focusing on a holistic approach to color and depth effects

These video lessons will introduce a compositing workflow that emphasizes efficiency.

We’ll look at a variety of color correction methods, depth and height-based haze, and faked

camera effects such as depth of field and motion blur. Throughout, we’ll develop a

visual style for our comp that will be easy to replicate and re-use for later shots.

1. Introduction and project overview
2. Setting up the initial card and organizing our scene
3. Creating a color correction and transformation pipeline early
4. Matching the transformation from one card to the next
5. Continuing card transformations
6. Fixing rotation issues with a few of our tiles
7. Creating an axis controller for our entire sky
8. Blending edges using the ScanlineRender Z-blend properties
9. Rotating our sky to match the Sun placement
10. Color correcting our entire sky to match the scene
11. Fixing small issues in NUKE with the RotoPaint node
12. Fixing small issues in Photoshop with Content-Aware Healing
13. Filling a hole in the sky with a separate sky section
14. Lightwrapping and merging our sky render with our foreground

“splat maps” to project 2D images onto geometry. Using .fbx exports

from Maya to sync up the camera move in Nuke for the integration of pre-rendered

elements. Dissection and extension of the original image to provide the full

texture map for the scene.

Class 2: Thorough breakdown of creation of all the elements needed for the shot

overviewed in class 1. Camera Projection and Scanline Render set up for each

texture. Tips for texture editing for extending the initial image into a complete

texture map.

Class 3: Personalization of Nuke by creating custom user menus and tweaking

the interface by using Python within the Nuke system files. Also, how to create,

export and then load in your own gizmos as menu items.

Class 4: General Nuke work flow overview in use with a background replacement.

Discussing bi-cubics on cards for added depth of elements in the scene and correcting

lens distortion. Creating the shot’s elements with keying and roto, including using

non-keyer nodes to produce different mattes.

Class 5: Continuing the comp from class 4. Reorganizing the background elements

for aesthetic purposes. Further detail into the use of bi-cubics and the DisplaceGeo

node for correction and enhancement. Final tweaks to polish up the composite.

Class 6: Dealing with lesser talked about issues, such as color space in compositing

applications. How color is interpreted depending on the way the footage is presented
(linear, logarithmic , floating point.) Creating your own default Nuke start up template.

Class 7: Working with 3D cameras and how to get the most out of importing 3d tracking

data. Creating a TCL button within the menu to import Boujou tracks. Buffer trick to

overlay your background onto your 3D point cloud. Using the Reconcile3D node to

eliminate the need for tracking nodes.

Class 8: Using separate 3D passes embedded into an .exr, like z-depth and motion

vector, for use in compositing. Applying depth of field and motion blur in Nuke.

Explanation of render layers in Maya.

Class 9: The Robot Pt1 Using the Wndy House footage and the 3d Robot Character

v02 together to show how create a complex live action and CGI integrated scene, as

well as some tips on grading overexposed film plates and transferring .fbx data from

Maya to Nuke.

Class 10: The Robot Pt2 A continuation and completion of the scene focusing

on the use of multipass and 3D motion blur. Finally a quick discussion on a depth of

field plug-in for Nuke.

led by professionals. We offer both application and

craft-based courses, online forums for feedback, and vpn software.

Curriculum includes courses in applications such as Nuke, Flame,

Maya, Houdini, After Effects, Final Cut, Color, and more. As owners

of RED #22, we have been involved with the ground breaking camera

since the very first shipments — and built a solid foundation of

on-set and post courses dealing with shooting RED.

This advanced Nuke course is designed as the followup to our NUK204 intermediate level course.

Professor Sean Deveraux will work through several short projects during the term

which are designed to focus on real world tasks and key strengths of Nuke