Compositing an Animated Set Extension in NUKEX
In this series of tutorials, we are going to composite a stylized post-apocalyptic environment shot. Software required: NUKEX 7.0 V6, After Effects CS5, Optical Flares Plug-In.
What you'll learn
In this series of tutorials we are going to composite a stylized post-apocalyptic environment shot. We will set up an environment scene in NUKE's 3D space with our matte painting asset. To bring it to life, we will add footage and elements to our shot and also create atmospherics with NUKE's particle system. We will venture briefly into After Effects to use the Optical Flares plug-in to create lens flare elements. We will also look at camera effects like bloom, lens distortion, vignette, and chromatic aberration. Finally, we will go over some tips for finishing off your shot. The main purpose of this tutorial will be to discuss and show some basic compositing workflows, but also to look at some specific tips and techniques to help you take an environment or set extension shot from start to finish. Software required: NUKEX 7.0 V6, After Effects CS5, Optical Flares Plug-In.
Table of contents
- A Look at Our Matte Painting Asset 4m
- Adding Animation to the Clouds 16m
- Grading, Sharpening, and Removing Highlights 17m
- Tweaking Our Foreground Matte Painting 16m
- Setting up a 3D Projection 12m
- Creating a Separate Projection for Our Sky 13m
- Projecting a Building on a Card for Parallax 16m
- Introduction to Bicubics 15m
- Starting to Composite Our Background 16m
- Building a High Pass Sharpen 16m
- Integrating Our Foreground Matte Painting 16m
- Loading Our Filmed Footage 11m
- Keying Our Footage 10m
- Tweaking Edges and Warping Our Footage 15m
- Integrating Our Footage into Our Shot 15m
- Projecting Our Footage in 3D Space 11m
- Extending the Projected Matte with Footage 13m
- Merging and Blending Our Grass Patch 6m
- Starting to Add More Footage 19m
- Finishing Adding More Footage 12m
- Projecting Our Grass Patches 14m
- Continue with Setting up Our Particle System 14m
- Starting to Integrate Our Particles into Our Shot 15m
- Finishing Integration of Particles into Our Shot 7m
- Creating More Leaf Particle Layers 12m
- Adding Depth with More Leaf Particle Layers 9m
- Adding Atmospheric Dust from Footage 9m
- Integrating Bloom to Our Highlights 12m
- Adding a Lens Distortion and Vignette 12m
- Adding Chromatic Aberration and Grain 20m
- Creating a Lens Flare with the Optical Flares Plug-in 12m
- Final Tweaks and Discussing Our End Results 15m
About the author
Alexander Eriksson is a Freelance Compositor and Digital Artist currently working for both feature film and high end commercial projects. His most recent work include films like "Man of Steel", "Gravity" and upcoming films "The Seventh Son" and "300: Rise of an Empire". He has also worked recently on commercials for Pepsi and BBC. Alexander has a background studying programming in C# and C++ but switched to digital arts after studying concept art and graphic design. After discovering visual effe... more