This course will work through "The Future of DRM" greenscreen project over the duration of the term, with the goal of collaborating with other fxphd members to achieve a final piece. The piece involves a cynical look at where the future of DRM might go. Our talent is sitting at a bar or nightclub having a drink and watching music videos. In order to play the songs, they must work their way through an increasingly complex DRM approval process.

This is a greenscreen project, and we will be distributing all of the shots in the piece as 10-bit RED 1K DPX files, so members will have access to the complete cut for the project. It provides a lot of possibilities for artists to stretch their creative wings -- from designing a virtual environment for the talent (is it photoreal or stylized?) to creating an interactive table UI to developing and integrating a HUD.

The course will be lead by John Montgomery, Mark Christiansen, and Danny Princz, each bringing their own creative thoughts to the process. In addition to After Effects, other applications will be used as well...because in the production of visual effects artists rely on multiple applications. It's a misnomer to think all work for a project is done in one appliation. We will also provide feedback in the forums on member work that is part of the course -- as one of the best ways of learning is to get constructive input from other artists.

This course first ran in our April09 Term, but still contains a ton of great tips and techniques. We know many of you weren't part of fxphd back then, so we're running this repeat from the archives.

Tim Clapham from Luxx, returns to explore the use of Adobe After Effects for the production of Motion Graphics. The classes will be mostly project based, with tips and tricks for creating stunning visuals. Clapham will demonstrate methods to facilitate an efficient workflow.

As well as working in After Effects, working with 3D applications will also be discussed, specifically utilizing Cinema4D for mulitpass renders, After Effects integration and avoiding common gotchas. The course will encompass the use of expressions to speed up production and enhance creativity. Clapham be using After Effects CS3 (members can also use CS4), with some content being discussed in Cinema4D r11.

This course, taught by Lloyd Alvarez, will provide an introduction to the main scripting tools available in Adobe After Effects versions CS3 and above.  Scripting automates tedious tasks that can be done by hand in After Effects so a good working knowledge of After Effects is strongly recommended before taking this course.  After Effects can be scripted in ExtendScript (Adobe’s extended implementation of JavaScript.) on both mac and windows as well as Applescript on the mac and Visual Basic on Windows.  This  course will only cover ExtendScript because of its cross-platform nature and larger resource base due to its JavaScript foundation.

Teaching programming can be dreadfully boring so this course will aim to teach by example instead of by theory.  The course will cover basic scripting and programming concepts that will then be applied to several real scripts that will be created over the term.  The scripts that will be developed during the course will be chosen in part by the students so that they can be relevant and the students can participate in the problem solving necessary to successfully create them. 

Based in New York City, Lloyd Alvarez is a highly demanded multi-disciplinary freelancer, from art directing and design to compositing and animation.  Lloyd began scripting in After Effects to solve workflow problems for his freelance projects and soon began sharing them with the community starting with his very popular BG Renderer script.  He has since released several more very popular scripts and is now the curator of aescripts.com, which is the top destination for the best After Effects scripts from the top authors from around the globe.

Most of our intro courses are “100 level”, but due to the base level of After Effects knowledge needed for scripting, this course is targeted at the intermediate level.

We're excited to have a new After Effects course lead by a familiar name in the motion graphics industry, designer Harry Frank. This practical, software-based course will focus on creating a professional broadcast graphics package from scratch. Harry has done numerous high-profile national broadcast packages over the year for networks such as NBC, ABC, Fox, and G4TV. One of the strengths of After Effects is its plug in architecture and offerings such as Trapcode Particular, Form, and Lux are workhorses of mograph artists. Over the ten weeks, After Effects will be at the center of the course in conjunction with these and other plug ins from Red Giant Software.

In the broadcast industry, turn-around times for deliverables can be short, which makes efficiency a key component of being a professional motion designer. We need to have the right tools at our fingertips with an in-depth understanding of them to achieve this. This will be the core focus of this course: accelerating your creativity with your tools.

In AFX213, students will be building a graphics package for a broadcast awards ceremony. We will build assets such as a short show open, logo animation, full screen graphic, lower third, and transitional elements. This class will give students the opportunity to be creative, building a graphics package from scratch. Students are encouraged to take advantage of this experience with peer and instructor review in a special work sharing forum on the site. Members have found this level of interaction to be extremely valuable part of the course.

Harry originally studied music engineering and worked in both audio post-production and studio engineering, before entering the motion graphics field 12 years ago. He has worked in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles as a freelance motion designer, with clients such as, Blur Studio, Digital Kitchen, and many more. As an instructor and author, he has authored numerous tutorials and training titles on motion design, After Effects Expressions, Trapcode Particular and Form, and Cinema 4D. In Detroit, he was an Adjunct Faculty at the College for Creative Studies. Harry is the owner of graymachine.com, and host of the networking site, themotionexchange.com

Designed with the graphic artist, effects artist and editor in mind, this course will provide a solid foundation of knowledge of production and post-production audio. Taught by audio mixer/designer Cory Coken, the course will center on four core areas of audio: dialogue, sound effects, music, and mix. The course will be a series of on-camera classes covering techniques and approaches.

Starting with production, we'll cover recording equipment, techniques, and microphone placement to record our own sound effects and dialogue. Next, we'll move into the studio setting, where students will develop aesthetic and technical skills, including sound effects editing, Foley, and sound design. To conclude the class, we'll go over the basics of sound mixing for film, web, and other mediums. We'll discuss and creatively execute the four elements of the soundtrack. The course will generally use an application-agnostic approach, showing various programs such as Nuendo, Soundtrack Pro, and Pro Tools.

Professor Cory Coken began his career in the industry by building an extensive and impressive list of credits. Starting out working on feature films such as Batman Forever, Apollo 13, and Hoop Dreams, Coken developed a versatile background in sound. He eventually transitioned into advertising where he has created, recorded, and designed audio for television and radio commercials. A majority of his career was spent at Avenue Edit in Chicago where he spent 12 years working with clients such as Disney and Coca-Cola. In 2000, he built and created a new state of the art facility-allowing Avenue to provide clients with the best studios for post production sound. Now with over 15 years experience in the industry, Cory brings his knowledge, talent, and passion for audio to fxphd.

Curiously Engaging: This term's Background Fundamentals (BKD) looks outside the box at curiously engaging content. We move away from large feature film style projects, standard film making or even normal 30 second commercials to projects that are part of a new world of expanded content, especially in terms of getting a message or story across. We also look at why somethings are engaging, how people interact with your message. We look at the the ways you can be involved in innovative projects but far from just stand and gaze at these creative projects, we try and decode them as to why they work. Speaking to leading figures in advertising and in behavioral economics, we will show how people behave anything other than rationally and sensibly.

A lot of what we will discuss is projects that work creatively despite budget, but David Oligvy once said any ad that doesn't sell can't be that creative. So we will explore the cutting edge of new research into behaviorally modification - work so impactful, that some have suggested it be banned explicitly from being used in advertising. Someone also once said that their "ads only worked half the time and they just wished they could work out which half that was" ! - Well, we will speak with founders of some of the most innovative ad or communications companies in the world to explore just how people react to your work, and how you can be amazingly effective by thinking differently. This is not new age hype - this is hard core research from places like Stanford University. fxphd has been researching this for 6 months speaking to university professors and successful 'film makers' alike to bring you this term's BKD

In this our magazine style course that you get free with every term. This term we will move away from traditional to the unusual but curiously engaging, including:

• Behavioral economics


• Original, award winning funding models for feature films


• Using effects tools in the most unusual ways


• The theory of actually changing people's behavior with your work


• Amazing campaigns that generated amazing results with micro budgets

We will also have some fun with some production classes and, of course, our Background Challenges where we provide material and individual online reviews of your submission. These have proven a great tool for both learning and getting polished shots for your reel. This term we will focus on a project that is done throughout fxphd in multiple courses - a micro budget global film - that members themselves helped write, nicknamed Joan of Arc.

While specific class outline/order is still in flux, we have some great classes planned as part of the course. This is our 23nd term of Background Fundamentals and it has always proven to be a very popular component of fxphd.

The Cinema4D 101 course will be a practical approach to learning Maxon's Cinema4D. The course will cover everything needed to obtain a solid foundation in using the application. From understanding the interface, to modeling using the built in primitive and NURBs objects. An exploration of lighting and material creation, through to animation techniques, use of expressions and rendering possibilities. Specifically aimed at new users to the application, some experience of 3D would be advantageous, although not essential. After completing this course, you will have an in-depth understanding of the workflow and techniques required to work with Cinema4D in a production environment.

Based in Sydney Australia, Tim Clapham is a multi-disciplinary animator and compositor. Evolving from a solid foundation in traditional animation using both Film and Video, Tim soon transitioned into the digital domain and has forged a solid career in the world of Motion Graphics. With over 11 years of industry experience, Tim is accomplished with many 3D animation and Digital Compositing applications.

This knowledge has been the bedrock of his many successful training courses as a Professor for fxphd and a continuing relationship with Maxon Computer where Tim has worked as a beta tester for many years, and also contributes tutorials to their online learning resource cineversity.

As the owner of Motion Graphics and Animation company Luxx, Tim is hands on with every project that the company produces. With a history of working with many global Advertising and Broadcast companies, the work Tim produces is both technically challenging whilst maintaining innovation and high quality.

This course will complement the C4D101 course and further develop your skillset when working with Maxon’s Cinema4D. Alongside the core Cinema4D concepts, the 102 course will include classes on using some of the popular modules available for Cinema4D, including Cloth, Sketch & Toon and MoGraph, as well as an introduction to using Bodypaint3D and understanding the concept of UV mapping and texture painting within the application. The classes will be both practical workshops and project based classes, further enhancing your experience of using the core Cinema4D application, Bodypaint3D and the available modules.

Tim Clapham is a multi-disciplinary animator and compositor and one of our members favorite profs. With over 11 years of industry experience, Clapham is an industry recognized expert in Cinema 4D and After Effects. As Company Director at Luxx in Sydney, Australia, Tim works with a wide range of global advertising and broadcast companies, producing world-class content that is both technically challenging and innovative.

This course is aimed at the intermediate user, but certainly accessible to advanced beginners, this class will cover many features of the Cinema4D toolset. Alongside revealing some of his innovative techniques for working with the MoGraph module, Tim will also cover fundamental subjects and their application within Cinema4D, such as principles of lighting, working with audio, use of Xpresso to streamline workflow, multipass rendering and compositing with After Effects.

Based in Sydney Australia, Tim Clapham is a multi-disciplinary animator and compositor. Evolving from a solid foundation in traditional animation using both Film and Video, Tim soon transitioned into the digital domain and has forged a solid career in the world of Motion Graphics. With over 11 years of industry experience, Tim is accomplished with many 3D animation and Digital Compositing applications.

As the owner of Motion Graphics and Animation company Luxx, Tim is hands on with every project that the company produces. With a history of working with many global Advertising and Broadcast companies, the work Tim produces is both technically challenging whilst maintaining innovation and high quality.

In this course, Tim Clapham takes you through the intricate yet powerful Thinking Particles (TP) system for Cinema4D. Throughout the term, Tim will be working with Cinema4D release 13, however the majority of the techniques discussed will be perfectly viable in earlier versions of the application.

Thinking Particles is an event based particle system that offers complete control over individual particles allowing you to define exactly what your particle stream should be doing at any one time. The course will start with some simple examples of building your own Particle Emitters and a brief exploration of the existing TP presets. Then we will move on and look at creating your own network of particle controls. This will explore Particle Groups, Data Channels, Particle Interaction with particles and also other objects within your scene. Techniques discussed will include methods of spawning particles, particles as emitters and fragmenting particles into many pieces. Thinking particles has it's own dynamic effects, but can also be integrated and combined with other tools within Cinema4D such as Dynamics, Hair, Cloth and MoGraph, there will be several classes looking at the close integration between the MoGraph tools, cloning onto particles, generating particles with MoGraph and using MoGraph elements as particle emitters.

Thinking Particles works hand in hand with Xpresso, Cinema4Ds node based expressions editor. This powerful system allows you to create complex relationships between almost any object, material or parameter using a visual language without having to write a single line of code. Xpresso is the backbone of Thinking Particles and throughout the class Tim will break down existing Xpresso networks and built intricate examples for you to explore within your own projects. This will ensure you have not only a deep understanding of the Thinking Particles toolset, but you will also have a solid foundation in the workings of Xpresso itself.

All working files will be supplied at the end of each class which will give you an opportunity to dive in and develop them into your own unique setups, thus ensuring you have a vast and complex library of presets at the end of the course which you can use, develop and explore within your own projects.

This class is the logical next step for those that have already completed the Cinema 4D 101 and 102 courses. This is an updated course that is based upon content from the previous and now outdated C4D201 course. Using the latest release of Cinema4D, all the techniques covered will be using the current feature set of the application.

The main focus of the course will be using Cinema4D to create motion graphics. Through all the classes, general workflow and project management will be discussed, including organising your scenes in the object manager, use of layers, and managing layouts.

We will look at practical uses for many of the features, including MoGraph, Thinking Particles, Hair, Dynamics, Cloth, Mocca and Sketch and Toon. This will also involve practical use of Xpresso, material and shader exploration, lighting and rendering techniques.

Throughout the term we will work on both tips and techniques in workshop style classes, as well as project based motion graphics projects. Specifically taking a concept and developing the animation, outputting various render passes and compositing these in After Effects.

Based in Sydney Australia, Tim Clapham is a multi-disciplinary animator and compositor. Evolving from a solid foundation in traditional animation using both Film and Video, Tim soon transitioned into the digital domain and has forged a solid career in the world of Motion Graphics. With over 11 years of industry experience, Tim is accomplished with many 3D animation and Digital Compositing applications.

As the owner of Motion Graphics and Animation company Luxx, Tim is hands on with every project that the company produces. With a history of working with many global Advertising and Broadcast companies, the work Tim produces is both technically challenging whilst maintaining innovation and high quality.

This intermediate level course, taught by Alexander Lehnert, is targeted towards Cinema4D artists coming from the mograph side of the application. We will look at the more VFX-centric workflows in Cinema4D, and members will learn how to create some great effects for use in production right in the app.

This course is solidly based in C4D, but it also covers the "guerrilla" portion of Lehnert's work experience. We have many specialist courses at fxphd, but the business reality of budgets today often requires artists and facilities in many markets to be flexible in delivering projects quickly and affordably. This opens up opportunities for generalists working in small but strong teams, or even as a freelancers on their own, to deliver products with shorter deadlines and smaller budgets. So in this offering, Lehnert will be going through the production process from tracking, to 3D, to comp and will finish off cool projects which are indicative of the type of work being done in many markets.

We'll dive into object tracking, and object replacement using HDRI lighting in C4D. We'll how to use projection man to create great establishing shots right off of a plane 2D image, and even have a look in how the mograph parts of Cinema4D come in handy when it comes to visual effects. The goal is to show a "One Man Band VFX production“ and explore Cinema4D beyond its well known mograph capabilities.

Alexander Lehnert is a german based VFX Generalist working at Haus&Gross Communications where he is lead compositor and matchmover. Haus&Gross communication is a classic full service ad agency with a post production company directly attached to it, so their requirements are to provide a really fast and intelligent way to serve the need of their clients. They also produce 90% of our their work right within the facility without the need of a production company.

Camera operators and assistants, colourists, visual effects supervisors and artists, and others are making the transition to digital acquisition. Digital imaging technicians (DITs), digital intermediate engineers, and technicians are also centrally involved. Leading the course is the incredibly knowledgeable Charles Poynton, who will discuss color and digital cinema acquisition in a manner that’s accessible to cinematographers, colourists, and related craftspeople.

How many stops of exposure latitude does a digital camera offer? What exposure index should be used? What is the“film look” and where should it be imposed? Why does noise arise, and what can be done to minimize it? Should I record and process “log” or “linear”? Is there one kind of “log” and one kind of “linear,” or are those terms ambiguous? Is it valuable to have an on-set display? Where do the LUTs go, and who should determine their content? Under what conditions is on-set colour grading useful?

Poyton will discuss logarithmic coding, camera sensitivity and ISO/EI ratings. He will describe the zone system, and discuss what aspects of that system are valuable in connection with digital acquisition. In addition, the course will cover the tone scale and colour modifications that impart the “film look,” and the roles of camera controls (gamma, knee, slope) and 1D and 3D lookup tables in achieving these modifications.

This course will be suitable for people involved with:

• Cinematographers, assistant cinematographers, and colourists


• HD engineers and Digital Imaging Technicians (DITs)


• Post-production and visual effects supervisors, and post/VFX engineers


• Digital cinema, digital video, and CGI/VFX software developers


• The course will be technical and it will show many graphs and several equations!

This intermediate (pushing advanced) level course discusses fluid effects in Houdini. Profs Jonathan Gilbert and John Moncrief will help members of the course become familiar with Houdini’s Dynamics Operators (DOPs) and the different fluid types: SPH, Voxel-Based and FLIP fluids. With this knowledge you will endeavor in a production oriented project to integrate a cg water fountain into a live action background plate. We will explore Houdini’s Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD) for collision detection, FLIP fluids for the bulk of the water effects, DOPs Forces for wind, foam and spray using some built in shelf tools (whitecaps) and lastly, lighting, shading, rendering and compositing the final image.

Gilbert is a freelance VFX artist with over six years of Houdini experience. He graduated with his MFA in 3D Animation and Visual Effects with a concentration in fluid dynamics from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He then worked at Side Effects Software Inc. building and teaching a series of basic and intermediate Pyro Effects classes in Santa Monica. More recently, Jonathan finished working on the last Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as a Technical Director at Gradient Effects. He also is currently a Professor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, building and teaching Advanced Houdini.

Moncrief started working in VFX over ten years ago and has experience in Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max, After Effects, Shake, and just about every NLE you can think of. John just wrapped up 6 months working at Side Effects Software Inc. in Santa Monica where he created a library of Houdini training courses on FLIP fluids, DOPs and VOPs for industry professionals from various studios including Blizzard, Sony Entertainment and DreamWorks. He has one insane long-haired cat, horrible allergies, and is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Art degree in Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta.

After a call for an encore from fxphd members, Jonathan Gilbert returns for an intermediate level course covering Pyro FX in Houdini. Pyro FX can be a bit overwhelming when first starting out. This course will simplify and demystify the Pyro FX tools, ultimately giving you the skills needed to create just about any fire and smoke effect that you might need. Members will become familiar with Houdini’s Fireball, Billowy Smoke, Wispy Smoke and Flames Pyro FX shelf tools. These lay the groundwork for learning the basics of a Pyro simulation, these same tools can also over-complicate some of the learning. So we’ll simplify the simulation down to the very bare-bones. From there, we’ll build upon this foundation and achieve a full understanding how each parameter effects the simulation. We’ll explore how to define fluid properties such as viscosity, cooling rate and buoyancy.

Next, we’ll move on to controlling the behavior of the fluid. We’ll use Turbulence, add DOPs Forces and Motion FX to achieve much more interesting and artistically controlled fluid motion. Then we’ll use the Combustion model to ignite fuel and create fire and smoke. Next, we’ll take a journey into some of the more advanced topics such as creating a Pyro simulation from scratch, defining custom attributes, using custom velocity fields to direct fluid motion and modifying the fluid behavior with microsolvers. With this knowledge, members will be able to simulate almost any type of smoke and fire effect you can imagine.

At the end of the course, we’ll explore post processing our fields of data with the more recent volume tools in order to save re-simulating. We’ll setup some simple lighting to have a more accurate depiction of the fluid in the viewport and ultimately a much more beautiful render. Which leads us to an exploration of the Material Shader Builder and the Pyro Shader for shading our fluid. Finally, we’ll cover guidelines for efficiently and effectively rendering volumets with Mantra.

Professor Jonathan Gilbert is a freelance VFX artist with over six years of Houdini experience. He graduated with his MFA in 3D Animation and Visual Effects with a concentration in fluid dynamics from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He then worked at Side Effects Software Inc. building and teaching a series of basic and intermediate Pyro Effects classes in Santa Monica. His experience includes work at Asylum on the Black Eyed Peas Dirty Bit music video and more recently, on the last Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as a Technical Director at Gradient Effects.

The course goes into the techniques used in doing visual effects work with 3DS Max and its plugins - Thinking Particles, Rayfire, and FumeFX. Coming from a feature film production background, the focus is on quality and efficiency. It is a holistic view of the process - from planning, through fragmentation, rigid bodies, particles, fire/smoke, down to management and assembly.

Hristo Velev is an effects artist at Pixomondo, delivering FX for projects like '2012' and 'Sucker Punch'.

For our first environment modelling-centric course at fxphd, Wayne Robson will be covering the creation of the highly detailed cathedral interior of Durham Cathedral in England. Its final use is as background to fair number of green screen live action plates, so a photo real asset is needed. Robson will cover the creation , texturing and final lighting and materials using combination of Mudbox and 3DSMax. Although these apps are used, other applications can be used as well using the same or very similar methods to those shown. The course will show from how to break down and plan a highly complex model to the final model and renders themselves which can be then used along with tracking data in the final shot.

The course is for the vast part practical and targeted to the more advanced cg modeler. Whenever possible, Robson will show more than one way of achieving a goal so that the viewer has options when making models of their own when dealing with complex architectural forms such as the ones found in the cathedral interior of this course.

Robson is the only digital sculptor to receive the Autodesk Master award for Mudbox. He has worked as a freelance digital artist and taught 3D & digital sculpture around the world and has lectured at the Vienna science academy. He is the programmer behind 'MudWalker' and the 'Wayne's Vector Displacement Shader' and as a freelance artist his work can be seen in TV, Games and Film. Robson is also the Author of many DVD tutorials, books and articles on 3D and has give the Autodesk Masterclass on Mudbox in 2009 & 2010. He is also an Autodesk Authorised Developer and Publisher. He is also a beta tester for more 3d applications than it is possible to list here.

This advanced course will cover the creation of not one, but a number of full 3D production quality mattes, all highly detailed and photoreal. We will be covering a lot of ground across multiple shots taken to final in our 10 classes. With the continuing rise on stereoscopic 3D in films and television, there are an increasing number of occasions when a 2D or 2.5D matte just won't cut it anymore.

Not only will we be using Vue 10 but also other applications such as Autodesk Mudbox and Autodesk Maya to get each shot to final using the features each applications brings to the table. As well as covering the creation of detailed photoreal mattes in full 3D, we'll be covering some of the most common types of environments that may be asked to do.

The benefit of being in full 3D and not camera projected, is that far more complex camera shots can be achieved far more easily giving our director far more creative freedom. We'll be finishing the course off with a complex match moved shot featuring the exterior of the cathedral interior that we created in MOD301 along with Vue elements to create the external establishing shot to the interior shots created in MOD301.

We will be covering a lot of ground and feature final, practical examples both as standalone 3d mattes and for use in the short referenced in the lesson description. Some knowledge of Vue, Maya and Mudbox will be required, although as much as can be will be explained in the time available. However this is not a beginners course. Also where applicable we'll be covering composting in Nuke to truly take each shot to a final level.

Wayne Robson was the first digital sculptor to receive the Autodesk Master award for Mudbox. He has worked as a freelance digital artist and taught 3D & digital sculpture around the world and has lectured at the Vienna science academy. He is the programmer behind 'MudWalker' and the 'Wayne's Vector Displacement Shader' and as a freelance artist his work can be seen in TV, Games and Film. Robson is also the author of many DVD tutorials, books and articles on 3D and has give the Autodesk Masterclass on Mudbox in 2009 & 2010. He is also an Autodesk Authorised Developer and Publisher and a beta tester for more 3D applications than it is possible to list.

This course is about all things Titles; with a specific focus on TYPOGRAPHY and THE CRAFT of TITLE DESIGN.

We begin by looking at a short history of some of the most innovative and influential graphical and typographical sequences: from Saul Bass's groundbreaking opening sequences for Hitchcock, and the graphical expression inherent in iconic Sixties movies such as James Bond and Clockwork Orange, via 'Alien' and 'Se7en', and right through to current notable typographic milestones including 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and the stable of Imaginary Forces work.

This early focus on the 'language' being used by the typography then takes a practical turn, as we put together two very different genre title sequences- but using the same base footage- to very different effect, due to typographical approach and graphical styling.

Along the way we will look at many different examples of how fonts and layout express themselves: through sci fi and horror, to comedy, historical epics, thrillers- each genre seems to employ different type faces to signify a specific language. Throughout, we will look at how branding, and generic usage of typography give and add real presence and impact to a movie, effectively expressing it's characteristics and personality, and adding to the narrative early-on in the piece.

We'll also look at and breakdown several 'real world' examples. We will look at where to source these fonts, and how to use them- and where to manipulate them so they always sit-up clearly onscreen.

Software includes Illustrator, After Effects, Photoshop, Maya, Mocha, Final Cut

Tim Clapham returns with a brand new course aimed at motion graphic designers and animators. This term, it's a bit of a departure from Clapham's previous typical course structure as he will be taking you through the development and animation of a channel ident from the initial concept stage, right through to the final rendering and delivery part of the process. In a previous term at fxphd, members were invited to design a logo for a fictional TV channel. The chosen design is the logo we will be using for our ident.

The structure and workflow of this course will be similar to the typical studio workflow you would find when working on a real world production. Starting with design and concept, we then move on to discuss the shoot itself. Working with footage which was shot on the RED Epic, we will be choosing selects from our bin of clips and exploring various grade options within RED Cine. Next, we will take the selected clip into the animatic stage within Adobe After Effects, using this as a tool to block out our basic design and timing. Once the animatic is complete, the footage will be tracked and the 3D solution exported ready for match moving.

An important part of any production is the design process and this will be an integral part of the course. Alongside creating our animatic and completing technical tasks such as tracking and modelling, we will also be exploring design options throughout the production. We will be working with Adobe Illustrator to develop various designs and graphic features. Creating elements using 3D modelling and texturing techniques in Cinema4D. Bringing all of this together in the form of style frames which will be the foundation for the ident look, grade and overall feel.

The term will continue with elements being animated in both 2D and 3D. The indent will progress as the 3D multipass renders are output and the composite is developed. Finally, 2D graphic elements will be added and animated in post and the grading completed ready for final rendering.

Taught by Matt Leonard, this first of our two part introductory Maya curriculum is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or artists who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage but want to expand their software skills. The course will lay the groundwork by focusing on a single project called ‘A Robot’s Surf Shack’. We'll be cover modeling, animation, lighting, shaders and working with cameras along with rendering, render passes, and finally a small section covering compositing which will be done in Nuke. Throughout the term we'll be looking at many of the new features found in Maya 2012 including ‘Alembic’ I/O, the Camera Sequencer, the Node Editor, and ‘Ptex’ support.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 19 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk, The Foundry and eyeon Software and has had articles published in magazines and journals. He has worked as a beta tester for Maya, Mari, Mudbox, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own on-site training company in the UK and has trained artists from companies such as Double Negative, Ghost VFX, Dreamworks Animation and Framestore.

Taught by Matt Leonard, this Maya course is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or post-grads who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage but want to expand their software skills. It covers many new features of Maya 2012 and the Subscription Advantage Pack.

This course continues where MYA103 left off. We start by looking at character rigging and animation using the new Characterization Tool. We then move on to look at nDynamics (nParticles, nCloth) and Maya’s new Effects Assets. After break week we shift gears to look at Fur and Hair followed by Maya’s Fluid dynamics system and the new Liquid Simulations tool. Finally we finish up the term looking at the new Digital Molecular Matter plugin suite which can be used for various types of destruction effects.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 19 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk, The Foundry and eyeon Software and has had articles published in magazines and journals. He has worked as a beta tester for Maya, Mari, Mudbox, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own on-site training company in the UK and has trained artists from companies such as Double Negative, Ghost VFX, Dreamworks Animation and Framestore.

Taught by Matt Leonard, this course is aimed at those who want to gain a greater understanding of digital lighting and texturing using both mental ray and Pixar's RenderMan for Maya. The course will cover not only what the tools do, but also why and when you would use then.

Through out the course we'll remain as project focused as possible while also going in-depth into functionality and some compositing tricks (Nuke 6.2) for integrating CGI with live-action. Other topics will include Global Illumination, Final Gathering, Deep Shadows, HDR Lighting, mental ray Shaders, RenderMan Passes, and Camera Effects.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 19 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has trained and spoken at various events throughout the world and has been on the beta test teams for Maya, Nuke, Fusion, and Mari.

For those of you who took the previous MYA211 course, this updated one is still going to be of benefit. Firstly because Maya's rendering system has changed dramatically over the last three years. Secondly mental ray has introduced new Shaders which tap directly into it's new render-pass system which we'll be touching on. Also RenderMan for Maya has drastically changed as well both in functionality and speed. Lastly the course is going to be more filmic based with less of a focus on archetectual visualisation.

Taught by Sean Devereaux, this new introductory course will expand upon the Foundry Nuke tutorials produced by fxphd. Nuke version 6.1 software will be available over the VPN to fxphd postgrads for non-commercial use (OSX, Linux, and Windows versions). Devereaux has pushed pixels on over 25 feature films and 50 commercials. He is currently a vfx supervisor at ZERO VFX in Boston. His feature credits include Transformers, The Proposal, Peter Pan and Vanilla Sky and he has worked with some of the best studios in the world including Pixar, Digital Domain and Industrial Light+Magic.

Our new second-level intermediate Nuke X course picks up where the 100 level offering leaves off. Using Nuke X version 6, professor Sean Deveraux will work through concepts in the app as well as lead several project-based classes. The 3D compositing environment of Nuke is one of its strengths, so several classes will dive fully into this feature with practical, real-world examples. Deveraux will also be covering the nuts and bolts of setting up Nuke for automation as well as taking a first look at Gizmos, Nuke's "macro" functionality. The focus is on the type of work that any compositor might run into while working at a facility.

Deveraux is our lead Nuke professor at fxphd. He has been using Nuke since 2000, working as a compositor at Digital Domain on Hollywood blockbusters such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I, Robot, and Star Trek: Nemesis. Using a variety of compositing packages, his freelance work has taken him to ILM (Transformers), Hydraulx (Rise of the Silver Surfer), and others. He is currently working at Brickyard VFX in Boston.

This course serves as a replacement for NUK202, updated for Nuke version 6/X which will be available on the VPN once the release ships.

Taught by Daniel Smith, this intermediate level class builds upon the Nuk203 course and takes stereoscopic techniques to the next level. We will be looking at Nuke 6.2 and using its new tools like Point Cloud generator, Dope Sheet, and Modeler tools to enhance stereo production. We will address the significant changes that have happened to Ocula and delve deeper into the robust tool.

The class will tackle each topic and then implement the technique into a few shots building them into a final comp from a FXPHD stereo short film. High quality footage with be provided and render passes to work along and build your reel. Later in the course we will cover using XYZ color space and creating DCI compliant DCP's for cinema projection.

Daniel Smith has worked as an animator, compositor, and VFX supervisor for over 20 years. Daniel's career took him to pioneering previz on Judge Dredd, animating the famous M&M characters, compositing on films such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Spy Kids 3D. He has also been involved with stereoscopic film making for over a decade. Daniel is now the stereoscopic director and Nuke instructor for the Digital Animation and Visual Effects school in Orlando Florida.

Jeremy Brown and Charles Lapage team up for another great NUKE production course designed by long time nuke prof Sean Devereaux. This is a fully production based course and a GREAT reel builder while also sharing boat loads of real world visual effects production tips, techniques and even a few secrets.

More and more NUKE is becoming the hub not only for composting but for overall production pipelines. It is as important for 3D artists to know NUKE as it is for compositors. This course is designed as a marriage of those two worlds with NUKE as the common language that bridges the gap. Jeremy and Charles will take you through several challenging shots throughout the term that are both comp and 3D heavy. You'll pull difficult keys, deal with what seem like impossible tracks, paint work and touch upon tasks most professional compositors deal with on a daily basis.

One of the most exciting aspects of this course will be side steps into Maya where Jeremy and Charles will teach compositor specific skills that is sure to amp up your reel and make you even more marketable. No more waiting for matte passes or an occlusion pass. You will learn how to go into a pre-existing Maya scene and render the passes you need for the comp as well as other powerful techniques that all compers should know.

Professor Russell Dodgson will be throwing you in the deep end with a 10 week look at a full stereo production exercise. Based around the presentations from the Foundry’s recent Masterclass, Dodgson will be examining the project in intricate depth taking students from a raw plate through a variety of stereo production techniques including Ocula, Camera Projection, UV Mapping, Keying, 3d Texture Painting for compositors, Camera Tracking, Depth Grading and of course… clean up.

If you attended or watched the class in London, why should you join this course? While the masterclass was a great overview of the techniques used, this course will go into much greater detail and show much more specifically how the shot was finished. As with most fxphd courses, you'll also get access to the footage so that you can finish the shot yourself. By approaching the shot from a variety of angles the course will take you in detail through a wide range of nukes capabilities and how these techniques can all be used to assist you in creating a successful stereo result, all on a shot pushing 1000 frames!

Dodgson in currently Senior Nuke Compositor at Framestore Commercials in London and is heavily involved in developing their commercials stereo pipeline. He was an early convert to Nuke and has been working closely with the Foundry for several years as a beta tester, helping influence the development of some of their more recent additions to Nuke. This year he was heavily involved in the Foundry’s stereo Masterclass in London, both directing the shoot and teaching at the event. His recent work has included Harry Potter, the latest Kia campaign and the cinematic for Activision’s DJ Hero. A firm believer in the importance of having a thorough understanding of the production process Russell is co-founder of the creative partnership One Red Pixel, and has extensive experience in shoot production and supervision. He is also a budding director.

PFMatchIt is The Pixel Farm's first tracking package to come from a new internal architecture that was built from the ground up. it also offers a much more affordable price-point than the company's previous offerings. Teaching our first course in the application is Victor Wolansky, who has been using PFTrack for years and was part of the PFMatchIt beta program.

Wolansky's tracking courses have been perennial favorites at fxphd and this one is sure to be no different. While this is an introductory course designed to get you up and running with a solid foundation, as usual Wolansky will be pushing the learning level higher during the course.

PFMatchIt will be available on the fxphd VPN so that members may follow along in the software.

In this advanced PFTrack course, the focus is on complex shots, long shots, and those shots that make you lose your sleep. fxphd favorite Victor Wolansky will also be focusing on the critical details and skills that can take your tracking ability to the next level and really stand out in your job.

We'll be covering workflows for extremely distorted footage, from fisheye Canon 4.5mm shots and to special EPIC shoots in 5K. Wolanksy will be using user survey info to solve shots which are in other ways impossible to solve. This will include extracting information from an exclusive fxphd LIDAR shoot and scan, perfectly matching cameras to the scan. Wolansky will also cover the tracking of objects in scenes. The course will also naturally cover all the beauty and complexity now possible with the nodes and trees available inPFTrack. This brings a power never-before seen in 3D tracking, with almost infinite combinations to adapt to the artist's needs.

Wolansky started working in postproduction 20 years ago… in Argentina, about 12 years ago and discovered what was 3D tracking, and since then he was unable to stop tracking shots, even if just for fun. He discovered that was the most fundamental skill needed to master in order to do anything on any shot. "All starts by a 3D tracking right? If you don’t have a 3D tracking," says Wolansky, "you can't put the CG in there. right?" Postproduction took him from Argentina to Chile in 2000 and to the US in 2005 where he has worked at E3 post since then.

In this advanced technical look at grading and managing EPIC footage, we will aim to both build upon our earlier EPIC production courses and our color science understanding. This course presents a range of detailed options for EPIC workflow. It will present some simple workflows but also aim to cover more complex issues leading into grading. All EPIC footage is shot to be graded, and while we will cover some effects work, our primary aim will be to present a way to get great graded footage from the EPIC and make sure that what you are shooting produces the best possible footage.

Because the EPIC landscape changes so quickly, this course may not be repeated since it will deal with the latest workflow, software builds, and EPIC products. fxphd has had an EPIC M since March 2011 and then one of the first EPIC X (#22) as well as one of the first field EPIC Canon mounts.

We will have a series of micro shoots in the term so we can examine a really wide range of material from Macro food shots to luxury cars, from Primates to exotic night fire shoots. Material will be made available as .r3ds for you to download and explore.

A lot of focus is often placed on the tools we use for post-production work. The truth is, there is a good amount of crossover between applications when working on most projects. This course takes a deeper look at different techniques for common roto, matte creation and paint projects, using a range of applications. Our main toolset includes mocha and SilhouetteFX, but we also delve into compositing programs, Nuke and After Effects and 3D tracking.

The main focus this term are fundamental tricks for keeping your roto and matte creation fast and the results appropriate and accurate. The shots we are working on often require a holistic approach, blending some tough motion tracking, rotoscoping and paint. We start with beauty retouch and different rotoscoping techniques. As the course continues, we add some cleanplate creation and rig removal.

Ben Brownlee is a VFX artist, digital media specialist and instructor with 11 years of industry experience across a number of disciplines. He works extensively with leading Scandinavian fashion brands as co-owner of Husk Os (www.huskos.com) and has worked on various broadcast, TVC and feature projects across the globe.

Like it or not, root and rig removal are the foundation of any compositor's skillset. SIL201 is designed to help take some of the pain out of these tasks. It explores a number of different workflows to approaching mask and matte creation in SilhouetteFX. An emphasis is placed on shot analysis prior to picking up the pen, and deciding which tools are most appropriate for a particular task.

We will use a wide range of the toolset to tackle common yet challenging tasks, such as character roto, hair and motion blur. The creative decisions and possibilities for tackling such shots are also discussed, so you get a better understanding of why a particular approach was taken.
Ben Brownlee is a VFX artist, digital media specialist and instructor with 11 years of industry experience across a number of disciplines. He works extensively with leading Scandinavian fashion brands as co-owner of Husk Os (www.huskos.com) and has worked on various broadcast, TVC and feature projects across the globe.

The release of Smoke on Mac has opened up the software to a much wider variety of users than any other Autodesk systems product. This course, taught by Randy McEntee, will provide an advanced introduction to Autodesk Smoke on Mac. Focusing on real-world finishing, color correction and visual effects tasks, we’ll be working through several projects and tasks, taking footage and turning it into a finished piece, exploring the breadth of Smoke's toolset along the way. Particular consideration in this course will be paid to transitioning users familiar with desktop applications into the Smoke on Mac mindset.

Smoke and Flame Artist McEntee joined The Mill New York in 2007. There he has finished spots for Apple, Coca-Cola, Chrysler, Cadillac, Verizon, AT&T, Virgin Mobile, ESPN, Mercedes, Skittles, Microsoft, and Nike, some of which have gone on to win awards from DA&D, AICP, Cannes, and the Daytime Emmys. Previously,McEntee began his post career at Mode Project in Chicago as an Assistant Editor, later moving on to Filmworkers Club Chicago. He has a passion for mastering visual effects toolsets and an even greater passion for teaching.

Members will be able to license Smoke on Mac 2012 via the fxphd VPN, lifting the short 30-day demo version restriction so that they may dive more fully into the software.

We continue our curriculum of Autodesk systems offerings with a new combination Smoke/Flame course featuring multiple artists. As more and more of the creative tools merge across the applications, including Smoke Advanced which contains all the features of Flame's Action module, the combo courses have been incredibly popular.

This course brings a mix of projects and approaches that will help take your skills to the next level. From daily tasks that improve your workflow to high end Action tips to motion graphics, we've got a great slate of profs sharing session-proven techniques.

About the profs:

John Montgomery has worked on Flame for years, as well as Smoke (actually it was called Fire) since the very first pre-release beta. Concentrating on commercials post, Montgomery has worked on flame for over ten years. He now owns a combination Smoke/Flame system which is used by fxphd and our post partners Hootenanny in Chicago.

Brian Mulligan has been working in broadcast television for 20+ years. He has been working with Smoke since v5, and has been a part of the beta testing program for the past 6 releases. Brian uses Smoke for promo and commercial work... using Smokes tools for editing and graphic work.

Victor Wolansky is a Flame artist who works at e3post in Virginia. With 19 years of experience on the VFX world he fell in love with Flame about 5 years ago.

Randy McEntee is a Smoke artist at The Mill, New York City, where he specializes in working on national television commercials.

Paul Carlin is a Smoke Artist at Company 3 in Santa Monica. His most recent accomplishments have been Jack the Giant Killer, Underworld 4, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the trailers for Avatar. He specializes in stereoscopic digital intermediates at the moment, but comes from diverse background that includes the Imagineer Systems product line, SynthEyes, After Effects as well as Avid Media Composer and the product formerly known as Final Cut Pro. Paul has 15 years of Smoke experience and comes from a tape-based linear online background.

In this course course, participants will be learning the fundamentals of 3D tracking, creating good starting point to understand several techniques of 3D tracking and image modeling. We will look at how to tackle several problems that are the day to day in 3D tracking, and understand how to avoid them or how to work around them, we will look at workflows of lens distortion correction, from start to end (including compositing) and stereo tracking.

Taught by our fxphd tracking specialist, Victor Wolansky, the course will be using the SynthEyes 2011 release.

Victor Wolansky's tracking courses have been favorites at fxphd and this course should be no exception. In SYN203, Wolansky will be tackling common issues in 3D tracking such as techniques for working with manual tracking to help difficult solves. Also, he’ll look at getting objects in the correct position when they go offscreen and then come back on after long gaps such as 1000 frames. And finally, as usual, he promises to find and conquer “whatever twisted and complicated shot I can find to make course member’s lives miserable”.

Wolansky started working in postproduction 20 years ago… in Argentina, about 12 years ago and discovered what was 3D tracking, and since then he was unable to stop tracking shots, even if just for fun. He discovered that was the most fundamental skill needed to master in order to do anything on any shot. "All starts by a 3D tracking right? If you don’t have a 3D tracking," says Wolansky, "you can't put the CG in there. right?" Postproduction took me him Argentina to Chile in 2000 and to the US in 2005 where he has worked at E3 post since then.

This course is a thorough introduction to typography. From understanding common typefaces to designing custom fonts -- even a look at the traditional letterpress process and how those methods have evolved into the digital age.

Professor Mark Bowey has a long track record as an Art Director and visual stylist working on features, broadcast design, and even installation projects.

Bowey was Videographics Art Director on two James Bond movies: \"Die Another Day\" and \"Tommorow Never Dies\", as well as Conceptual Graphics Designer on Luc Besson’s \"The Fifth Element\". After moving to Sydney in 2004, he joined Digital Pictures Sydney, and worked on TV channel SBS’s re-brand- as well as designing titles sequences for \'The Alice\', \'Hell Has Harbour Views\', and \'The Colony\', As DP\'s Creative Director he oversaw the re-brand of Win News. He became Omnilab Media\'s Creative Director in 2006, where he directed and designed the titles for The Umbilical Brothers’ \"The Upside Down Show\", which won a Daytime Emmy Award for \"Most Outstanding Titles Design\" in 2007. He currently works as an Art Director at Foxtel Design in Sydney, Australia.

Taught by Eran Dinur, this course offers a comprehensive approach to learning Vue, with an emphasis on workflow and techniques needed for effectively using it in various professional production scenarios. From creating assets for matte painting and compositing to animating and rendering complete 3D scenes. Vue has gained a prominent position in the industry as a tool for creating rich and detailed 3D natural scenery and there's an ever-growing demand for competent Vue artists.

We will first cover all of the main aspects of Vue - the different atmospheric models, polygonal and procedural terrains, EcoSystems, animation, materials and plant editing, and then dig deeper into more complex areas such as fractal functions and multi-layered shaders. Keeping in mind the needs of matte painting and compositing, we will also explore Vue's extensive multi-pass rendering, matte generation and export options.

Dinur has worked for several years a senior digital artist at ILM Singapore and at Framestore NY, and is currently compositing supervisor at Brainstorm Digital NYC. He has created visual effects for films such as "Clash of the Titans", "Salt", "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", "Surrogates", "Terminator Salvation", "Star Trek", "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Dinur is a true Vue veteran, and has been using the app extensively since version 2 in numerous projects. He has written Vue tutorials for various publications, including 3D World Magazine (for which he is a regular contributor), and has created many sample scenes for Vue xStream, Infinite and Esprit.

Members of fxphd will be able to purchase the educational version of Vue to use for non-commerical purposes. Details will be available beginning the week of July 5th.

Taught by Perry Harovas, this course will cover what a mixed pipeline is, what the pluses and minuses are, and why people use a mixed pipeline. The reality is that artists need to rely on multiple tools, so this course aims to show ways in which you may more successfullly using the strengths of various applications. Due to the availability of the Autodesk Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite, this type of workflow is becoming much more commonplace.

Over the duration of the term, the course will work through the creation of a scene, focusing on the workflow involved (as opposed to the creative techniques). The scene is geared to be rendered in Softimage and (partly) in Maya, and will cover creating and transferring assets between the applications (including Mudbox). Students will be creating a war-‐torn environment that looks like it has been recently bombed, with smoke rolling through the scene, a torn cloth of a fictional country flapping in the wind, and assets created using the tools and strengths of all.

This course is appropriate for students already familiar with concepts of 3D, with Maya (and preferably) with either one or both of the other two applications (Softimage and Mudbox).

Perry Harovas has been in the VFX and animation industry for 21 years, creating work for legendary film producer Roger Corman doing digital VFX starting back in the 1990's. He was the co-author of the best selling book 'Mastering Maya Complete 2' which was used around the world at places like ILM and Midway Games to train their artists. He has created VFX for clients such as CSI: Miami, Universal, Saban, HBO, Showtime, Lionsgate, ESPN, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, the WB Network, Radio City Music Hall, among others. About 4 years ago, Perry created the VFX/Animation department for a new school in Chicago called Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy. He wrote the entire curriculum, taught many of the courses and ran the department until leaving to move back to the east coast. Harovas now freelances in New York and L.A. doing VFX for features, TV, and special venue attractions.

One of the most popular articles in recent months over at fxguide was our story about Gareth Edward's work on Atilla the Hun. Edwards was one of the first traditional film students to combine live-action drama with digital effects. After graduating, he went on to work at many of the UK's leading post-production facilities as a freelance visual effects artist. Eventually becoming frustrated with the "factory approach" to every project, he soon branched out on his own creating many high-end computer graphics for television clients including BBC and Discovery, all of which were completed entirely on own "from his bedroom". Some of his work went on to win various accolades, including a British Academy Award and Emmy nomination.

He has since returned to his filmmaking roots directing the BBC drama "Attila the Hun", which contained over 250 HD visual effects shots, all of which were created by himself in less than five months. The post used After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Mocha, and 3dsMax -- all easily accessible tools for visual effects artists. Needless to say, we thought this whole experience would make a great "real-world" fxphd course and are excited to be adding this new course to the mix at the site. The course will cover a ton of techniques and approaches Edwards uses on the job, focusing on the art, the artist's eye, and the craft. If you're a compositor who doesn't use After Effects you'll still pick up a ton of useful information from the course.

Edward's course will begin by breaking down shots, techniques, and workflow used in the actual production of Atilla the Hun. This in-depth coverage of the real world project will then shift gears into producing a complex visual effects shot with footage shot specifically for the course. Members will recreate the techniques used in one of the signature shots of the project -- that of 30,000 Huns storming across an open field in an aerial shot.

This general interest Background Fundamentals collection includes some of our most popular Background classes to date. It consists of both magazine style interviews and complex on-screen compositing demonstrations, including stereo work. Mike talks ABOUT Photo Jounrnalism, with the team at ILM and RealViz, and gives us his own take on the future of Post Production, and how to have a successful career as a vfx artist.

This Background collection covers on-set issues. Whether you're running your own production, or going on-set as a representative of your post facility, you'll find here a wealth of information on topics from basic lighting, lens selection and on-set behavior to more more unique situations such as shooting Super 8 and underwater photography. In addition to lectures and demonstrations by the crew at fxphd, a number of very experienced DOPs and other experts appear as guests.

This package consists of a collection of our efforts to explain and demystify one of the most challenging issues in day-to-day vfx workflows: dealing with LUTs, gamma, and general color pipeline issues. Taking advantage of the technical nature of this collection, we've also included some classes on 3D, Virtual Cinematograhy, and rendering with Renderman and Mental Ray. And, for a fun break from the tech talk, there is a round table discussion about Directing Live Action and Animation.

This term, to mark our 10th Background Fundamentals, we've got a blockbuster in store for fxphd members. Throughout the term, we'll look at what it means to be a Visual Effects Supervisor. What are the pressures, the roles and how do you manage a large Hollywood film?

To find out, we engage in lengthy discussions with the world's best supervisors including John Knoll, Scott Squires, John Dykstra, Pablo Helman, Dennis Murren, Mike Fink, Ken Ralston, Kim Libreri and others. These are some of the finest visual effects specialists in the industry with a stunning 5 technical or special Oscars, 24 Oscar nominations and 14 Academy Award wins between them. This truly one of the most accomplished group of visual effects experts ever assembled.

They July 2011 Background Fundamentals focuses on color, gamma, LUTS, HDR and a piece of VFX History, the optical printer. Special guests John Alexander, Stu Maschwitz, Matt Leonard, and Charles Poynton talk to Mike throughout the course.

Every day more and more productions are exploring the use of high end DLSR for HD video. Stu Maschwitz rejoins the team and the guys in Tokyo to give the most comprehensive guide to the new phenomenon of DSLR cinematography. In this course we will cover:

• What it takes to shoot cinematically with camera such as the Canon 5D MkII
• How to shoot for post
• Tricks and techniques for camera control and camera movement, including the Red Rock Micro and the Mini-Steadicam
• Compression and camera settings recommendations, covering 24P, Manual settings, Tricks of compression etc.
• Rules of thumb for evaluating what camera and lenses you need
• Color grading DLSR video footage for Hollywood professional looks
• Sensor and optical 'behind the scenes' including rolling shutter
• reviews of 720 P with the Nikon D90, Full HD with the Olympus PEN, Panasonic GH1 and the Canon 5D MkII

Mostly shot in Tokyo and Kyoto, but as a special event later in the term, we will go on base with the US Army 55th Combat Camera Unit to look at the Canon 5D Mk II in war zone correspondent use, an unparalleled and unprecedented chance to see how these cameras are used in the most dangerous and unforgiving environments imaginable. Literally, we hope to have Stu and John putting the camera through its paces with Blackhawk helicopters and some of the bravest cameraman and women in the world with the US Army's Canon 5D Mk II specialists. A rare honor, and one we are most appreciative to have the chance to bring you.

DSLR video is a growing if not exploding area of cinematography. In our second DSLR course we contrast the urban intensity of our Japan course with the majestic intensity of the landscape of Yellowstone national park. Without a doubt the best person we could think of to teach this course is Captain Tyler Ginter of the 55th Combat Camera Company. Tyler is well known for his work in helping the Army's camera company move to DSLRs and has worked in some of the most rugged and unforgiving environments on Earth. No one is better suited to discuss what you should take into the field to shoot away from the protected environment of the studio than Tyler.

Our new introductory flame course is designed to get artists up and running in the software so they can be confident working on scenes and spots in the app. We get a lot of questions from potential flame artists asking if they should take the course even though they don't have easy access to a flame or flint system. The answer is an emphatic "yes". The course is designed with the understanding that your time might be limited on the system -- for instance, maybe you're a junior artist who can only get on the system at night or you will be doing an internship at a facility in the coming months. By taking FLM102, when you get time on a flame, you won't have to waste hours finding your way around the software.

Taught by fxphd co-founder and longtime flame artist John Montgomery, the course begins with an exhausting overview of the system and the UI. This is important considering flame doesn't follow many of the standard desktop conventions users might be familiar with. Once that is done, we'll quickly dive into the various modules with a project-based approach to learning them. Our goal is to have course members be able to execute entry to intermediate level jobs on the flame by course completion. At the end of the term, an online certification exam will be available in order for you to test your knowledge.

This course is in the spirit of our most popular courses here at fxphd: doing some cool shots and providing the footage for you to work along on the shots yourself. Professor and Dean Mike Seymour will be compositing a bunch of shots and looking at a range of new features in the 2009 versions of Flint/Flame. In addition to compositing shots using Flame's built-in tools, this course will also use the Foundry's Furnace plugins to tackle the work.

Areas covered over the course of the weeks:

• Flame and HDR, grading and working in high bit depths
  
• Keying and working with Digitally captured material
  
• Wiretap Central
  
• Workflow Improvements
  
• 3D Tracking
  
• Updates on keying and tricks for better keys
  

Generally we will just work through shots we have done and along the way explain the new features of Flame while also using the extremely cool Furnace plugins. Mike and John have done entire courses in the past on Furnace and these new classes hit our favourite plugins and cool tricks to do with them. It will also explain some of the theory behind the tools.

Recent versions of Flame and Smoke have blurred the line between products, as Smoke gains BatchFX and Flame gains a more versatile editing timeline. This class is designed to be appealing to artists and editors alike, covering topics which are generally applicable across both products. The common thread throughout the term will be taking a look at expressions and how they can help you as an artist and editor. Professor and Dean John Montgomery will tackle a wide variety of workflow expressions -- ones any artist can use on a daily basis to simply changes to more esoteric, hard core maths which demonstrate both the power and limitations of the feature.

In addition to expressions, Montgomery will also be covering other aspects of the software such as infrastructure (Configuring for Open FS vs. Stonefs, Wiretap Central) and working with RED and XML/AAF.

This course will deal with some subjects and material that has been covered in other (now retired) fxphd courses such as the FLM201 expressions course. However, with changes in the 2009 and 2009X1 releases a lot has changed in the software, so we felt a need to retire the old create a new course. We realize many of you have taken our past offerings and will keep this in mind to bring new and useful material into this offering.

We've finally been able to tap fxguide co-founder Jeff Heusser to teach a course at fxphd, and he'll be showing work he did for the Red Dwarf: Back to Earth production. A long time flame user, Jeff has worked on commercials, feature films, TV shows, music videos and network promos in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. He will share his experience working in small shops to large as well as the freelance world.

Jeff will start out with an overview of setting up a project on flame, gleaned from his variety of experiences over the years. Next, he'll start tackling shots and share tricks for dealing with various compositing problems which come up on the jobs we do every day. Probably the most common shot of all in visual effects is the monitor replacement shot and this show is no different. With shots ranging from a fairly basic 8 monitor replacement (complete with depth of field and keying issues) and switches gears to the mother of all monitor shots -- 20+ televisions at all angles and depths, a camera move, varying levels of bluescreen, depth issues, and more. Next, several shots from another sequence will be tackled as we work through this job including topics such as green screen with RED footage, compositing tricks, a look at the next release of flame, and more

The course members will receive full quality footage to follow along and complete the composites themselves.

Matt Leonard leads our Fusion course at fxphd. His sphereVFX company has been doing Fusion training for years, including creating an intermediate level DVD for the app. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets.. He has set up and run animation divisions in five companies, overseen animators and compositors, worked as a CG Supervisor on various projects and has overseen live-action shoots.

Our new Fusion course follows directly on from the 100 level course helping artist to get even more out of eyeon’s flagship compositing system. Utilizing all the power of Fusion 6 including the much anticipated enhancements in its 3D environment, this course covers the essentials need to move forward as a proficient compositor. Topics covered by Professor Matt Leonard in this course include keying, tracking, roto, 2½D matte painting, plate cleanup, particles, 3D, motion graphics and the much talked about stereoscopic workflow.

Leonard's sphereVFX company has been doing Fusion training for years, including creating an intermediate level DVD for the app. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets..

Taught by Valerie Cripps, this new introductory course will give you an introduction to Houdini 9.5, getting you familiar with the interface, procedural workflow, and some basic fx principles. The software is vast and used in most of the big production houses for many types of film effects. Getting these basics is a great way to open the door to creating killer visual fx for film production. Over the course of the term, you will learn the building blocks necessary to create a foundation for further production lessons in Houdini with a mind to creating film effects. The course begins with a solid overview of the UI and application principles and then dives into a sample project for the rest of the term.

Cripps worked at Side Effects Software for 7 years before going into production in 2003. She has worked as a freelance fx and lighting artist at Sony Imageworks, CBS and Rhythm and Hues on films such as Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and Mummy 3, among many others, working on effects such as swarms of flying locusts, flames, crowds, snow, dust, clouds and more.

Members may use the Houdini Apprentice addition, which is available as a free download from the Side Effects web site. For only $99, a Starving Artist Edition of the software is also available which allows for watermark-free renders up to HD resolution -- perfect for adding a shot to your demo reel. Both versions of Houdini Apprentice include all of Houdini Master's features except for the ability to render to third party renderers. Files created using the Apprentice versions cannot be opened in the full version of the software. However, upon upgrading to the full version, Side Effects will do a one time conversion of all your non-commercial work to Houdini's commercial format.

Val Cripps and Lori Smith are teaching the course, two Houdini fx artists who have worked on their share of fx for film.  Val will be presenting the class, and Lori will be working with Val behind the scenes to get the material together.  The topic for HOUD201 is debris, a staple, bread and butter type of fx work that happens on many films and commercials, and that you will do at least once in your fx career. This could include pieces of glass kicked by a cg character's foot, for example in The Incredible Hulk, or bits of dirt crumbling down a roof from a character climbing, like some shots I worked on in They Came From Upstairs/Aliens in the Attic, or many other situations where debris helps set the CG into the live action, or must help to tell the story. 

We'll start with a general introduction and overview to these types of effects and dynamics in Houdini, and then we'll complete a simple shot with debris flying into the scene, much like fx work that Lori did on Pirates of the Caribbean at Digital Domain.  This will include traditional and procedural modeling techniques with instancing, techniques and tricks for DOPs (dynamic operators), POPs,  (particle operators) and of course, some shading, rendering and compositing to get everything layered together.

Cripps worked at Side Effects Software for 7 years before going into production in 2003. She has worked as a freelance fx and lighting artist at Sony Imageworks, CBS and Rhythm and Hues on films such as Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and Mummy 3, among many others, working on effects such as swarms of flying locusts, flames, crowds, snow, dust, clouds and more. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Visualization from Mississippi State University in 1997.

Smith has worked in CG for 4 years at Digital Domain and 1 year at Rhythm and Hues. During this time she worked on commercials and films such as Aeon Flux, Flags of Our Father, Pirates 3, Speed Racer, Mummy 3, Cirque du Freak and Land of the Lost as a technical director and fx artist.  She received her Master of Science in Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M University in 2003.

In one of the most exciting courses ever in our production stream, we work with Adelaide based Anifex. Formed in 1985 by Richard Chataway and Michael Cusack, Anifex is one of Australia's leading animation companies. The company has long maintained a reputation for producing some of the world's finest commercial animation. In addition to its work in advertising, which has earned the company many national and international awards, Anifex has also produced several acclaimed short films. With an experienced production team and world class facilities, Anifex has an amazing collection of talent and equipment including motion control.

We will also visit some of the world's leading model shops and look at general miniature photography. Shot primarily on location at the film studios, this course will provide you with the fundamentals, process and the tricks & tips of stop frame animation and miniatures.

Welcome to the world of planar tracking. David Blum’s course will show you from the ground up how to use mocha to get accurate tracks without relying on traditional tracking marks (feature tracking) and how to export that data to AE. Mocha is another great tool to put in your box. You’ll also learn a much easier way to perform rotoscoping including the use of the mocha Shape plug in for AE CS4. Each of the lessons will build from the previous one and will include practical tips and applications using alphas, embedded mattes, edge controls, off screen, and on screen tracking examples. This is the perfect class to get you into Mokey, Motor, and Monet.

The best way to learn any software is to use it, so this course will be heavily project based. Blum,a part-time instructor at the Art Institute of Phoenix, has been teaching and training artists how to use planar tracking for the last five years with great results. Blum will be covering the interface as tracks are solved, so you get the “feel” of the software from the first lesson. It’s not as easy as it looks. Having spent over a decade feature tracking, Blum will show why planar tracking requires a complete change in the dynamics of how to solve a shot. It will take you a little while to get over the “hump” but the reward is worth it. Over the last six years, he’s relied almost exclusively on the Imagineer planar tracker to solve both the easy and the tough shots.

David Blum has been involved in high-end post production for years. As Senior Editor at Varitel Video in Los Angeles, he created the first digital laboratory in Los Angeles. In the early 2000’s Blum worked on films including “Charlies Angels”, “Matrix”, and “Seabiscuit”. In 2004, Mr. Blum opened a new office of his five year old company, Catalyst FX, in Phoenix. The visual effects and post production company combines design, supervision, and implementation. He also supervises DI workflows from acquisition to final conform and has been involved in over 15 independent features both in Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Mocha in various flavors (standalone, After Effects, Final Cut) will be available to fxphd members over the VPN.

This course will teach techniques and concepts for rendering realistic, physically based CG elements in a visual effects context (i.e. for integration into live action shots). As it is a hands-on course in using Mental Ray to do these things, it will start with a fundamental treatment of everything from light and pixels through to cameras, response curves and compositing, as well as "learning to see". The course will be performed using the 3ds Max application, but most things apply to Maya and Softimage as well.

Professor Hakan 'Zap' Andersson has been working as "Shader Wizard" at mental images since 2004 and is the author of numerous mental ray shaders, such as the subsurface/skin shaders, the car paint shader, as well as the architectural and production shader libraries. Originally educated as an Engineer in Electronics, Zap's passion for computer graphics caused his graduation year "special project" to be an actual hand-built and hand-wired graphics card, for which he wrote his first ray tracer. Today Zap spends his days (and nights) writing shaders, documentation and tutorials for mental ray, and sometimes makes presentations at user events and conventions, as well as maintains a mental ray tips blog mentalraytips.blogspot.com.

This course, taught by Geoff Tobin, aims to give an introduction to the inner workings of Massive from the ground up, introducing core concepts such as fuzzy logic and how it relates to creating an AI brain for a Massive agent. In order to demonstrate each of the aspects of Massive we'll develop a vehicle agent and show how a simple traffic simulation can be created. Massive is the artificial-life crowd simulation software developed for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and used on major motion pictures, TV shows and commercials.

Tobin is a Lead Massive TD working at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. He started working in the industry in 1993 as an animator using SideFX Prisms, Alias PowerAnimator and Maya. Geoff has been working with Massive since 2000 and was involved with its early development in creating the crowd scenes for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has since used Massive in motion pictures such as I-Robot, King Kong, X-Men 3, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia and The Day the Earth stood still.

Geoff Tobin returns to take this follow up to the introductory MSV101 course. While the 100 level course gave an overview of the Massive software, this course will cover the pipeline and workflow for setting up a typical Massive shot. From planning the mocap sessions and importing and processing the motion through to designing the brains, running the sims and finally rendering with a Renderman compliant renderer. It will also cover advanced features such as dynamics and cloth as well as integration with other software such as Maya.

Massive is the artificial-life crowd simulation software developed for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and used on major motion pictures, TV shows and commercials.

Tobin is a Lead Massive TD working at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. He started working in the industry in 1993 as an animator using SideFX Prisms, Alias PowerAnimator and Maya. Geoff has been working with Massive since 2000 and was involved with its early development in creating the crowd scenes for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has since used Massive in motion pictures such as I-Robot, King Kong, X-Men 3, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia and The Day the Earth stood still.

This course aims to provide a basis for Maths for the Artist that says "If I'd known Maths would have been central to effects and animation I would have paid attention in school!" Mike Seymour works through the major areas of maths that are useful to understand for visual effects and animation. This really is a maths course, teaching you both actual maths and the principles of areas of maths in more advanced areas. The aim is to equip you with the tools you need and to demystify the jargon - so you can understand the principles and approaches we use maths for everyday in production and post.

This course, taught by Matt Leonard, is going to be slightly different from our other Maya offerings because we’re going to be working alongside a new and very exciting project called ‘Moving Day’. This short film is being directed by award wining director Jason Wingrove.  ‘Moving Day’ tells the story of a young girl and her fight against the fairies who inhabit the garden of her new home.  Our short film is literally being produced throughout the term and we’ll have first hand experience of working in post during a live project.  

From the outset we will be discussing the post workflow, file and image formats, storyboards, and how we’ll be taking the shots through to completion.  Very quickly we’ll be in the full flow of production covering the modeling of fairy wings, rigging and photo-real shader and lighting setups.  Once background plates start to be fed through we will be tracking the live action fairies with a view to attaching our CG wings to them, getting the animation underway and the shots rendered in multipass ready to move on to compositing.  Once we have shot approval from the Visual Effects Supervisor, our own Mike Seymour, we’ll move into compositing the CG elements seamlessly into the live action backgrounds and getting the finished shots delivered.

Our main 3D software will be Maya 2010 which gives us access now to both Matchmover and Maya Composite (Toxik). We’ll also be using Photoshop,  PFTrack and Nuke 5.2, our main compositing system.

Leonard is especially looking forward to this term because of the unique nature of this course.  As a member you will have the opportunity to work on a live project and be involved not only in producing real elements and shots but also having your say in how we progress though the production. There is not a week to week outline specifically because we will be working in a more fluid non-linear fashion but by the end of the term we will have produced some amazing shots for this new and exciting project.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 17 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has been involved in setting up post production departments, overseeing small teams of animators and compositors, along with acting as CG Supervisor on a number of projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk and eyeon, had various articles published in magazine and journals and has beta tested Maya, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own company, Sphere VFX, which is based in the UK.

fxphd's popular camera tracking specialist Victor Wolansky teaches this course using PFTrack version 5 in production situations. The reality of post production compositing and visual effects is that an artist is often called upon to use several tools over the course of a job. Even at large facilities where artists' work is incredibly specialized, being familiar with workflows and other applications is incredibly helpful -- knowledge is power. That's where this course comes in.

Throughout the term, Wolansky will cover tracking situations in the latest release of PFTrack. But in addition, for several of the shots, he'll not solve the camera, but spend several classes taking the scene into other applications and finish them off. This might include doing previs in Flame, compositing in After Effects, or using 3DSMax to model, animate, and render. One project for the term will be sharing work he did for a client, creating a fighter jet fly through a cloud scene. He started by tracking the camera in PFTrack and then took the track into Flame where he could quickly and interactively animate the jet during a session supervised by the director. Next, he exported that data and did the final rendering in 3DSMax before compositing the footage.

PFTrack version 5 also introduced new features such as stereoscopic tracking and reference frames, which will be covered during the term. Members will have access to stereo footage filmed specifically for this course -- and Wolansky will solve the camera and use that data to generate 3D renders. As always, The Pixel Farm has been kind enough to provide access to their software via our secure VPN. The software is only to be used for educational purposes or building shots for a personal (individual) demo reel.

The specific class outline and schedule is dependent upon the projects -- rest assured that members who have taken Wolansky's courses in the past have not been disappointed.

Note: this course is taught on PFTrack 5. Victor Wolansky's tracking courses have been perennial favorites at fxphd. In his new advanced course, he’ll be covering many high level issues which come up during production. For instance, he’ll take a look at dealing with lens distortion - a big problem which is sometimes overlooked. Bad tracks can often be attributed to a bad lens distortion correction and he’ll show you how to avoid these pitfalls.

The course will also include different approaches on how to set the workflow to work with lens distortion and CG, fixing the BG and tracking, fixing the FOV after tracking, and more. Rolling shutter is a big problem of many of the popular new digital cameras, and Wolansky will work through how to deal with the issue. The course will also work with stereo footage and look at the advantage of the extra parallax provided by this footage. He’ll also include some face tracking, object placing, and much more over the course of the term.

Victor’s classes have always been well received at fxphd and this one should be no exception.

There are a lot of aspects to photography, so we have decided to make it commercial and focus on all sorts of everyday issues.

Professional photographer Tim Wheeler will show how to shoot high-end professional photographs.

We are joined by Steve Anderson who will focus on photography for VFX artists. The course will cover generating textures, HDR, shooting for matte paintings, timelaspe, how to photography normal mattes, and much more. This terms focus is really on specialist photography and showing how a DSLR can be the number one tool for a VFX supervisor on set. If you do on set work and provide assets to other members of your team this course will show you a number of ways to provide better material and speed up both workflows and render times on larger projects.

Steve is a highly award visual effects supervisor with a very strong 3D background. Many of the classes will be relevant to people with 3D skills, as well as 2D. Steve is also a very accomplished stills photographer in his own right.

Just over a year and half ago, Liz Tate and Jim Annerino opened up their new boutique editing facility Hootenanny. They had previously worked at Avenue Edit, at one time Chicago’s largest post house and felt it was a good time to strike out on their own. One could argue that it was one of the most difficult times to start a new business, considering the worldwide economic downturn. However, the business thrived due to their creative strengths in addition to the smart ways they structured their new venture.

This course will examine how Tate and Annerino formed their business, starting from the early days of planning and budgeting though their first year of business and need to move to a new facility after only 18 months. The majority of the course will be discussion based as they share their personal insights, trials and tribulations, and suggestions that they’ve learned over the last year. If you’re not looking to build your own facility, this course will give you valuable insight in how the business works from the perspective of owner-artists.

This course provides the type of perspective that you can only get at fxphd -- real world experience with the desire to share knowledge with others.

How to understand and shoot with the RED camera. We will explore the theory and practice of shooting with the RED, discuss how the Mysterium sensor works and how to get the most out of it, and test the RED lenses. We'll also examine what .r3d files are, how they are encoded, rate and explore recording media, and compare RED with other common capture tools and show how to use it on set and show how to use the latest RED software builds and versions. This course would be ideal if you have just gotten or are about to get a RED camera.

Note: This course replaces RED 201 which will no longer be repeated. It contains some footage from the previous RED 202 course, but is primarily new footage

In this course we will explore the new EPIC camera. Stu Maschwitz will anchor the course, which was filmed on location on New Zealand\'s beautiful South Island. With some help from Mike Seymour the course shows how this new camera performs in variety of situations from helicopters, cars, sliders, boats and even 70km/hr through the NZ forest on wires.

While this course will focus on production issues, it will also include some key post-production approaches, as they are released during the term. As most of you know, fxphd had RED ONE #22, and we are really proud to be the first training company in the world to get to work with the EPIC.

Our Introduction to SynthEyes course got members up and running in the software as well as being able to address common problems that come up in post. This course will build upon the knowledge and tackle trickier and more complex tracks in SynthEyes than were addressed in the 101 course. Taught by our fxphd tracking expert Victor Wolansky, he'll dive into more detail in how to make sure you get the most accurate track possible and minimize camera drifting.

This course will also support the Advanced After Effects 302 course, providing 3D tracks for use in the main project for the term.

Each week, Ron Brinkmann and Mike Seymour explore the fundamentals of visual effects compositing. Brinkmann is well known throughout the industry; a visual effects supervisor who co-founded Nothing Real and helped create Shake. More recently he has served as an advisor on The Foundry's Nuke compositing software. He is author of the recently released second edition of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing (Morgan Kaufmann). This book forms the foundation of the course, and the weekly discussions expand upon the principles found in the text.

This course, taught by Daniel Buck, runs through the basics of V-Ray, from lights, to shaders, to render settings and a few optimization tips. Buck's professional career has been vehicle related, so the course will focus more on vehicle related things than other things, since that's his specialty. He will, however, present basic principals so that the knowledge gained applies to other things, not just purely vehicle related issues.

Buck will assume that course participants have at least basic knowledge of Maya, and preferably some knowledge of lighting and shaders in general. No advanced knowledge of any other rendering software is necessary, but for those that do, Buck will go through a few areas where V-Ray differs from other rendering software. He will be using Maya during the term, but operations are very similar between 3dsMax and Maya. It renders identically, and all the options and settings are very similar...the differences are in how you apply properties and find the settings.

The course will focus on the creation and manipulation of lights and shaders, as well as some basic V-Ray settings. It won't get into to much of the technical nuts and bolts of V-Ray, just giving practical approaches to using the renderer. Ultimately the content will involve setting up a scene where we are creating shaders and lighting for a vehicle. Global illumination will not be covered very much in this lesson, as the main focus will be lights and shaders, as well as touching on basic render settings.

Professor Daniel Buck is located in Los Angeles and has worked at Sway, Method, and currently at Digital Domain. He is a specialist in look development and shaders. More info about Daniel can be found at his web site.

This production-centric course will explore a variety of lighting techniques, and how to get the most out of XSI's lighting tools. The first half of the course will focus primarily on the technical skills required to light a shot, while the second half will apply these skills to real world scenarios and explore ways to enhance storytelling through lighting. The class will be taught by Lucas Martell, a freelance visual effects artist best known for his video podcast about the making of his animated short film "Pigeon: Impossible."

Lucas Martell returns with his second course, this time covering production concepts using XSI. The primary objective of the class is to introduce some of the more technical aspects in a way that artists can immediately and confidently take advantage of. The course begins by discussing rigging, but in a way that's designed to ease post-grads into scripting, expressions, and eventually lead into the second half of the term which applies the same concepts to the visual programming nature of ICE. Along the way we'll also discuss pipeline considerations, including custom tools to help speed up production, as well as some useful tips for taking control of simulations. The class is aimed at a wide range of people, from younger students who generally have not dealt with some of these higher-level issues, to experienced artists who could benefit from a more intricate knowledge of Softimage's inner workings.

Lucas Martell is a freelance animator who recently completed the 5-year production cycle on his short film "Pigeon: Impossible." In addition to his own projects, he has taught through the training site: fxphd and is widely known for his weekly podcast that chronicles the techniques and obstacles he's faced throughout the course of producing his films.