Hasta La Motion!

My name is Stefan Lipsius. I have just recently graduated from a game development program, but I focused on animation while I was there. Compositing was being taught in the animation program at my school, and it was something that interest me. So, I’m taking on the task of teaching myself via online tutorials / learning books.

Here is my problem. I have NO IDEA where to begin. What I should learn first. What are the foundations of compositing. The basics, really. Motion tracking, rotoscoping, compositing, etc. *Shrug*

Anyone have any tips for a newbie?

I am using After Effects CS4, and have already found the creativecow.net tutorials.

Thanks.

Stefan

I am french and I am nineteen years old. I am currently studying in a cinema school, I am fond of visual effects and I dream to be a vfx compositor later. For the moment I try to work a lot to improve my skills in After Effects, and more recently in Nuke, by working of different personal projects.
I’d like perhaps to find an internship by the end of the year and I know that I would probably have to build some kind of demo reel to show my skills. That’s why I’d like to have some advices on how I should make it, what should I put in it and where should I submit it. I’d like also to have a rough idea about what is the minimum "required knowledge" to aspire to an internship in a small studio.
Do you think that I am still too young? What should I do to gain more experience? And what are the critical points in compositing that I need to master as a beginner?

Thanks for your answers, I hope my english is understandable :rolleyes:

I always loved looking at specials effects for movies and how they did it. So about a year ago I decided to learn it on my own.

I started out by playing around with Maya, I bought some books and I kind of got the basic knowledge of how it works, and what tools do. I enjoyed it for a while, but after getting to know that modeling is just one of the steps in specials effects, I decided I’d learn a compositing software.

The first thing that popped in my mind was After Effects. Why not right? I’m familiar with Photoshop and Illustrator. So i bought a book, and I started learning from there, I also did some tutorials online where I gained some new knowledge.

But after getting to know a little bit more of compositing, I’ve learned that most movies are done in node-base softwares, like Fusion, Nuke, Shake (By the way, is it still in use for movies after Apple "killed it"?)

So here’s my first question:

What makes a node-base software better than a layer-base software?
Let’s say:
Fusion X After Effects

So my journey continues, I’ve downloaded the Fusion Learning Edition one day ago, I still didn’t get a lot of time to play around it, but somehow knowing a little bit of Maya helps me understand it better 🙂

Since I don’t want my "hyperness" to go away, I decided to get some books and devote myself to learn it.

But that’s the problem!!!

I CAN"T FIND A SINGLE BOOK ABOUT IT!?!!

How come such a well respected compositing software, used in a bunch of different movies don’t have a single book about it?

Is it some kind of a secret society where you go to your local library and you say a password, and the person taking care of you brings you back a book and tells you to don’t say anything? haha i know I’m being silly here, and I also know that the book:

The Art and Science of Digital Compositing,

is based on Fusion 2.5?! (at least that’s what I read)

But isn’t there a book where I could get all the knowledge a beginner should get?

If you guys know courses, school classes, tutorial sites that teach you how to get around Fusion I would appreciate it A LOT!

For the experts out there, just a curious question. How did you guys learn your compositing software?

Right now I have this goal in my head, and I want to keep fighting for it, all help is VERY welcomed!

Thank you guys!

I’m really glad I found this website!

-Sneaky Money