Documentation

Pojo's Painterly Compositing V2

Official Controls Reference

This node group transforms your render by independently displacing the base image and its bloom through artistic texture maps. Connect it between your Render Layers and Composite output for instant painterly results.

INPUTS

• Image: Connect your rendered image (Render Layers > Image).

• Normal: Connect your Normal pass (Render Layers > Normal). Required for strokes to bend with surface direction.

• Mask: Optional but powerful. Connect any grayscale mask for separate control for paint displacement.

CONTROLS REFERENCE

PAINT SECTION

Paint Type Dropdown: Select your brush stroke texture:

• Brush Stroke – Directional strokes that sweep across surfaces

• Pollock – Energetic scratches and paint splatter for chaotic texture

• Splatter – Organic paint splat effect, like flicked wet paint

• Custom – Load your own paint texture images

Brush Strokes Scale: Size of the selected paint texture. Larger values = bigger, more visible strokes.

Bend to Normals: How strongly strokes conform to your scene's surface directions. Higher values make strokes curve organically around forms.

Normals Scale Offset: Scale the normals pass to offset the displacement from the original image.

Animate Toggle: Enable for evolving/moving brush strokes over time in animations.

Frame Rate: Frame increment at which the paint textures changes.

DISPLACEMENT SECTION

These controls warp the image through the selected paint textures.

A: First displacement channel intensity (affects the white part of your mask).

B: Second displacement channel intensity, only available if there is a mask in use (affects the black part of your mask).

Glare Displacement: Controls displacement strength specifically on the bloom/glare pass only. Higher values = bloom scatters and breaks apart independently from the base image.

Offset X/Y: Moves the displacement patterns horizontally and vertically across the frame (affects both image and glare displacement).

GLARE SECTION

Note: These controls affect how the bloom/glare is processed before displacement.

Size: Scales the bloom/glare itself. Larger = wider glow.

Threshold: Brightness cutoff for bloom generation. Lower values make more pixels glow; higher values restrict glow to only the brightest areas.

Low/High Toggle: Quality level of your glare.

POST-PROCESSING SECTION

Fine-tuning for final image polish:

Sharpen: Enhances edge definition after displacement. Higher = crisper.

Soften: Blurs/smooths the final result. Higher = more diffused.

Shadow: Deepens shadow areas. Higher = richer contrast.

Overlay: Overlay the original paint texture over the final image.

USING MASKS

The Mask input gives you surgical control:

Example 1: Character Only

1. Render a Cryptomatte pass

2. Connect to Mask input

3. Painterly effect applies only to your character, background stays clean

Example 2: Depth-Based

1. Render Depth pass

2. Connect to Mask input

3. Adjust with ColorRamp to make distant objects more painterly than foreground

Example 3: Selective Focus

1. Create simple gradient mask

2. Connect to Mask input

3. Painterly effect fades across the frame

REQUIREMENTS & COMPATIBILITY

• Blender Version: 5.0 or later only

• Render Engines: Works with Cycles and EEVEE (as long as Normal passes are enabled)

• Required Passes: Enable Normal pass in View Layer properties for Bend to Normals to function

Happy Painting!

– Pojo