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UPDATED

(mushrooms and far trees are background, buildings on right and some vegetation on both sides of middle building is midground layer)

I adjusted the values on the colorramp and the factor to show the issue i'm still having, it seems like the bottom two layers' fog cannot be adjusted individually the way I have the node set. Ideally, I would like to have a little separation between these two layers, however I can't figure out the right node setup to give each layer its own mist layer adjustment.

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UPDATE

Made a little progress, I think I'm like two thirds there. I attached my most recent render (top image), the current node setup (middle image), and the version with the mist I am trying to mimic (3rd image). I seemed to have figured out how to apply the mist (minimally)to my background and my midground, but the foreground doesn't seem to be affected by the colorramp slider with this node setup. Still a WIP, among other things, the mist is a little heavy in the version I'm trying to match, but once I have the nodes set up I should be able to tweak that. The mist in the foreground is probably irrelevant for this image, but would be nice to know how to apply it for future renders.

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ORIGINAL

I recently ran into hardware bottlenecks on a render, and found I am able to complete the same scene using multiple render layers and combining them during compositing. However, the mist pass that I had on the previous single layer render now needs to be spread over the 3 render layers. I believe I would have to setup a mist to colorramp/mix node for each layer and combine those similarly to "stacking" the 3 render layers I have already. I am trying to avoid volumetrics to cut down on CPU strain. What would be the best way to combine the mist node tree to my 3 render layers node tree to achieve the same depth that a single render layer with a mist pass does? Is there an easier way to add mist to the image that contains the 3 render layers?

Thanks.

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  • $\begingroup$ add a .blend file to your question might make it easier to understand: Grab the URL of the question Go to blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com Select the blend file Add the url of the question Grab the url that results Go back to the question and edit it Add the new url to the bottom of the post $\endgroup$
    – Marty Fouts
    Nov 21, 2018 at 1:16
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the suggestion, Marty. It's an absolute monster file close to 1GB. I'll see if I can get it up on there, I'll post a screen shot soon of the render and node setup I have if I can't get it uploaded. Maybe that will help illustrate my problem if the file doesn't work? $\endgroup$
    – SeaLionBrian
    Nov 21, 2018 at 1:41
  • $\begingroup$ Got a couple layers to apply the mist pass, however I still don't think my node setup is correct. Would love to see what you think, or see if you have any suggestions based on my update. Thanks, $\endgroup$
    – SeaLionBrian
    Nov 21, 2018 at 2:17
  • $\begingroup$ I haven't understood if your problem is that you have a weak mist or how to apply the mist on 3 render layers. or both? but from the node setup It looks to me that your are mixing the mist using the mix blend with factor to 1, in this way you can see only the top layer. $\endgroup$
    – Virgil Sisoe
    Nov 21, 2018 at 3:09
  • $\begingroup$ in the camera settings you have a mist limit so you can see where it goes. you can adjust its starting point and ending point in the world preference. adjusting that and not having the mix node with factor at 1 it may help. $\endgroup$
    – Virgil Sisoe
    Nov 21, 2018 at 3:15

2 Answers 2

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Use a math node in the compositor set to “minimum” to merge multiple mist passes:

node graph of a math node to to “minimum” combining 2 mist passes

“Occluding” objects in the mist pass will always have a lower value than what they are occluding, since the distance range of the mist pass is the same for all layers. “Minimum” takes the smaller of the 2 input values. So this will simply merge all occlusion objects. Just add more math nodes if you have more than 2 layers: you can merge a 3rd mist pass into the combined results the same way you merged the first 2.

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  • $\begingroup$ Awesome, this worked perfectly. Thanks a ton! $\endgroup$
    – SeaLionBrian
    Nov 24, 2018 at 20:17
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if the blending mode is mix with factor to 1 you will see just the layer on top

enter image description here

while multiply may not be the best for this scenario is just to illustrate the difference

enter image description here

also you should check the distance of your mist pass. if is too deep the mist won't come out how you expected.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Ah, I see what you are saying, I will give these suggestions a try next chance I get and see if that works, Thanks for the visuals as well. $\endgroup$
    – SeaLionBrian
    Nov 21, 2018 at 14:23

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