New to VFX and Film

SmoothFranko

SmoothFranko

Hey Guys,

I'm new to the world of Visual Effects and Film, I've spent most of my time up until now believing that IT was my future. And as this may have been true I still have a great love of IT but VFX is starting to steal my attention.

I love the world of film mainly the effect side; I've had a crack at making some machinima style things in the past and i'd love to continue that; as I like most people love video games.

I have no training in film or VFX (all self-studied) and my options where I currently live are limited. So I’m picking things up as I go. The short time I have been working with VFX I have begun to develop a real love for it. And I'm hoping to learn even more with you guys help!
 
_Rok_ said:
Hi there,

What kinds of effects interest you the most?

- Thomas
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I recently watched a VFX breakdown of the 2nd season of Boardwalk Empire and what really blew me away was the environmental composition, the ability to take a relatively simple set and turn it into something incredible really stuck out to me.

Also being a big fan of Sci-Fi (Starwars, Startrek, Firefly, BSG & Stargate to name a few) I love the look and feel of the futuristic effects that those shows utilized to create the environments and scenes they did.
 
CG set extensions are a great way to learn about composition, perspective matching, miniatures, lighting, digital modelling and compositing.
 
_Rok_ said:
CG set extensions are a great way to learn about composition, perspective matching, miniatures, lighting, digital modelling and compositing.
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True, set extentions cover most area's of vfx pretty well, although they're obviously becoming more and more digital.

Good place to start would probably be learning 3D, or if you want to be a 2D artist, learn matte painting & compositing. Gnomon workshop and fxphd have a lot of great tutorials available.
 
Santhem said:
True, set extentions cover most area's of vfx pretty well, although they're obviously becoming more and more digital.

Good place to start would probably be learning 3D, or if you want to be a 2D artist, learn matte painting & compositing. Gnomon workshop and fxphd have a lot of great tutorials available.
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Thanks man! i'll be sure to check out those sites, I haven't really decided wither I want to do 2D or 3D i have some some 3D work before and found it interesting, Although im starting to suspect that I may be required to learn both 3D and 2D especially as unless I get work as part of a team it'll just me me.
 
Ideally you'll know both 3D and 2D ofcourse. However, if you want to do good 3D work you'll have to start with a thorough understanding of 2D work (for textures, maps, etc). But I fully agree, if you're serious about vfx you will have to learn 3D at some point.

2D, 3D or both, Just make sure you learn to create yourself, don't rely on plugin's and libraries.
 
Without too much of a technical and financial commitment, you could take any 2d editor like Photoshop or Gimp and master the rules or perspective. Take a photgraph of a location and extend it. Start by drawing in the horizon. Then, take the building you want to extend and draw in lines to discover it's vanishing point. Study how this relationship works across several different images. Next, try to extend a building or location by using other images. You will quickly see how important matching perspective & lighting are when doing set extensions. Understanding perspective is often overlooked by 3D artists because the software provides much of this for you. But, trust me, if you really understand the rules of linear perspective you'll be miles ahead of the pack. There are numerous book about perspective for comic book artists that cover the basics quite well.
 
Thanks for the Suggestions! I've started reading up on Matte Painting, good material. What I've read so far has really gotten me excited to try some new things in After Effects. I've seen a few good tutorials on youtube and VideoCopilot on doing matte's already, fascinating stuff :). Looking forward to putting it into practice.
 
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