This course works through a live action compositing shot in After Effects, combining greenscreen footage, digital matte painting files, and other elements. City Environment Compositing in After Effects is taught by Kirill Pleshakov and utilizes a scene from the Russian short film "Something for Nothing" and includes over 5GB of source files. The scene may be used for learning and, with the permission of Kirill (contact information is in the course), used on your reel.

The course starts with Kirill sharing his organizational structure for projects and then works he works his way through the shot. Along the way, like with most comps, he solves numerous problems with source material and elements in order to create the final shot. It's certainly no "import your layers and hit render" kind of course.

course syllabus

Adjusting the incomplete city matte painting elements.

Compositing of the city matte painting, matching it with live action footage, and using link expressions to speed up compositing.

Foreground actor extraction, compositing of the boundary.

Animating the matte painting elements for realism, adding final details.

Multi-machine rendering using After Effects Render Engine and the final polishing of the shot.