Composting In Nuke (Week 1-8)

The most overlooked skill to hone as a CG and FX artist is compositing. With it, you can take a plain-looking raw FX pass and make it shine! That’s where the power of Nuke comes into play…

Nuke is the industry-standard compositing program and is (in our opinion) the best tool on the market.

In this course, we’ll show you how to use Nuke from the ground up. You don’t need any experience prior to this class as we will cover the basics starting in week 1. Week by week we will build our knowledge of Nuke as the shots increase in complexity and variety.

In the final weeks, we will be compositing several fully CG shots! This is your opportunity to composite ground-breaking FX.

Instructor
NICK CHAMBERLAIN, A COMPOSITING LEGEND.
Nick is currently a Compositing Supervisor at Barnstorm VFX, working primarily on television shows (with the occasional feature film). Over the last 5 and a half years, Nick has received many award nominations for his work including 2 Primetime Emmy nominations and 3 VES nominations.

Working in television has taught him not only how to realistically composite shots, but also how to composite efficiently and quickly to match the break-neck speed of television schedules.

Nick is also a Houdini FX user and highly involved in most dynamics-heavy sequences for Barnstorm VFX – typically as a Compositing Supervisor, but also occasionally as an FX artist. He enjoys teaching his fellow artists and is always absorbing as many new techniques and workflows as he can to improve his craft.

TIME COMMITMENT
This course will require 5-10 hours a week with 40-80 total hours of active learning and practice by the end of the course.

Your exact time commitment per week will vary based on the topic, assignment, and personal learning style. We strongly recommend dedicating time each week to learn and practice. If you ever fall behind, don’t worry, you will have lifetime access to the lessons.

PREREQUISITES
Students should have a basic understanding of CG concepts before taking this course. However, if you are looking to learn Nuke as a beginner, this is the course for you.

If you are unsure if you are best suited to take this course, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Week 01 | BASIC NUKE OVERVIEW

• Class overview
• Introduction to compositing fundamentals and theory.
• The Nuke interface and completing our first shot using multiple takes and paint outs.
• An in depth look at the theory of tracking, color correction and grain.

Week 02 | CORNER PIN TRACKING, FORMATS AND BURNINS

• Learning how to track using corner pins and how to efficiently handle multiple formats as we composite a green screen monitor replacement.
• An in depth look at the theory of keying and edge contamination.
• How premultiplication works and why it is important to understand.

Week 03 | CHARACTER GREENSCREEN & GIZMOS CREATION

• Completely replacing the background behind our actor and using new techniques to maintain hair detail.
• We’ll make our own custom defocus and install the Rebelway Gizmo pack for Nuke.
• An in depth look at the theory of camera focus and lensing effects.

Week 04 | COLORSPACE AND CG COMPOSITING USING GATE & ROBOT SHOT

• Why understanding color space is important and learning how the knowledge can be practically applied.
• Introduction to CG compositing using multi-layered EXRs on top of practical footage.
• An in depth look at the theory of lighting and perspective when compositing.

Week 05 | GATE AND ROBOT SHOT

• How to efficiently composite our first fully CG shot.
• Creating a master setup that can be procedurally applied to similar shots in a sequence.
• Adding lensing effects to make our shot feel as realistic as possible.

Week 06 | GATE SCI-FI

• Applying and adjusting our master setup from week 05 for a fast first version of our fully cg shot.
• Introduction to basic 3D projection in Nuke for easily layering additional elements into our shots.
• Using the curve tool to automate animation that would otherwise have to be done by hand.
• Creating faux reflections on our ground in Nuke.

Week 07 | SPACESHIP CRASH PART1

• Layering together multiple interactive FX passes for our first version of the comp.
• Using 3D projection to add further damage to our spaceship.
• Using position passes and cryptomatte to eliminate the need to create tracked mattes.

Week 08 | SPACESHIP CRASH PART2

• Using a variety of new Nuke techniques to further modify and blend FX passes and hide problem areas.
• Using real dust and smoke elements in combination with our CG to add further realism into our scene.
• Applying the final details to bring our composite to final.

Credit

• INSTRUCTOR: Nick Chamberlain
• FX & 3D ARTISTS:
• Nick Chamberlain
• Saber Jlassi
• Gavin Thin
• Urban Bradesko

Important Note. One of our community members shared this course but wants us to help to cover his expenses. Therefore this course will be available for premium users only.

Advanced Compositing for VFX is on the way