This practical, hands-on guide addresses the problems and difficult choices that professional compositors face on a daily basis. You are presented with tips, techniques, and solutions for dealing with badly shot elements, color artifacts, mismatched lighting and other commonly-faced compositing obstacles. Practical, in-depth lessons are featured for bluescreen matte extraction, despill operations, compositing operations, as well as color-correction. The book is presented entirely in an application-agnostic manner, allowing you to apply lessons learned to your compositing regardless of the software application you are using. The DVD contains before and after examples as well as exercise files for you to refine your own techniques on. New to the 3rd edition is an entirely new chapter entitled 'CGI Compositing Techniques', covering how the modern CGI production pipeline is now pushing many tasks that used to be done in the 3D department into the compositing department. All technological changes that have occurred between now and the publication of the 2nd edition are covered, as well as new media on the DVD and corresponding lessons within the book.

The digital compositing process is being applied in many diverse fields from Hollywood to corporate projects. Featuring over 30 pages of color, this tutorial/reference.provides a complete overview of the technical and artistic skills necessary to undertake a digital composition project. The CD-ROM contains composition examples, illustrations, and development software.

Exclusive to this edition is an entirely new chapter devoted to CGI compositing with major sections on multi-pass and 3D compositing, a new section on stereo compositing, 7 new 3D compositing QuickTime movies on the DVD, and more. --

Put the essential concepts and techniques of digital compositing to work for you without the need of a single mathematical equation. Compositing Visual Effects is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of film shots, figures, illustrations, and diagrams to help the visual reader gain a valuable vocabulary and understanding of the full range of visual effects, in which digital compositing plays a key role. Beginning with an inspirational tour of the scope and magnitude of digital compositing, you get a solid overview of the kinds of digital effects routinely executed today. See how CGI is composited with live action, how set extensions are done, and what a match-move shot is. Following that you learn each of the key applications of digital compositing, which include bluescreen compositing, bullet-time shots, motion tracking, and rotoscoping. The subsequent chapters dig down into each of the major digital compositing applications, introducing the fundamental concepts, and processes behind them. Learn what is easy and hard, possible and impossible, and what to expect when working on a job that entails digital compositing. New to this edition are 4 new chapters on: * 3D compositing, with lessons on what camera tracking is, how it is used to put CGI into a live-action plate, as well as live action into a 3D scene. * Stereo compositing, with descriptions of key stereoscopic terms and concepts, lessons on compositing shots that were filmed in stereo (both bluescreen and CGI), as well as the stereo conversion process when a flat 2D movie is converted to a stereo 3D movie * RED and Digital Capture with Log Images, including log image formats. This is a very hot topic these days. Colleges hang around video because it is cheaper. Film is still big in the real world of production. * Tracking an entire project from start to finish This is in addition to robust updates on topics such as: * planar tracking, Z compositing, working with Anamorphic HD formats, mocap, and more This edition also includes a companion website with images from the book for you to work with in your own compositing exercises. An accessible introduction to a complex subject for novice and aspiring compositors, from experienced author and compositing whose compositing credits include Night at the Museum 2, Shutter Island, Solaris, Traffic, and more Full color presentation illustrating the art and techniques of the practice, provides inspiration along with instruction New to this edition is a companion website, new chapters on 3D compositing, stereo compositing, RED and digital capture with log images, and more will have you understanding the latest in compositing technology in no time

Annotation Everything you need to know to become a professional VFX whizz in one thorough and comprehensive guide.

Learn professional secrets of digital compositing with this detailed guide After filming is done, digital compositors move in to manipulate color, retouch, and perform other behind-the-scenes tricks that are necessary to improve or finalize movies, games, and commercials. Now you can learn their secrets with this one-of-a-kind guide to digital compositing. Professional animator and author Lee Lanier not only draws upon his own experience, he has also combed some of Hollywood's most active post-production houses in search of the best solutions. Learn valuable techniques, tricks, and more. Covers techniques for digital compositing including transformations, plate preparation, rotoscoping, advanced render passes, particle integration, 2.5D painting, HDRI, stereoscopy and more Shows you digital compositing techniques that can be applied to a variety of software tools, including After Effects and Nuke Includes a DVD with scenes, sample bitmaps, image sequences, and more Start your animation career right with the solid instruction in postproduction you'll find in this practical guide. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Whether you're a novice compositor or a well-versed one moving over from After Effects or Shake, this is THE book for you to learn the ins and outs of the powerful compositing software, Nuke. In addition to covering all of the menus, buttons, and other software-specific topics, it also offers critical lessons in compositing theory, including working in 2.5D and stereoscopic 3D. Through a tutorial-based approach, augmented by video footage and image files provided on the downloadable resources, this book will have you up and running in Nuke in just hours. The book features over 300 4-color images, industry insider sidebars, as well as an entire chapter dedicated to real-world Nuke case studies. The downloadable resources files are available at http://www.focalpress.com/books/details/9780240820354/.

Master the art and technique of blue and greenscreen compositing with this comprehensive how-to course in creating effective and realistic composited scenes in video formats. You get clear, understandable explanations of the different types of keying techniques and how they work, including real-world examples and tutorials. Topics include setting up a greenscreen studio, how to light the screen effectively, how to light the talent or foreground material, and matching lighting to the composited background plate. Complete tutorials of each of the major software keyers walk you through the process for creating a clean and accurate composite.

Digital Filmmaking has been called the bible for professional filmmakers in the digital age. It details all of the procedural, creative, and technical aspects of pre-production, production, and post-production within a digital filmmaking environment. It examines the new digital methods and techniques that are redefining the filmmaking process, and how the evolution into digital filmmaking can be used to achieve greater creative flexibility as well as cost and time savings. The second edition includes updates and new information, including four new chapters that examine key topics like digital television and high definition television,making films using digital video, 24 P and universal mastering, and digital film projection. Digital Filmmaking provides a clear overview of the traditional filmmaking process, then goes on to illuminate the ways in which new methods can accomplish old tasks. It explains vital concepts, including digitization, compression, digital compositing, nonlinear editing, and on-set digital production and relates traditional film production and editing processes to those of digital techniques. Various filmmakers discuss their use of digital techniques to enhance the creative process in the "Industry Viewpoints" sections in each chapter .

« For many visual effects students who are just starting out or are moving from After Effects, Shake, Fusion, or another compositing tool, they are learning that Nuke is quickly becoming the feature film compositing industry standard.Nuke 101 covers everything they need to know to begin using the compositor for their projects. It includes step-by-step lessons on basic and advanced compositing, color correction, Roto Paint, keying, tracking, as well as more advanced topics such as using CGI and the 3D engine. »--