Thread: cmiVFX Releases New Nuke General Realistic Compositing Techniques Video

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  1. #1 cmiVFX Releases New Nuke General Realistic Compositing Techniques Video 
    cmiVFX Releases New Nuke General Realistic Compositing Techniques Video
    High Definition Training Videos for the Visual Effects Industry

    Princeton, NJ (August 14th, 2012)‚ cmiVFX has released the brand new Nuke General Compositing Techniques by Jonathan McFall. Compositors are expected to take plates from a variety of sources, in many unconventional conditions, and marry them all together into a seamless cinematic scene. Modern film production often sources scene elements from many studios simultaneously. Compositors must be ready to handle whatever is presented and achieve a result that feels REAL. Here in this lesson Jonathan takes this challenge head on. Using elements from dozens of sources, in all manner of states, Jonathan teaches tried and true techniques to assemble and integrate them all into a single panoramic scene. With an application as powerful as The Foundry's Nuke it is easy to get lost. Jonathan McFall guides you through this lesson on paths that he knows works in a production environment. With so many ways to choose, allow him to show you what has worked. This lecture is a fast paced riot of non-stop knowledge. It's just going to make you better in Nuke.

    VIMEO VIDEO LINK


    Short Description
    Film compositing veteran Jonathan McFall offers this workshop on Nuke compositing techniques. This lesson presents a myriad of techniques to manipulate and then integrate 2D elements into a photorealistic 3D panoramic matte scene. Jonathan revels the quick way AND the professional way to achieve cinematic results.

    NOTICE TO VIEWERS:
    (While beginner in Nuke will derive benefit from this lesson, it is intended and presented for intermediate compositors primarily.)

    Here at cmiVFX we maintain a current training library for the latest versions of popular software titles. When it comes to high end CG and VFX training, there is only once choice... cmiVFX! This video is also available a-la-cart in our brand new HTML5 player system.

    |||||||||||||||||||||| NUKE GENERAL COMPOSITING TECHNIQUES ||||||||||||||||||||||
    http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view...ing+Techniques

    Chapter Descriptions

    Introduction
    Here is a brief introduction to the point of the lesson, and variety of techniques used to manipulate found objects for multi-layered and multi-dimensional compositing.

    Finding and Prepping the Elements
    First we prepare the photos from the internet for the matte painting by quickly keying the photos to create nice alphas. Some parts will require a bit of roto to create garbage mattes. Next, we start building the silhouette of a factory from random images and light the scene from random night-time photos. Clean up the script to make the computer run a little faster and render out an image sequence in Nuke with an aplha.

    2D In A 3D Environment
    We begin to recreate the 2D scene in Nuke's 3d environment by projecting each on to cards so that you get exactly the same out put, but now in the 3d environment. Simply move the cameras and cards to scale the photos, rather than using the 2d transform node. To add realism and marry the various elements together we will now: make the clouds animate, use the zblur, use the focal plane setup, use the depth of field and lastly create a custom bokeh from scratch with the convolve tool.

    The Fine Details
    In this chapter we dive down to the adjust the finest details to achieve realism. A de-spill expression on blue and green screens offers production quality. DE-noise and then RE-grain in two different ways: the quick way and the professional way. Channel by channel, plate by plate this workflow matches the grain between each element in the scene. We wrap up the chapter with a fun bit of chromatic aberration (chromatic distortion) with two different methods.

    Distress For A Miracle
    All of chapter 5 is to recreate the imperfections that a camera creates in real life. To simulate reality is to make a better and more realistic matte painting. Its not just about making everything look as clean as possible, sometimes you have to make it look dirty too. Lets add some fire frames and retime the footage. Extend the project settings to a panoramic ratio. Included is a detailed explanation of the shuffle / shuffle copy nodes. Zdepth with color grading is employed for very subtle addition of realism. Next, we use a colourful bokeh to blend the foreground in and to simulate smudges and dust on the camera lens. Further use of defocus and chromatic aberration creates the illusion of a real camera viewing a real landscape. Jonathan offers many small adjustments and variations in this final chapter attempting to achieve the 'miracle' when photorealism occurs.

    About John McFall
    Jonathan is a compositor. He has worked on films shot in stereo, films converted to stereo, in occula, as a prep artist and as a stereo conversion artist. He started off his career as an illustrator and photoshop lecturer. Then a few years ago he discovered Nuke and now he's hooked. He is currently teaching evening and day courses in Nuke. Jonathan has now taken his six years of university lecturing experience and the knowledge learnt from working on 15 films to create a training video for cmiVFX. He also likes walks in the park and anything to do with aliens. Jonathan's favorite place is the Giger museum in Switzerland.

    Special Thanks

    The Foundry
    http://www.thefoundry.co.uk

    HyperFocal Design
    http://www.hyperfocaldesign.com/night-skies-2

    About Jonathan McFall
    IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4200323/

    Project Contents
    All cmiVFX videos come with all the training materials you can need right from our website. No matter what time of day, your location, or how your feeling, cmiVFX will be there waiting for you!

    This video is available today at the cmiVFX Store: http://store.cmivfx.com/

    About cmiVFX
    cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. Register for FREE and receive hours of FREE content at the cmiVFX Video-on-Demand Player. ( http://store.cmivfx.com/login ) For additional information about cmiVFX, visit http://www.cmivfx.com. © 2012 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. All rights reserved.
    http://www.cmivfx.com
    All your VFX training needs.
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  2. #2  
    PS: on a personal note... this video was designed content wise by one of our project manager that was trying to learn compositing coming from a CG background. We feel that it really helps compositors and future compositors learn how to deal with common tasks from a professional with lots of credit upon his name. Id love to hear what you think about it... so email me directly with your thoughts
    http://www.cmivfx.com
    All your VFX training needs.
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  3. #3 Thumbs up  
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    Chris i think it's great you're taking on the requests for realistic (photoreal ?) compositing techniques.
    I haven't seen the course content but if you can also include a scene that's not a money shot or overly dramatic, it would round things out.

    I like where this is going.Congrats.


    b
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  4. #4 Question  
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    Realistic Compositing Techniques Video? This is a Photoshop Course! NUKE is for Movies and not for still images....

    Hey Guys - you talk in the promo video about Harry Potter and Prometheus and you create a still image in this course - Film is moving!

    Why you don't make a Realistic Compositing Techniques for Film, is it to difficult to get real footage?

    I am waiting for realistic detailed Filmshot Lessons - Mattepainting and CG Integration for Film!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a8Qi...tailpage#t=15s

    Hope it comes...
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  5. #5  
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    first: yes, its difficult to get real project footage

    second: whats the difference between still and moving footage? the techniques are the same and still apply to moving footage. adjust you color, contrast, levels, grain, distortion and make you mask/edges work. thats the same on still and moving footage
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  6. #6  
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    Quote Originally Posted by pingking View Post
    first: yes, its difficult to get real project footage
    Okay, thats the problem of the vendor...

    Quote Originally Posted by pingking View Post
    second: whats the difference between still and moving footage? the techniques are the same and still apply to moving footage. adjust you color, contrast, levels, grain, distortion and make you mask/edges work. thats the same on still and moving footage
    the difference are the important Details on HD realism Footage, there you cant hide anything or whitewash mistakes. Daylight Footage with 100% REALISM in the hole Sequence. Time consuming workflow for accurate Tracking, Accurate Camera-Projection, High Image Quality, completely appropriate Perspective and color, contrast, levels, grain for Mattepaintings are huge different techniques as the dark and quick an dirty looking fantasy images in this Promo Video.

    I'am looking for -lets called it- advanced Masterclass Lessons to get the results like the Breakdown it posted above. But every Online Class provides this ugly Footage or previs Lessons without any Realism Techniques. YES we can do it - but we can't show it....
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eagle1 View Post
    I'am looking for -lets called it- advanced Masterclass Lessons to get the results like the Breakdown it posted above. But every Online Class provides this ugly Footage or previs Lessons without any Realism Techniques. YES we can do it - but we can't show it....
    That's great but this is aimed at - and I quote - 'NOTICE TO VIEWERS: (While beginner in Nuke will derive benefit from this lesson, it is intended and presented for intermediate compositors primarily.)'

    Intermediate.

    If you are requesting better online training, I would suggest doing that on official training forums, rather then this one.

    That said this seems like great training material for beginner/intermediate wanting to know more about matte painting/cam projection.

    Cheers.
    Whatever i type, take it with a pinch of salt...
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  8. #8  
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eagle1 View Post
    Okay, thats the problem of the vendor...



    the difference are the important Details on HD realism Footage, there you cant hide anything or whitewash mistakes. Daylight Footage with 100% REALISM in the hole Sequence. Time consuming workflow for accurate Tracking, Accurate Camera-Projection, High Image Quality, completely appropriate Perspective and color, contrast, levels, grain for Mattepaintings are huge different techniques as the dark and quick an dirty looking fantasy images in this Promo Video.

    I'am looking for -lets called it- advanced Masterclass Lessons to get the results like the Breakdown it posted above. But every Online Class provides this ugly Footage or previs Lessons without any Realism Techniques. YES we can do it - but we can't show it....
    then you have some one to make the footage, some one who does the tracking, some one who does the mattepainting (including modelling of the projection geo), you need to get the additonal footage (smoke, debris,...) and so on
    hard to justify that with the price of a tutorial, which gets pirated any way

    but did you take a look at fxphd? they provide great classes with footage which they shot for short films or for the classes
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  9. #9  
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    .... some one who does the tracking, some one who does the mattepainting (including modelling of the projection geo), you need to get the additonal footage (smoke, debris,...) and so on
    Hm, thats MY problem - it's all me in one person to do this I don't understand why you can't use realism Production shots for Visual Effects Lessons? They have an educator thats works on big cinema Shots and sells realistic mattepainting on a still Image - and when you have a HD DSLR or RED ONE movie shot, you suddenly realize that it don't work with this techniques....

    I know FXPHD - the questions was why cmiVFX can't offer realism Lesson on realism production Footage for all CG/VFX integration Lessons?
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  10. #10  
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    I think the above offered lesson will hold valuable information for junior to midlevel artist. I admit that the titel is misleading. It should be a "mattepainting for feature film with nuke". the technques are very similar of course and will be useful. I think both fxguide and cmivfx should have the means to rent a descent 5D or red and shoot something in terms of footage. nobody likes to use the same footage for all classes.

    big productions split up tasks, small productions dont. being able to do all of them is important, maybe with a general split of 2D vs 3D. a compositor (which is the target group) should know how to use nukes 3d system including mattepaintings and projections. should he know how to mattepaint? it would not hurt but Id argue many artist are not THAT artistic anyway to do mattepaintings. should they know how to model geometry? i dont think it should involve any other application, but it be nice to see of this tutorial contains any nuke 3D primitive modeling or displaced cards etc to generate enough geo for your scene to work with paralax or even stereo.

    the fact these tutorials exist is fantastic. Id love to have them when I started but I caution cmivfx and fxguide to not oversell the product or insult the targetgroup with bad titling/marketing.

    my long 2 cents.
    COMPOSITING SUPERVISOR | IMDB | LinkedIn | ICQ: caosVFX | YAHOO: JAHOEIDI
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