Comp

When I'm asked: "What do you do for a living".

I get a lot of blank stares when I respond "Compositor". So most of the time the next job title i try is Visual Effects. I then get "oh ok".

I was an AD[Assistant Director]for awhile as that was the only thing that made sense to my family. Which is a strange idea altogether. I would make a horrible AD. The scary thing is Compositing is even more obscure.

If you search wikkipedia for Compositing, you get a page that gives the basic rundown. Putting the mathematics right on top of the page seems to be a bad idea. Scares people away. Scolldown and you will get into more of the nitty gritty. The main thought to take away from this page is that Compositing is not a new sport.

Compositing [Comp as I will refer to it] at its simpleist is problem solving. Layer A needs to be placed over layer B. Simple right, wrong. Not simple. Theres math, theres color. Most comps start off very simple but very fast turn into a huge web of color values being pushed and pulled to make a cohesive image that makes sense. Most of the time you work either background to foreground. Make sure all elements work based on color, sharpness and. atmosphere Its when you run out of buttons to push is when you have run out how good you are. As a compositor you have no choice but to be successful. You're the last stop. The Maya artists are done and the coordinators are waiting for your render. Make it perfect. Dont laugh I have seen those notes for shots. My mentor has "Make more Magical" come across his desk.

Understand Lenses, color and have ninja powers on your compositing software and all will be good.

12 + 6

I was going thru some old photos.

Getting Good

Went to lunch last week with a old friend from Pactitle. We were a Shake house; this was before Nuke was for sale to the public.

Walking back from lunch he asked a question

"What are the important things to be good at with Nuke".

Tom, you asked a very complex question. Some would argue the channel system, some would say the mock 3D world. Others would say just straight 2d comp. Its not the RotoPaint node that's for sure. Here are some ideas and links. Enjoy.

• Layers and Channels

  So much flexibility can be found in layers and channels. Not to mention cleaner more readable scripts. Which is always a good thing. Having your mattes and other images down stream from you is great. Here is a link to the nukepedia article about the subject.

• RotoPaint

  Most of this is learned from Josh Johnson. He was and should still be the lead Roto/Paint artist at Digital Domain. Shuffle a white alpha before you start painting if you need to use the onion skin feature. This is not a fail safe. but it helps. Get good at paint in Nuke it will get you out of some bad rock and a hard place type of situations.

• Camera Tracker

  If you have access to NukeX then get good the Camera Tracker. At least as good as you are with the 2d tracker. So much data you can get for free if you have a camera for the shot. Pointsto3d is amazing node. Aleast makes up for the shit paint in Nuke.

• Python

  Yeah I know programing languages. Boring! It can make your life easier. Even if you just copy and paste other peoples Python[OPP] it can help. Python for Artists

What happened?

And anytime someone who has been working in this industry for awhile speaks out there are always detractors. In forums where this issue was discussed young people who are in this industry always asked “what happened to all the money this experienced person had been paid?” "Why don't they just quit?"

Nailed it.

Except for this:

Maybe move up from a few pairs of jeans and show t-shirts to real clothing.

VFX Spring?

vfxsoldier:

Lots of VFX news today.

A round up of last weeks vfx news. Enjoy.

Beyond 24FPS

Scott Squires:

"Peter Jackson has been shooting The Hobbit in 3D at 48fps*. Jim Cameron is looking at doing Avatar sequels at 60fps. The preview of some of The Hobbit footage this last week caused some concern and confusion. I didn't see the footage but will describe some of the reasoning and history of why frame rates are being explored".

A great look at why maybe Peter and James have the right idea. That is if that is what your after.

Rigs

• Matte Painting
• Camera Track
• Roto
• Trickery
• Write

RotoPaint3

This week i had the pleasure of working with an artist that had a very good understanding of the the paint node RotoPaint in Nuke.

The gear in the upper left corner of the viewer has many options that have great appeal.

• Round check box: Paint from the nearest whole pixel.

• Shuffle a white alpha before your paint node: This fixes many problems that crop up with use of the onion skin feature.

Things that are still missing.

• "over" is the only transfer mode you can use, for onion skinning. I'd love to have a over and one layer inverted. This makes it easier to align plates for painting.

Progress, Yes!

Thanks for the lessons Josh.

Good Work

A friend of mine posted this on Twitter the other day.

Miles Lauridsen:

Despite current labor struggles, #vfx has been and will be an industry that thrives on creativity, intellect, and gut instinct. #jobsecurity

Could not have said it better myself. Be great do good work the rest will fall into place.

Scrabble

A couple weeks ago I did a cell phone comp. I changed what the display of a cell phone said to better tell a story.

I went to the vfx producer and said I needed a font to match the font of the display.

He went on to breakdown the combination of all the letters i needed to spell the words I needed for the comp. All from what was supplied from the SRC plate.

Talk about producing.

I need to play more scrabble.