new member

hi, i m a new member of this forum basically i m a compositor and motion graphic artist i have just begun to work on fusion.

Creating an effect dimmer than a lensflare

Now when you shine a bright light into the lens of a camera you get lensflares. But what happens when the light is not quite bright enough to create a flare, just a little dimmer? Do you get rings, or maybe just really bright glows? Has anyone had to create something like that?

I’ve got a light source here, but not quite sure it would create a lensflare in real life.

Things needed to know before tracking with PFTrack (or in general)?

Hello everyone, u might all know me from making the overlong thread, and yet i still havent overcome my problem despite actually getting somewhere.

now relating to that problem was probably due to the fact i didnt take come countermeasures before doing the actual filming, specifically the input data that PFTrack would preferably need when one is tracking a particular footage, stuff like ‘Principal Point (%), Film Back, Pixel Aspect and Focal Length’.

i assume all these are crucial parameters are what will probably make the track more accurate, and will also indeed help for whatever you plan to do with the tracking, in my case previously, attaching a 3d wireframe headmodel and have that onpar track with the person’s face.

but i was wondering if there is anything more than that i need to know aside from what i have just mentioned? In addition, i would also appreciate it if someone can help me know how to calculate or how to obtain such information, or what information to put in for the tracker.

Thanks, look forward hearing back from you lot 🙂

Create a Rolling Bad TV Effect

Nick takes us through the steps of how to manipulate the settings in the default Bad TV Effect in Final Cut Pro and create an original rolling analogue TV effect.

http://www.projuice.org/BadTV.html

Enjoy

Animus

Ask the Freelance Artist

Figured since there is a Jr artist thread…and a senior artist thread…why not one about freelance. I work totally freelance from studio to studio and project to project. It means keeping good ties with clients, keeping up with clients, and keeping up with what other artists are doing, since an insider recommendation is always your best entrance into a new facility. I have had a lot of help from friends, colleagues and clients getting work, and I always try to help out fellow freelancers find work if I’m somewhere.

As a freelancer you are expected to just walk onsite and get going. You may have an hour to get to know the setup….but mostly it is, here is the job, here is your computer let me know when you have something. The more skills you have the better. If you are a compositor but you also know how to edit or have some 3D skills (like I do) you can extend contracts sometimes with this knowledge. I worked with one company last year on a comp gig, then they had some edit work they needed and some 3D, so I got to extend my stay there by a few weeks because I could work on more than what I was originally contracted for. I usually try to land jobs that last a few months or more, but since I don’t have a specific company I work for I will take weekend jobs or jobs that last a few days.

It sounds stressful…but the good thing is, as a freelancer you can actually charge more than a staffer….since you have to not only figure how much you need while your working, but you need to figure out how much you will need to survive between projects…and sometimes that between time can extend a couple months!

The thought of going freelance is REALLY scary and most people won’t attempt it, but if you like working with a variety of people, don’t mind traveling, and can keep good track of invoices it might work out well for you!

As with other threads like this I expect other freelance artists to chime in with answers to new artists questions as well!

Fusion help

New to the list and thanks for the help. I want to do the old satellite zoom out trick in Digital Fusion where you scale separate images starting with a close up of a town and pulling back to another image that is taken from further back, parenting one to the next scaling each image smaller to match the next. I want to merge two scale tools in fusion and have been successful by linking them with an expression. The problem is if the one image is at 100% and the second image is at 25% when I connect it with an expression it always matches the end result to 100% so the images scale independently. What is the correct way of achieving this?

sRGB Gamma Question

Hi!

I just want to ask something about the srgb standard. I found not a real answer via google so maybe someone here can explain it further.

In the real world, we have linear values of course.

Our eyes are perceptual, so we can see smaller changes in the darks instead of brights. So Our eyes have a "curve" like this:

Our monitor with a gamma of 2,2 (or 2,5 to be correct) darkens the image we are looking at. So for now, a linear image would look to dark on a monitor.

In order to compensate this, a Gamma Correction of 2,2 (or to be correct an inverse Gamma of 0,454545) has to be applied to all the pictures (digicam, video…). Now the "image itself" looks to bight.

But mixed together, the gamma functions cancel out ech other (nearly) and we get a perfect linear image displayed on our monitor, right?

And with our eyes looking at this "linear image", it´s like we would look out of the window, and our perception leads it into something like this:

Okay, so far so good. But, why is in many many articles about sRGB said, that it matches the Monitor Gamma of 2,2 closely? Do they mean the inverse? Because an image loaded with the srgb standard embedded would look way to dark, because it has already a darkening gamma of 2,2 applied and then the monitor gamma of 2,2 darkens in down again. Or am I missing something?

Maybe someone can explain a little but about this further.

Kind regards,

Dez

The Newbster! *Help Needed*

Hey guys! I’m new on here but already like the way the site is set up and how helpful you all are. I am of course trying to get started in compositing but literally have no idea where to start. I currently do film work for the Army. I am a camera man, audio, lighting, edit (Final Cut Pro), motion graphics (Apple Motion) and do some other misc. tasks. I was wondering if anyone knows of a good "curriculum" to follow in order to get a good knowledge of compositing and doing VFX. I think my number one goal is to learn Adobe Photoshop as it seems to be the backbone to all visual work. Please let me know if this is where you think I should start and concentrate first. Any and all advice would be extremely helpful to me.

Also, is compositing something you need to go to school for or is it something you can pick up as you go? I would rather not spend the 60k on a degree but I guess if I would have to… crap.

Thanks guys! :splat:

Escape Studios

Hi guys,
i’m moving to london from italy at the beginning of 2010 and i’m really interested in applying at the compositing course at Escape Studios.
Does someone know anything about them?
Is it a good training with good work opportunities?
Thank you!

FPS – Specs and Prefs

I have finished a commercial for US television. The client I’m working for has no clue what file format I’m to deliver to the station via their FTP. I asked a million times but he hasn’t found out for me. So I’m gonna ask some of you guys out there.

I was told standard def, which I did at 720×486, 29.97 sec is what I set the composition for and also rendered my animations at. I am hoping that FPS is a standard for NTSC US television… correct me if I’m wrong.

Does the station need a different FPS? I’m asking you guys because if you’ve turned in files to a station via the web before, your advice can still help even if it’s not the same as what this particular station would want. But it’s something I can go by.

I’m not sure about field order or any of that… and I hate to guess. Any advice on this subject would be greatly appreciated.