Compositing Tutorial Bank..

[dynafx]

Tutorial/Information Links:

Camera Mapping:

• 
  Front Projection
  Fixed Front Projection - Faking reality (LW6.5)

Color & Lighting

• 
  Tips on Shooting Blue Screen and Green Screen
  A few comments on "blue channel noise"
  Visual Effects Lighting With Kino Flo
  Environmental Design(lots of nice information about lighting and how objects absorb light)
  What Wavelength Goes With a Color?
  Lighting Controls for Computer Cinematography

Compositing:

• 
  1. DV Garage
  2. OUTPOST - exercise in compositing 3D elements in a phototgraph
  3. Working with Particleillusion 3.0 and After Effects
  4. Compositing Backlighting(for AE, but general enough to use for anything)
  5. Compositing Basics in 3d
  6. Fake Camera Movement in Blue Screen Composites
  7. Compositing info and tutorials from the people who made Duality
  8. What the hell is multi-pass rendering?
  9. Jeremy Birn Tutorials (Lighting In Layers & Multi-Pass Rendering)
  10. Shadow Compositing
  11. Rendering and Compositing CG Reflections
  12. SHADOW COLOR MATCH
  13. Intro To Compositing For Vfx:
  14. Compositing a 3D rendered object into Video
  15. MULTIPASS RENDERING USING MENTAL RAY WITH SOFTIMAGE
  16. Darkness Tutorial
  17. Compositing tutorial by Maarten Gribnau
  18. Working with Particleillusion 3.0 and After Effects
  19. Multi-Pass Rendering & Compositing
  20. Multipass Rendering Surface
  21. How-to: Lightsaber - working with CG props

Compression

• 
  Codec Comparison
  Discreet Codec/Video info page
  OneRiver Media Codec Resource Site

Film

• 
  Film Technical Docs:Introduction to DI, Shooting HD for DI, Linear vs. Log Digital Capture, Thomson Viper HD Camera, Viper vs. 35mm film, Thoughts on Resolution, Digital Intermediate, Digital Film: Scene-to-Screen, Quantel's iQ DI system
  The Ultimate Table of Formats-- Aspect Ratios
  Film Format Scanning & Recording Resolution Tables from Cinesite
  Cinesite Technical Scanning & Recording Documents

Keying(Blue/Green Screen)

• 
  Making A Green Screen With Local Materials
  Why using green works better for DV
  Clean DV Bluescreen/Greenscreen Composites
  You Can Do Bluescreen in DV!
  Blue Screen Production Tips
  Green Screen DV Compositing
  The Blue Screen Page

Matte Painting:

• 
  Matte Painting for Visual Effects/Compositing by Dennis Sedov

Matchmoving:

• 
  WIP

Photography:

• 
  Location Photography
  Shooting for Visual Effects
  Filmlook with Magic Bullet

Rotoscoping:

• 
  WIP

Video:

• 
  Adam Wilt’s DV
  Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users group
  A listing of Video Recording Formats
  Wide Screen DV Notes
  Camcorder Info
  A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and Aspect Ratio Conversions
  HD Resource
  What's an Anamorphic DVD
  Dvd Faq

Other:

• 
  Transitions in Films
  ImageMagick Resize Filters(nice overview of different filtering algorithms)
  Discreet White Papers
  The Quantel Digital Factbook
  Digital Filtering Docs from Alvy Ray

----------------------------------------
Application Specific Tutorials

AE:

• 
  I'm leaving out AE tuts since there is allready a thread on it in the AE forum
  http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6834

Combustion:

• 
  MtoC: Maya to Combustion script
  Jam Retimer
  Tips and Tricks from FXguide for Combustion(around 30 of them)
  Introduction to Combustion
  Creative Cow Combustion Tuts
  Cloning with Discreet combustion
  Discreet Combustion 2 tuts
  Creating Clouds with Combustion
  The 3d transition in combustion2
  Mist Effect Tutorial
  Apply motion-blur to a moving object in your keyed footage
  Combustion Hardware Guide: Build the Best computer!
  Digital Producer tuts for C*
  Pulling a Blue Screen with Combustion’s Keyer
  Speeding Up Display Performance in Combustion 2
  Moving to Combustion 2 from After Effects, 5 part series article:
  Part 1: Working with Illustrator files
  Part 2: Working with Photoshop files
  Part 3: A birds-eye view of the C2 interface, volume one
  Part 4: A birds-eye view of the C2 interface, volume two
  Part 5: A birds-eye view of the C2 interface, volume three

Digital Fusion:

• 
  Tips and Tricks from Fxguide for DF(around 11 of them)
  Technical FAQs on Eyeon's site
  Techniques on Eyeon's site(lots of tutorials, macros, scripts and courseware)
  DFX+/Fusion Tutorial Videos on Newtek's site
  Just for fun(requires flash)
  Basic Poly mask in 30 seconds(requires flash)
  Grid Warp
  VFXTalk DF Tutorials
  Fireworks Extravaganza
  Color Matching
  • CMI Studios Video Tuts:
    Faking smoke trails
    Fusion Color Correct 1&2
    Shiny Text
    Additional text tuts at the bottom of the page at the link above:
    #11 Simulating Microthermal Turbulence in Digital Fusion 4.02
    #12 Fluid simulation with displacements and grid warp in Digital Fusion 4.02
    #13 Displacement of clouds text effect DF 4.0
    #14 Simulating fluid reflections in DF 4.02
  • Digital Producer tuts for DF:
    Simple and Stuttered Strobes in Digital Fusion
    Using DVE for a Motion Graphics Background in Digital Fusion
    Using a Reference Frame for Color Matching in Digital Fusion
    Grid Warp in Digital Fusion 4
    Color Suppression in Digital Fusion 3.1
    Creating a Fireworks Display Using Digital Fusion's Particle System
    The Art of Rotoscoping with Multiple Splines
    Post-Multiplication in Digital Fusion
    Bitmap Particles in Digital Fusion
    Simple Overhead Text in Digital Fusion

FFI:

• 
  Flame Tips and Tricks with Kuban Altan
  CMI Studios Video Tuts: Displacements
  Tips and Tricks from Fxguide for FFI(flame/inferno)
  Flame/Fire

Houdini Halo:

• 
  Sidefx Compositing Lessons
  Oddforce tutorials
  Visual Paradigms Houdini Page (temporarily down)
  CMI Studios Video Tuts: Houdini Halo Image Based Glow Session

Nuke:

• 
  Throb's page
  Nuke Central
  CMI Studios Video Tuts: Channels Inhouse Tutorial, 3d Compositing, Changing Seasons
  Tips and Tricks from FXguide for Nuke(4 of them so far)

Shake:

• 
  Aneks tutorials on Multipass Keying and Multipass Comping(hosted on vfxtalk)
  Building Sapphire Sparks Edge Ray in Shake 2.5.1
  TV Scanline text tutorial for closeup animation
  CMI Studios Video Tuts: Blurry Reflections, Shadow Displacements, Random Highlighting, Alternative GUI, Expression Linking, Simulating 3d in Shake, Smoking Text
  Shake Support Documents(Bugs, Incompatibilities, etc...)
  Compositing Tutorial by John Moores
  Tips and Tricks from Fxguide for Shake
  Shake Benchmarking Site

Additional Compositing Apps:

• 
  Wondertouch.com Tutorials, hints and Tips for Illusion
  Tips and Tricks from Fxguide

[dynafx]

Compositing Books

The Art and Science of Digital Compositing
by Ron Brinkmann
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Digital Compositing In Depth: The Only Guide to Post Production for Visual Effects in Film
by Doug Kelly
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Digital Compositing for Film and Video with CDROM
by Steve Wright
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Apple Pro Training Series: Shake 3
by Marco Paolini
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...7497765-9064829

Inspired 3D Lighting & Compositing
by David A. Parrish
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

The Invisible Art
by Mark Cotta Vaz, Craig Barron
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Combustion v2: The On-Line WebWarriors Guide
by Jack Pfeiffer
http://www.creativecow.net/dairy_st...eb_warrior.html

Combustion Ground Rules
by Todd Peterson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Focal Easy Guide to Discreet combustion 3 : For new users and professionals
by Gary M. Davis
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...4316010-7789739

Reference Books:
American Cinematographer Video Manual
by Frank Beacham
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846

American Cinematographer Video Manual 3RD Edition
by Michael Grotticelli
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846

Photoshop CS for Nonlinear Editors (DV Expert Series)
by Richard Harrington
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846

Film Into Video: A Guide to Merging the Technologies, Second Edition
by Stuart Blake Jones, Richard H. Kallenberger, George D. Cvjetnicanin
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Film Technology in Post Production, Second Edition
by Dominic Case
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

American Cinematographer Manual (8th Edition)
by Rob Hummel
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...2902326-1251166

Color:

The Art of Color
by Johannes Itten
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...2902326-1251166

Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color
by Leatrice Eiseman
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...2902326-1251166

Color Correction for Digital Video: Using Desktop Tools to Perfect Your Image
by Steve Hullfish, Jaime Fowler
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Video Color Correction for Non-Linear Editors: A Step-by-Step Guide
by Stuart Blake-Jones
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books

Typography:

The Elements of Typographic Style
by Robert Bringhurst
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...2902326-1251166

[dynafx]

Listserves:
Digital Fusion: http://www.pigsfly.com/
Shake: http://www.highend2d.com/shake/listserver/

Forums:
http://www.cgtalk.com/
http://www.vfxtalk.com/
http://www.sidefx.com/forum/
http://www.postforum.com
http://www.creativecow.net/
http://www.cgchannel.com/forum/index
http://www.highend2d.com
http://www.shakeforum.com
http://www.mograph.net/board/
http://www.mgla.org/forum.html
http://www.wwug.com/
http://www.uemforums.com/

Combustion Exchange FTP:
by Alex Udell
ftp://combustionexchange.no-ip.com
login: combustion_user
pw: learn

[isotropy]

Hey all,

I've started up a new 2D VFX tutorial site that focuses on After Effects and Fusion. It's called http://vfxhaiku.com/

I'm hoping with these tutorials, that I'll be able to bring some of the esoteric concepts of working in high end visual effects down to earth. Give it a look, and let me know what you think!

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