VFX Color Grading and Re-Lighting in Nuke – NK404

NK404! The fourth part in Alex’s Nuke series on Udemy, this time with a massive 8 hour course about advanced color grading and layering techniques. Take your VFX Compositing to the next level.

Why learn from this course?

It’s easy to learn Nuke nodes, not so much artistic and visual concepts and techniques to build complex composites. This class heavily leans into learning more in depth about the artistic side of color, balance, highlights and shadow, and how to balance them all together. By re-lighting a scene from day to night entirely, you are forced to combine all of these techniques!

Your instructor has worked on feature films such as:

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Avengers: Endgame
X-Men Apocalypse

The Mandalorian

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them

….And many more.

What is this class about?

Light, color, and combining merge operations in Nuke to re-light a scene!

First, what do I need to know entering this course?:

1. A basic understanding of Nuke and Nuke’s interface (Taught Alex’s Udemy class, NK101).

2. Knowledege about the basic nodes in nuke, and beginner level color correction concepts (Taught Alex’s Udemy class, NK101, and Compositing Photo-real Elements in Nuke).

3. Beginner level knowledge on the 3d system in Nuke (Taught Alex’s Udemy class, NK202).

4. Beginner / intermediate knowledge of CG compositing (Taught Alex’s Udemy class, NK303).

What skills will I learn?

Creating a day to night scene

Gradient Re-mapping Techniques in Nuke

Color Balance and Color Scheme

Studying Reference

Physics of Light and Glossiness

Stacking Different Merge Operations

Highlight stacking Techniques

Advanced color grading techniques

2d and 3d techniques for re-lighting

2d and 3d techniques for creating reflections

Creating and using depth maps

Splitting an image using math operations to control different aspects

Glow stacking techniques, and artistic concepts related

Structuring a composite and templating assets

Lining up and model-building a scene

Creating and layering atmosphere elements

What projects do I get to work on in this course?:

This course will walk you through my composite of the shot shown in the preview. I have split the class into “practical sessions” as well as “theory” and follow along sections. This ensures you can actually apply what you are learning when we go over techniques, but also follow along in different areas!