Keying

Have you ever looked at a Nuke script of an artist who really knows how to key. Have you ever looked at the script and said "Where's the matte". An artist who comes to mind is Brian Begun. He is an amazing compositor and really knows about keying.

I think most keying is taught by the wrong method. I believe most artists think that Primatte is a way of keying. Granted Primatte does have it's own math which makes it different to say Keylight, and vis versa. Primate is a companies take on a certain kind of keying. In this case color difference keying. What's lost in the this is people think that's how you key. When I mean key I mean a way to place A or B. When a greenscreen comes across your desk your thinking IBK, or Keylight. Maybe some tricks thrown in for edge work. But when presented with a shot that has no screen. That's we're the real matte creation begins.

One of thing things Mr. Begun taught me is; place A over B with a merge and play with the settings. You might get something. Only pay attention to the edges. The core matte can be made in anyway you can.

Making a key isn't a node or effect. It's math. Sorry.

RotoPaint7

There has been lots of back in forth at my work about Nuke 7. I am also seeing that people are searching for problems with the Nuke 7 rotoPaint.

Our setup now is Nuke6.3v9[which has its own set of horrible problems]. Nuke6.3v9 is our main install that is also on the render farm. We also have Nuke7v2 on our boxes for use of the tracker and other nodes that are hand over fist better.

Here's the problem. As good as Nuke 7 is if you live in RotoPaint then you need it to work. As broken as it is in Nuke6.3v9, at least we know the gotchas, and how to get around them. You can't worry that you are going to crash and lose everything. Yes, that has happened to all of us. The Foundry says it was a crupted script. They would be right but this never happened before so often. We are also getting roto after a crash that is placed at 0,0 in the viewer. Also not awesome.

I love the new tracker in Nuke 7. I love the modeler. I love the RAM playback. None of this means anything if I can't consistently roto and also paint. Consistently I mean, I don't want to have to worry about losing a huge amount of work because of problems in the latest build.

As visual effects artists we need our basic tools and if those tools are broken it doesn't matter how cool and easy to use the modeler is. I might not have to use the modeler but I most definitely have to make a matte and create a clean plate.

90% doesn't count in visual effects. Only 100% will do.

I have always got a sense from The Foundry that being the best and having the best tools is there number one goal. Furnace has always been awesome. They have always listened. I hope they are now.

Not seeing it

What a huge week. I cannot express how important it is to find a group of really smart people To work with. People who love what they do.

When you can't see it, one of them will. This also works for when you just need to talk it out. One of the best way to working out a problem is telling someone how your going to do it. They might have advice, they might have a question that indirectly solves a problem, or just gets the mind moving in the right direction.

This also works in reverse. Be prepared to help others. If you have done this before speak up. Lend a hand. If tou have free hands and can lighten the load, do so.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Going well

My mind has been going about 1000 mph. I have this thought that I can get a final on a v001. This never happens.

In visual effects there isn't a 85%. There isn't even a 99%. It's one hundred percent for final. Which brings me to my present state of mind. There is a joke about the last 10% is the hardest. How that is so true is beyond me but it is. There isn't a set of features they would like to see. It's all or nothing. You can't do a half face replacement. It's all or nothing.

Game on!

Have a good week everyone.

Big Year

I have been thinking about all the great work vfx artists have been turning out the year. When I say "artists" I mean just that. I'm not talking about the companies or supervisors. I'm talking about the artist now. It's fine that supers might have the last word but it's the artist that have to make that happen. It's all well and good that the sky needs to be purple but if us artist can't make it work it's for nothing.

This coming year lets show we are the movies. Lets step up and defend each others great work. Let us vote for each others work. Lets make them stand up and notice that Hollywood can't make any movie without us. Comedies need great looking car comps. Huge tent pole movies need Zombies. Non of this is shot practically. It's us match moving, adjusting color and timing. It's us that remove camera rigs and camera cars. It's us that help develop characters and animate them.

Visual effects as a whole needs to vote together. Studios are taking advantage of us being split on what to do. Some want a union. Some just want better pay. Some just want to see there families. We all want to do amazing work. Let's do that.

Roto and paint is just as important to the movies as huge stars that are on the screen.

Teach the juniors that are asking questions. Share. Do your work like your hair is on fire. I'm here because a group of artists showed me ropes and how this is done.

I love my job.

Happy New Year.

A hat tip to all of you who work weekends and stay late to make great stories come to life.

Upgrade

We upgraded our workstations the best we could.Yeah, sure Tim Cook promised that we would love what they have for us in 2013. We can't wait for that, or take a chance that it might not be what we are looking for. What are we looking for. I'd like that Linux box we have for Mari to run OS X.

Each compositor has 48 gigs of RAM. We also upgraded to a Quadro 4000. The GPU support in Nuke is a great addition. The more RAM you have the more you can cache. It's nice having a huge amount if RAM. If nice to have GPU acceleration. It's a great experience.

The Foundry also needs to step up. When this so called "Love" that apple has for us comes out its going to run Mountain lion. Last time I checked Nuke doesn't supported Mountain Lion.

Sure we can move to Linux. If we were going to do this instead we would have done it already.

Depth of field →

Marc Levoy:

When you move the sensor in a digital camera relative to the lens, the plane in object space that is sharply focused moves as well. How far can you move the sensor before a sharply focused feature goes out of focus? To answer this question, we must first define what we mean by "out of focus". The standard definition is that the width of the blurred image of the feature has become larger on the sensor than some maximum allowable circle of confusion. This size of this circle is arbitrary, but a reasonable choice is to make it equal in diameter to the width of a pixel. The thick black vertical bar at the right side of the applet above represents one circle of confusion.

Vfx Is Work

Matthew Johnson via Twitter:

@VFXSoldier @mikeseymour @scottsquires @DrScottRoss @VFXG @VFX_RANT #vfx Switch from games to film, but things seem so shaky. Advice?

Mike Seymour via Twitter:

@mtthwjhnsn76 @VFXSoldier @scottsquires @DrScottRoss @VFXRANT Do what you love, work with people smarter than U, prepare for it to be hard

This is correct. If it's worth doing its going to be hard.

Interview with Freiderich Munch

Freiderich Munch:

I think the geometry system needs a bit of an overhaul; it's starting to show its age, would love to see a ForEach node like in Houdini, and am pretty convinced the Luxology merger will bring a new renderer which will be a wonderful addition. I'd also like the price to come down a bit. I work at a lot of smaller studios and Nuke can be a bit out of reach for them and then I’m [sadly] back in AE land. I always thought adding some focus into motion-graphics would be smart, possibly allowing them to sell more licenses and hopeful a way to bring the price down.

Love the new Geometry Tools plugins. Everyone always says "So what, why would you do that in Nuke". Answer: I'm a Nuke artist, not a Maya artist.

Thanks Freiderich for the tools.

Demo

I went to a Mari/Modo demo tonight.

It was good to get out and see the others in our world.

While waiting for the demo to start. I looked around. On my left were 3 guys talking. It seemed they haven't seen each other in a long time. One guy was talking about VIFX and Titanic. The other two guys laughed and commented on how long it has been. To my right was Jeremy an up and coming Mari artist, looking for work.

It was a good day to be a visual effects artist.