageoverthebackground
image.
Merging Images
The definition of compositing is combining two or more images into a seamless, single
image. You definitely need to learn how to do that in Nuke. In layer-based systems, such
asAfterEffectsandFlame,yousimplyplaceonelayerontopofanothertoachieveacom-
posite. In Nuke you combine two images by using several different nodes—chief among
which is the Merge node.
The simplest way to create and connect a node to an existing node is to select the existing
node(afterwhichthenewnodewillbeinserted)andthencallthenodeyouwanttocreate,
either by clicking it in the Nodes Toolbar or pressing the Tab key. The new node is then
created, and its input is connected to the selected node's output. Let's do this.
1. Select Read2 (maya.png) and choose Merge from the Merge toolbox.
Tip
You can also use the hot key M to create a Merge node.
The Merge node has a slightly different anatomy than a standard node. It has two
inputs rather than just the one ( FIGURE 2.6 ) .
Figure 2.6. The Merge node you created has a free input.