Need to go step higher

[Eugene Perepletchikov]

Hey man.

I personally think that the best way to learn these things is to go straight into it yourself. After doing tutorials and reading all sorts of materials for 2 years, you should be familiar (at least in theory) with the techniques used in these productions. Shooting techniques, keying, matching camera moves/lighting, colour grading, and the numerous other elements of compositing.

After you attempt to create a sequence of complex effects, tricky composites, or even an effective short film, through mistakes you learn the importance of planning ahead, and things like continuity and timing etc…

I have also only being studying multimedia for 2 years, but by pushing myself further and further to create really complex stuff I have learned a lot. Get a lost of shoots under your belt and things start to make sense. This year I am finishing a 7 minute short film with heavy visual effects and compositing that will be submitted to numerous film festivals like Resfest.

In the end, the whole process is a matter of planning and problem solving. There can always be a technical solution found to a problem by simply breaking up the problem into its components, and logically thinking things out.

This might not help you whatsoever, but my experience has been that you can read or watch someone do something a million times, but until you actually go and do it yourself, you will still have no clue.

Good luck mate, and sorry about the long rant!

[Evrard Blom]

Hi Zhenka,

Everything you said is pure truth mate, i appreciate your words thank you.

The thing is, my ambitions is really high, i can tell you iam not feeling shy to say that i wanna be able to reproduce effects like the one you can watch in movies like star wars. These studios like INDUSTRIAL LIGHT+MAGIC (ILM) that used maya and compositing to create some sequences most hide secrets.

I was reading a book like the alias/wavefront “the art of maya”. I jumped over my chair when i saw in the table of content that they were going to describe the star wars I as a showcase. Here goes an exerpt when they were “showing” how the tools were used to achieve a complex scene were crowds were battling:

“The plug-in…was used to animate crowds of people, robots, and aliens. This plug-in made use of particles to drive the motion of characters along the ground. Intelligence was added using scripts and expressions so that particle crowd reacted in realistic manner. “carrots” and “skunks” were added to attract and repel the characters, while dynamic rules instructed the particles to make friends, to climb stairs, walk through a doorway, or attack an opposing way…”

Now mate you can understand how i need more specifics before i could “try” anything by myself. I need for instance to be able to have a complete book/DVD/interviews about what these plug-in, intelligence, carrots, skunks, dynamics, expressions, etc, actualy are. I could sure end up finding by myself, but a good timely info could help speed-up findings. You can end up find out how the nasa is launching those rockets in the sky, but a shortcut would be to simply ask/buy the infos. Why remake the wheel all the time?

Thats where you can understand my searches.

[Eugene Perepletchikov]

hehehe fair enough evrard. It sounds like most of the real technical queries you have concern complicated 3D procedures. In this department it is absolutely fair enough that you want detailed info as this stuff goes a long way beyond the complexity level of compositing. You should probably try and post the same question on some 3D forums like cgsociety or something. I agree that this stuff is already a lot more complex, involving heavy coding and use of node trees etc…

My only suggestion is that if you think that you are more passionate about compositing/directing/cinematography or something, that you might try and find a specialized 3D artist to collaborate with. I have faced something similair this year, where i have decided to do all the Maya stuff myself, creating 9 different environments and some simple dynamics for compositing for my film. In the future though, i think i might out source 3D artists who can probably produce better results quicker.

If you specifically want to create crazy visual effects yourself using Maya dynamics, then you should really specialize in that, and like you are trying to do now, find as much advance material as you can. I guess all i’m trying to say is that you can’t specialize in like 10 different fields and do it all yourself, you are only human!

Cheers mate

[Alexander Gao]

Hi,
I’m a high school senior, and I’d also like to end up somewhere ILM eventually, working on FX. So, does anyone have any suggestions as to where to go to college, and what to study? Note: I’m NOT looking for a an FX school, but rather a major university, such as USC or UM, etc.

Also, how hard would you say it would be to land a job at ILM, and what do they look for?

Alexander Gao

“When the revolution happens, I’ll be leading it.”

[Steve Roberts]

You need a great reel and great animation skills. A great eye. A specialization wouldn’t hurt: great lighting, great modelling, great animation, great compositing. Skill in at least one 3D package.

https://www.animationarena.com/cg-school.html
https://www.animationarena.com/animation-jobs.html

A degree is irrelevant. A reel is everything. If you get a great reel from going to University, great. If it comes from self-study, great.

For ILM, study these sites. Get to know the company well. Know what they do and what they use, so you can know what they need.
https://www.ilmfan.com/main/
https://www.ilm.com/employment.html

Be prepared to intern, that is, work for free.

[Alexander Gao]

Thanks a ton.

[Evrard Blom]

Hey Zhenka, i have to thank you really. I went to the cgsociety and in betwen the ads guess what i found out:

https://www.ballisticpublishing.com/books/dartiste_concept_art/

Thats exactly the kind of stuffs iam talking about 🙂

Anyone knows where i can buy more like this or better, please don’t hesitate to give out the links or references.