Polygon Shoe Nuke Compositing

For compositing the rendered shoe I used a NUKE workflow:

First thing was to 'Read' in all the images I had rendered out from Maya and arranged them in the Nuke node graph.

I started with the Ambient Occlusion pass, applied a 'Grade' to it to make the AO pass lighter:

AO pass

AO pass lightened with 'Grade' node

Used a Merge (Muliply) node to merge the DiffuseNoShadow with the AO:

DiffuseNoShadow pass

DiffuseNoShadow merged with AO

The next pass to add into the pipeline was the Shadow pass with a Merge(Minus) node:

Shadow pass

Shadow added to rest of the pipeline

For the Depth pass, a 'Shuffle' node was used to add the Depth map properties into the pipeline so that the 'ZDefocus' node would work:

Depth pass

Shuffle node added to pipeline

Adjusting the Shuffle settings

The area of focus could be adjusted in the ZDefocus node settings

I then decided to add the Lens Distortion back into the image, as I had removed the lens distortion from the original images that I had used as reference to model the shoe from:

Without Lens Distortion

With Lens Distortion

For the final pipeline I added 'Backdrop' nodes to label the pipeline. At the side of the pipeline I had a Master Beauty pass for referring back to during compositing. Lastly I added a 'Write' node to render out the final image:

Final pipeline

'Write' node settings

Final front shoe render:

I then followed the same pipeline for the back of the shoe render:

AO pass

AO pass graded

DiffuseNoShadow pass

Adjusting focus point for the depth

Depth applied

Without Lens Distortion

With Lens Distortion

Final Nuke workflow for the back of the shoe

Final back shoe render: