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The Velocity Render Element stores surface velocity for moving objects in the scene with different colors representing different velocities. Each moving object is rendered with a flat color or gradient. It is commonly used to create mattes for adding motion blur in a composite.

The shading in the Velocity Render Element is determined by the degree of motion for each object's pivot point. The object's motion between the current frame and the next frame on the X, Y, and Z axes is mapped to R, G, and B components, with movement along the negative axis as 0 and movement along the positive axis as the maximum value. For example, a white object has moved at the maximum velocity on all three axes in a positive direction, while a black object has moved at the maximum velocity in negative direction on all three axes. A pale yellow object has moved a great deal on all three axes in the positive direction, but mostly on X and Y, while a dark purple object has moved on the -X and -Z axes. A medium gray color indicates no motion.

Because of the relationship between XYZ motion and RGB colors, the Velocity Render Element can be easily split into R, G, and B components during the compositing process and each direction can handled separately or together to add motion blur.