Hasta La Motion!

Jun 14

Heat Haze Effect

In this new tutorial, I show you how to make a heat haze effect.

To make the heat haze effect was basically a 3 step process. Firstly I created a layer of fractal noise that evolved over time using an expression. I then used this layer as a displacement map for my main piece of footage. This essentially created the wavering, blurry look of a heat haze.

The second step was creating the watery reflections you often see in the forground. For this i used a range of masks, scaling and blend modes, along with a bezier warp.

The final step was colour correcting to make the warm reds and oranges associated with shooting in hot conditions.

Hope you find it useful.

Nick

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Jun 13

Amateur cinematographer needs advise on VFX film

Posted in: Beginners Talk

Hi all,

i am currently working on a VFX film(school project) as a cinematographer. This VFX film will have 3D characters interacting in live-action scenes(something like stuart little). As a cinematographer, i have to plan the framing of the shots and the lighting of the scene.
Does anyone have any advice on how should i frame/light the shots where the 3D characters will be composited in? What to look out for and such.. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Links to references or tutorials will be best!

Thanks in advance. 🙂

Jun 12

Hello Community!

Posted in: Beginners Talk

My name is Mike im 23 years old from Oakville Ontario, a 3D artist and student. I wish to get into the world of composting to make my 3d creations come alive! Although I have to confess i have little experience other than Photoshop and some basic aftereffects. My question to the community is what path should I take? Ive seen nuke and it seems like a growing product as well as being very powerfull and im thinking of getting it.

Advice?

Jun 12

Good concepts for us beginners

Posted in: Beginners Talk

Hey everybody, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a place for us beginning (or even not so beginning) compositors to go for concepts/tips that can help us when are comps aren’t looking as great as we want them to. If you haven’t discovered Videocopilot.net yet, check it out right now…you will not regret it. Andrew Kramer has some amazing tutorials that have helped me tremendously. I just ran across this in his blog and plan to reference it when I run into times that my stuff just isn’t looking quite right. It really is P.E.R.F.E.C.T…check it out.

http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/200…t-compositing/

If anyone wants to share links to good stuff or give us tips on what you do to help when stuff isn’t looking "good", feel free to hook us up.

Jun 09

Trying to model a Comanche helicopter

Posted in: Beginners Talk

Hello everyone. I have a very basic level question. I am trying to model a comanche helicopter in maya and having problems with making the tail section. I am attaching an image for reference. As you can see that the tail rotor is kind of part of the tail. I initially made a box and cut a whole in it using a boolean, but the tail section looses its shape on smoothing the mesh. Now I am trying to make a pipe and attach it with the box, but it turns out its a very lengthy process and might not even work at the end. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what would be the best way to solve this problem? Any help will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Jun 06

PXC -> FXPHD ?

Posted in: Beginners Talk

Hey all. I’m in the Pixel Corps now and although I love it and I’ve got a gig compositing for a short film I think I need something more. I’ve been checking out FXPhd and it looks like it might be what I’m searching for.

Right now I’m trying to build up my reel so I can hopefully get some work in the VFX world, specifically in compositing.

I’d appreciate any feedback from past or current FXPhd members if there are any here. 😀

Jun 02

Having problems with my 1st experiment. Need help

Posted in: Beginners Talk

Hi everyone. I am working on my very 1st experimental project. Since its my 1st project so please bare with me. I have attached the jpg image for reference. What I am trying to do is that with a still down town image as BG, a spaceship is going to fly in from behind the buildings and will dive in while moving towards the camera and will fly pass over it. The 1st problem that I am having is that I have placed this BG as image plain in maya. When I place the spaceship further away from the camera to show its going to come in from a distance, the ship goes behing the image plain and hence is difficult to position it in accordance with the downtown image. The 2nd problem I am having is I cant figure out how to stop the image plain from rendering so that I can render the spaceship movement as alpha channel and combine it in AE. Image plain doesnt seem to have the regular option in the attribute editor/render stats. Can anyone tell me if this is how this whole thing should be done or some other way? Am I doing something wrong here? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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May 21

confusing on script language

Posted in: Beginners Talk

hi there
I want to learn a script language but i couldn t decide on a script..what do you recommend for future because it takes long time to learn that s why i don t want trouble in future.which script language is consistent with after effects,maya,nuke..if i learn which script language i will have experience on maya,nuke,after effects or another programs..i want to write script on animation by maya..
thank you..

May 19

3D Anaglyph

Posted in: Beginners Talk

Hi All,

I’m interested in knowing how to make an anaglyph clip. I know you need two cameras to film with, but is there anyway to talk footage filmed from one camera and make it look like a real anaglyph shot? What program would be used to create such effect?

Thanks,:)
Zevie

May 18

Is the Adobe Production Premium suite a bad investment for beginning VFX peeps?

Posted in: Beginners Talk

I plan to buy Photoshop and Flash… but I’m wondering if I might as well throw in a few extra in order to get After Effects and few others in this suite:

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/

My questions are:
1. Is this a waste of money for a starting VFX peep like me?
2. Anyone know what would be a better a deal and where i can get it?

Heat Haze Effect

Amateur cinematographer needs advise on VFX film

Hello Community!

Good concepts for us beginners

Trying to model a Comanche helicopter

PXC -> FXPHD ?

Having problems with my 1st experiment. Need help

confusing on script language

3D Anaglyph

Is the Adobe Production Premium suite a bad investment for beginning VFX peeps?

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