Professional Digital Compositing: Essential Tools and Techniques

Chapter 1. Setting Up a Composite

"Education is important—I think people need to make sure that they're learning to be artists and not just learning tools."

——Gianni Aliotti, lead lighter, DreamWorksAnimation

Before beginning a composite, it's important to understand the fundamental differences between layer- and node-based compositing systems. A strong knowledge of common image resolutions and frame rates will allow you to make correct decisions. Once the fundamentals are grasped, setting up a compositing projector script becomes fairly easy. Since this book uses both After Effects and Nuke, you will be required to learn two different workflows. However, if you master both, you will be well suited for work in the feature animation, visual effects, and commercial production industries. To add perspective to the lessons, professional compositing examples are included. In addition, the first 3 of 19 interviews with professional compositing supervisors, lead compositors, and compositing experts are added at the end of this chapter. Two tutorials are also provided to get you started in After Effects and Nuke

Compositing Challenge

Digital compositing is the process of digitally assembling multiple images or image sequences into a single piece of motion picture or digital video footage. The goal ...