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Alrighty, back with another one of those block rockin’ beats to quote those Englishmen, the Chemical Brothers.

Last time we looked at offset tracking in Shake, a relatively straightforward and easy affair . . . not so in After Effects as it turns out. Hopefully this will help you out. Thanks to my co-worker Dan Bryant for showing me this method which I then finally found somewhere else on the net with Carl Larsen’s video over at Creative Cow. If you are an After Effects user and aren’t checking Creative cow, then shame on you!

Of course, I had to take a day off work to wait for a Telstra technician to come to my house to check my line. Sure he was 3hrs late and four phone calls to Telstra resulted in them getting my contact details wrong four times and having them lie to me and say the technician knocked on my door and I didn’t answer . . . in a one bedroom apartment with me sitting about a metre away from the door.

Then after I finally get a phone line and internet connection I buy a Linksys router which proceeds to utterly not work and do a great impersonation of a lump of inert plastic. I had read varying reviews but decided to take the plunge after having a few connection issues with our last modem, a DLink G604T. Well, let’s just say the rumours of Linsys’s decline in quality are apparently true. The thing wouldn’t even connect to the phone line and just spun it’s wheels before failing. The funny thing is I took it back and exchanged it for, yes, a DLINK G604T (hey, better the devil you know), which proceeded to just have a completely pain free, straightforward and quick setup. So there you go.

SOooooo, while I had planned on a video tutorial today, it turned out an old mate and his family were in town so it was down to the beach for a late big breakfast and then onto the Musuem to check out the “Day in Pompeii” exhibit in which my mate Jay Miller was Environment and FX lead for the CG recreation.

Stay tuned for Wednesday when I will organise an “offset tracking in After Effects” tutorial as it is something that I though was uncessarily complicated compared to Shake, but made sense the more I have used After Effects.

Til then, stay cool!

Life is funny.  Things are going one way and then ZING!  Off you go in another direction.  That onomatopoeia was meant to represent me changing direction slightly.  

On Sunday my car had major problems leading me to crash at my sisters house for a few days (hence the lack of an update) and it looked bad . . . very bad.  As soon as you have engine problems on a car with 235,000 km’s you start to think in mid 4 figure amounts.  I had had an interview the previous Friday and I was stressing a little about a possible move with a massive car expense and not much sleep was coming my way.

I iz a happy cat!

As it turns out, it was a relatively minor problem with the car (considering what I thought could go wrong), I was offered the job at a decent wage doing cool stuff in a great new city and I will be teaming up with one of my very good friends from Animalia again!

Soooo to cut a medium length story slightly longer: I will be starting with compositing and VFX on children’s animated television show with Ettamogah Entertainment down in Melbourne in mid-June.  I am really looking forward to it as I will get a chance to get my hands on some new-ish (for me) software for some production experience.  While I have used Maya and After Effects for personal projects, I am chuffed to get down and dirty with them with the possibility of some suh-weet houdini action as well.  All this is good for you, dear readers, as there will be a broader range of tips coming your way!

And, in a great twist, I will be working with my good mate Rodrigo Guimaraes again!  Rodrigo and I started on the same day together back on Animalia and we (and the other compers) had a blast hanging out together on the project, so it is with a glad heart that I will see my Brazilian mate again.

Throw into the mix a move to Melbourne, a very funky city and things are looking very exciting indeed.

I mentioned in my last post that a lot of compositors come from non-3D backgrounds.  Being a 2D medium, compositors often come from working with Photoshop or editing software such as Avid and Final Cut Pro.  As such, a lot of compositors might not have a full appreciation of the 3D pipeline.

As I suggested, my opinion is that whatever your job in the pipeline, it is a good idea to have at least cursory knowledge of the skills that bookend your position.  That way you will be able to communicated effectively with your workmates and be more efficient.

Sometimes, depending on the production, you may find yourself needing particular minor things done and you need them done quickly, not when someone finally has a chance to get to them.  The following are reasonably basic skills that can really help out a compositor:

Import match-moved camera data.

At some point, if 3D is being integrated into live action, a Match Move artist (using something like PFTrack or Boujou) will have produced a final locked-off match move solve and camera setup that is being used by the 3D guys.  Knowing how to, at the very least, set projects and open files in Maya is something that everyone in VFX should know.

Even if you are not going to do an entire 3D project, things like cards with textures (eg buildings, animations of people etc) can be easily inserted and rendered out.  Of course, with applications like Nuke and After Effects you have the ability to import 3D scenes and objects, but it is always handy to know how to do it in Maya.  Plus, you have a lot more control in a dedicated 3D application if you have to do something more advanced.

Skydome

Once you have that camera data imported, make sure that you know how to choose and look through the approved camera for that shot.  Making a basic skydome is pretty basic stuff.  On ‘Animalia’ (a children’s animated TV show), we made a *tonne* of skydomes ourself if backgrounds weren’t made or if it was decided during dailies that a new sky would be needed.  The lighters and renderers had their plates completely full, so bothering them to do something so basic would be a waste or their time.

 I was lucky enough to sit next to a guy who had studied Maya (John Kitching) and he showed my how to make skydomes.  As a 3ds Max user, Maya was a bit of a dark art, but even I could follow his instructions.  I mean, really, half a NURBS sphere with a panorama texture placed on it.  I think a smart compositor can figure that out!  Thankfully I have been putting a lot more hours into Maya over the last 2-3 months, so it is becoming a lot more straightforward.

Particles

Ahhh particles, how I love thee  I love ‘em and they are what I really loved to work with in 3ds Max.  I have only just started transferring my skills over to Maya, and to be honest it is a bit of a struggle.  PFlow in Max is an excellent node/flow graph way to get very good results very quickly and intuitively.  Maya seems to involve a lot more coding, but also appears more robust when dealing with large numbers of particles . . . something which Max would choke on (at least until the arrival of Krakatoa).

Having said that, the first thing I will be learning in Maya particles is how to create my own smoke, fog and steam.  Why?  Because you use them all the time in compositing and while you are usually given filmed elements, sometimes you want the smoke to go just there or you want the steam to have a particular look.  Sure you might be able to achieve that with retiming, warping and tracking, but if you know how to make your own, then you’d be crazy not to.  It seems to me that for these types of elements, sprite particles will do the job.  No need for fluid simulations, just a bunch of particles mapped with smoke textures that face the camera!  Voila!  Instant custom made element.

Wellity, wellity, wellity!  Now that’s the question, isn’t it?  Or to put it another way, it’s not really the question but it is a fairly common (and understanable) one.  Let’s make this clear:  I am definitely filing this post under the ‘Opinion’ tag

There are a lot of different opinions on this and of course you could easily say “It’s the artist, not the software”, which is about as helpful as being kicked in the family jewels.  The thing is, even if you aren’t a raw beginner, learning software takes time and effort and it makes sense to focus your time and effort on something that is going to give you the best bang for buck.

Take 3D apps for example.  XSI, Houdini and Blender are fantastic apps, although XSI took a hit recently IMO by dropping their cheap Foundation software.  However, the cold hard steely fact is that Maya is king.  Whether it is ‘best’ or you like using it or not, the fact is that it is used in more production facilities than other software.  Sure 3ds max has a solid foot in the door in gaming and dominates architectural visualisation and Houdini kills with VFX, the fact remains that if you are going to spend 3 years studying something, you want to study something that is most likely going to help you get a job.

So, back to compositing apps, which one?  Before I give a brief breakdown on each of the major applications, let’s differentiate between node-based and layer-based compositing.  You may have heard the terms before, with an aura of mystique and high-end awesomeness surrounding the fabled “node-based compositing”.  

So what is it?  Well, node based compositing is essentially like a flowchart.  You have a node for an image, if you want to blur it, you attach a blur node underneath it.  At the end, your composite looks like a ‘tree’ with several starting branches all converging in the final output node or nodes.

Layer-based applications deal with the comp like Photoshop.  You have an image or images and effects or operations stack up in layers on top of them.  To merge them you can do pre-comps (render out branches) or create groups and then merge them.

So why one over the other?  Well, in my (and many others opinions), the advantage of node-based compositing lies in the clarity of your compositions.  Very complicated comps can be followed very easily, because you just follow the flow chart.  Given it is a flow chart, at any part in a branch, you can branch off again, do some adjustments and then just come back into the main flow.  This allows you to experiment very quickly and efficiently.  This kind of thing can be done in layer-based compositing apps, but it can get very unwieldy for complicated shots, or shots involving a lot of elements.  

The flip-side of this, however, is that layer-based compositing apps tend much stronger in their animation/timeline capabilities.  Doing motion graphics in Shake is not my idea of a good time.  In fact I would rather stick a pencil in my ear, and a blunt one at that!

So, with that it mind, what app you want to use may come down to what industry you want to work in.  If you are really into design and motion graphics, you would be nuts not to focus on After Effects and maybe know a bit of Shake/Nuke/Fusion.  If you are wanting to go into feature film, it’s node-based all the way baby!  It is worth noting that both Nuke and Fusion both have full-featured free Personal Learning Editions, with Nuke now having the upper hand in free training materials to get you started.  Also, the last time I checked, you can use the student editions of the Adobe suite applications to do commercial work, which is a massive bonus as the discount is for students is pretty decent.  Of course, double check the Adobe website to see if that is still the case.

Shake: (Node Based)  Undisputed king.  As far as I know, still the most used compositing application in high-end facilities.  The price drop to $500 a few years ago put a lot more seats out there and as a freelancer, it is a great deal to pick up a copy on Mac (Unix pricing is still $$$$).  Shake is a great place to get started as it really is very straightforward.  What you see is what you get.  But, and this is a huge but, Shake is dead.  Stone cold dead.  Dead as a Dodo.  It is no longer be developed, no longer being supported and as per Apple’s usual mode of business, there is zero information on anything to replace it.

Nuke: (Node Based) The “new” kid on the block.  Nuke was developed as the inhouse compositing tool for Digital Domain for many years (although sold commercially) up until about version 4.8 or so.  The Foundry bought out Nuke and started pouring some time and actual development dollars into it.  Version 5.0 was a major upgrade, especially in terms of interface and it was clear that Nuke was looking to pick up Shake users, and it looks like they are being successful.  Given that it was developed in direct response to what their artists needed, the tools are very flexible and powerful and immediately make sense.  So much of the stuff I am learning in Nuke has me saying “Bloody hell, I wish Shake could have done that”.  Impressive.

Fusion: (Node Based).  Fusion has been around for a while and version 5.0 was a significant update.  I have only had a bit of experience with Fusion but it seems to have a solid pipeline and in-software 3D particles and 3D comping.  Seems to be popular with a growing number of smaller studios, however it is definitely capable of doing the big shots.

After Effects: (Layer Based).  The king of affordable desktop compositing apps and the reigning champ for plug-ins.  AE has definitely moved on in the last couple of years and is a very capable piece of software.  You can operate in 3D and with the plugins, you can get some excellent results.  Used mainly for motion graphics/broadcast design stuff, but is fully capable of doing high-end TV and feature film work.  Excels at time/animation dependent comps but intense film compositing can get complicated when dealing with many layers which need pre-comping etc.

Combustion: (Layer Based) See description of After Effects, but divide everything by 2  I love Combustion and started out on it, but it is no secret that it hasn’t really progressed over the last 4-5 years.  Also, don’t believe anyone who says that a benefit of Combustion is that once you learn it you will be able to jump on a Flame/Inferno suite.  Apart from the fact that some of the user interface looks kind of the same, they have nothing in common.

So, the winners are . . . BUP BADDA BAAAAAAHHHH (from Zoolander ) Nuke and After Effects.  Chances are that as a student you are probably going to be exposed to After Effects in your courses and that is not a bad thing, but I would also suggest getting the Nuke PLE and all the free tut’s just to see how it works.

Remember, it’s all about the principles.  If you understand the principles of compositing, then you can quickly apply them across different apps.  We are lucky in that compositing concepts transfer relatively painlessly across apps, as opposed to 3D where you often face very different ways of doing the most basic things.

‘Til next time.

Matt