Enter a World of VFX - Make a Difference!
Dartanbeck
Posts: 21,332
Enter the Amazing World of VFX
Allen McKay* is offering an incredible chance for anyone whom might be even the slightest bit interested in Visual Effects from a Professional Hollywood perspective.
Here's his offer:
Now, with the upcoming visual effects training series, have your say and share your input on what would make a 'kick ass, visual effects shot!'
This will be an opportunity to have your say on what YOU want to see in the upcoming training coming out in the next few weeks, with this highly interactive experience.
It's time for YOU to choose your own adventure!
Either submit your idea - or simply sign up to participate in this training
Here's the deal - For the next week until November 30 I want YOU to submit your ideas of what you want to see in this visual effects shot.
This is your opportunity to submit your ideas - whether it be a tornado, asteroid, nuclear explosion, WHATEVER you think would be cool. From there on November 30, we will vote on the top 10 ideas and the highest voted concept will then be turned into a training series.
So YOU CHOOSE the concept, of what you want to see happen. After we all vote - there will be a massive training series created from start to finish as Allan goes through creating the visual effects shot from scratch, documenting the entire process as he goes. So this is a chance to be part of this highly interactive experience from the ground level!
WHAT THIS INCLUDES:
- RAW HD Footage - Get access to the HD footage shot on RED Epic Dragon 6K!
- HDRI Assets - Also download the HDRI asset
- Camera Tracked Scene - Download the camera tracked scene file both as FBX and .Max File!
- Scene file contains all the buildings - Each of the buildings has been professionally modeled with dynamics/destruction in mind
- Access to the entire free training series - Roughly 10-15 hours of high-end visual effects training
- Check the next page for additional bonuses: The VFX Supervisor Toolkit, 10x Your Career Video Series
- Also the opportunity to hang out with Allan McKay, Ash Thorp, Neil Blevins, Dan Roarty and Ryan Church in Paris!
- And So Much More...
So go ahead and Click This Link to watch his video. Check out the footage we're looking at applying something special to, and give an idea on what you think would be a cool Visual Effects idea!
Godzilla stomping through buildings, a Gunship raining down napalm... you decide!
It's fun to participate in this sort of thing - and even if you don't have the time or inclination to get involved, at least you can be part of providing inspiration from your own taste and imagination - so Do It!!!
* About Allen McKay
Allan McKay is an Emmy award winning Visual Effects Supervisor and Technical Director in Hollywood with almost 20 years experience having worked for many leading studios.
Allan's Podcast is rated in the top 200 in the careers section of iTunes with over half a million downloads.
- Works For Studios: Industrial Light + Magic, Autodesk, Ubisoft, Activision, Pixomondo, Atomic Fiction, Sega, Catastrophic FX, Psyop, Prologue, Imaginary Forces, Encore Hollywood, Popular Mechanics, Prime Focus, Reel FX, Iloura, Realtime UK, Plastic Wax & Lucas Film
- Works on Films: Star Trek 2, Superman, Transformers 3, The Equalizer, Flight, The Last Airbender, 2012, Blade Trinity, DayBreakers, Metallica, Warcraft, Looper, Priest
- Works on Games: Bioshock, Half-Life, Halo, Call of Duty, Destiny, Prototype, Team Fortress 2
- Speaks at: SIGGRAPH, Autodesk University, FXPHD, Digital Tutors, Gnomon, CG Society
How about a Show Reel? You got it! Fasten your seatbelt and click play on This!!!
Join in on the fun and Cast your Idea!
Here's Allen's Website
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Comments
I remember when I first suggested some of what you wanted to do in your video was probably easier done in post production. You were a bit skeptical to say the least. ;-)
Now I think I created a monster! LOL!
Yup. As a matter of fact, I was totally bull-headed against it!
No Post Work
That was my modo! Created all effects I needed directly in the render!
While, sure, it's possible... it removes all of the control we get by using what actual filmmakers use.
With all of the technology filtering down through the pipeline, we have access to everything they've invented for this stuff last year - next year we'll get what they're using now... maybe earlier. I'm just exaggerating the time frame of it all - but we really do get their tools.
The stuff Allen uses on Hollywood production can all be bought by us - the consumer.
I already have a fairly good understanding of how to perform effects to create a lot of the stuff I see in his reel. But learning more only seems to improve the workflow and speed things up for me - making my production that much closer to getting done.
We just have to remember to do our homework or all of the training in the world disolves to distant memories of what we might have done!
So I'm grateful that I noticed this during my first VFX course. I was almost going to continue the class without worrying about the homework. Thankfully other classmates asked some questions that I wanted to answer, so I went in to do the homework. In doing so, I've realized that, while it all looks super-simple to do in the instructional video, actually doing it requires getting the tools from their homes and applying it, setting it up... you know... actually Doing it!
So now as I learn, I apply it to my work. I now have enough rendered animations to keep me busy putting these awesome techniques to use/practice - and then it sticks!
It's fun to see how far I've come. Now I'm looking forward to showing the difference.
It's been SO L O N G since I've put this test-shot movie together, without planning anyhting out, just testing myself as I learn Carrara
I still love watching it. It's kinda cool, I think.
I've come a long way since then. Learned a LOT of stuff in Carrara and out. Opened my mind to a LOT of stuff that I was so dead-set against or just afraid to try.
It's amazing how much of what I've learned really need to get credited to you (evilproducer) and Philip Staiger's YouTube videos obout Howler. Buying Howler and watching those video to figure how to use it - just as an art program - has turned my head forever. I had no idea how deeply I could get into Visual Effects using Howler - nor did I even realize that that's what I'd eventually be doing.
I guess I never put two and two together to discover how much even cartoons and animated films rely upon Visual Effects. And in learning Visual Effects, I've discovered that cartoons and animated features are pretty much all VFX! LOL
Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla, A Star Wars Story: Rogue One) has totally changed my perspective of things in this interview.
Love this guy!
A word from Allen:
Wow. Those of us who have entered this thing just got the first video and it's incredible!
I've been really busy working hard. Sorry for the absence.
I took a couple of hours off today to watch this first course video since they'll all expire December 29 from being free - so we gotta keep up or lose 'em!
The winning VFX subject from the vote is "Reverse Gravity", so we're hitting the buildings with a few giant beams, causing them to blast apart and rise up the beams into the sky.
He's demonstrating in 3DS Max using Thinking Particles and this first video spends most of its time showing us how to set things up as a working rig so that hooking stuff up for the rest of the shot will be most efficient.
I'm already crunching my mind on how to convert this stuff to a Carrara/Fusion workflow - HitFilm if I had the Pro version.
It's really a great session! Want to check it out? Come join us! :)
Good luck with Thinking Particles though, it's a beast in comparison to what Carrara can do
Dart, you may have been bull-headed, but I for one am glad you were.
Just getting in to Carrara, it was great (and has continued to be great) seeing exactly what Carrara can do, without assistance. For that reason, I love folks here who do everything in Carrara. It's an eye-opener.
Of course, the professional artist needs a wider vision, and tends to gravitate to tools which make the job easier and better. No argument there. And I look forward to see where the new training is taking you.
But, to me at least, there is still a niche for Carrara-only renders and animations,and I'm very happy that people are still doing them!
Is there an actual way to download these? The email says, "download this video" but it only looks like you can watch it. My connection at home is awful for video streaming, so downloading and watching it offline would be easier.
Thanks for recommending- looks like a great series.
Not without some third-party app or something. He explains that these are only "Free" for now, up until December 29 to be fair to those who are paying for the full course, which is a year long.
It's amazing how much I still do Only in Carrara. It's just so easy to do stuff in Carrara I tend to get as much done in Carrara as I can. Even when I need to do VFX to certain shots, I'm often using Carrara to make the extra elements I need to composite in. I also use multipass rendering to create masks for my VFX work.
Yeah... Carrara is the center of my universe.
Looks like my lunch hours will be booked for a while watching those, LOL. I got an hour into the first one. That intro was long and some of the 3DS Max stuff is over my head, but it's very intereresting.
And Carrara is on my to do list at some point. Have had it for a while, but still finding my way around DAZ and Poser at the moment. LOL
True. It's a cool system.
So when I was thinking of how to type up my feature request to Daz3d, I came up with answers on how I can get this stuff done in Carrara - not the same way, but fairly similar.
I do like how he sends things from one group to another, triggered by an event. Since the system is doing its stuff to each group (or not), by sending things from one group to another changes what happens to it at that time - which is very cool! I wish we could do that, but totally accept that I'm using software that's basically free compared to five grand up front plus one and a half grand per year for maintenance.
However, very similarly, Carrara has these wonderful modifiers and other goodies that are fully animatable. So while I need to use a different approach, the thought process of how to pull it off is refreshing and fun to learn from.
I'm also constantly being reminded of how much I need to start mastering the uses of PyCloid, PyCarrara, and PySwarm. These things will add a LOT to my particles kit in Carrara!
Dart where can I find out more about "PyCloid, PyCarrara, and PySwarm"? I've been wanting to start playing with partical emmitters in Carrara... sounds as the 3 Pys will give me added options and more functionality.
PyCarrara
PyCloid
PySwarm for PyCarrara