Compositing an Alien Portal in NUKE
2h 21mIntermediate2015-10-14
Authors
Steve Wright
Senior Visual Effects Compositing Artist
Course details
Practice your NUKE compositing skills while you build something truly out of this world: an alien portal. In this project, VFX compositing guru Steve Wright uses footage shot with a RED camera, a CG-rendered character, and a matte painting—assets included with the exercise files. He composites the character into the scene, and then uses camera tracking to create a solve for laying in the portal and portal rays—effects created from scratch with NUKE's Noise node. Finally, he shows how to color correct the shot and add interactive lighting effects.
Each step of the process is rich in valuable production techniques, but is best for artists who are already familiar with NUKE. For more training on the basics, see Nuke X Essential Training.
Learning objectives
Compositing the alien character
Creating holdout mattes
Camera tracking
Animating the portal rays
3D rendering the effects
Adding interactive lighting
Animating a flashing light
Finishing a NUKE composite
Each step of the process is rich in valuable production techniques, but is best for artists who are already familiar with NUKE. For more training on the basics, see Nuke X Essential Training.
Learning objectives
Compositing the alien character
Creating holdout mattes
Camera tracking
Animating the portal rays
3D rendering the effects
Adding interactive lighting
Animating a flashing light
Finishing a NUKE composite
Skills covered
NukeThe FoundryCompositingVisual EffectsMotion Graphics and VFXProject
Concepts
0. Introduction
- 01 - Welcome
- 02 - Using the exercise files
1. Mantis Layers
- 03 - Compositing the mantis
- 04 - Adding the mantis shadows
- 05 - Pillar holdout matte
2. Camera Tracking
- 06 - Camera tracking preparations
- 07 - Camera tracking
- 08 - Placing the line-up card
3. Portal Rays
- 09 - Creating the portal ray animation
- 10 - 3D render of the portal rays
- 11 - Adding gravity waves
4. Portal
- 12 - Creating the inner ring animation
- 13 - Creating the outer ring animation
- 14 - Adding the portal city
- 15 - 3D render of the portal effect
- 16 - Trimming the portal to the ground
5. Interactive Lighting
- 17 - Creating a high-density point cloud
- 18 - Lining up the pillar card
- 19 - Creating a stabilized preview
- 20 - Creating the pillar masks
- 21 - Adding the pillar lighting
- 22 - Adding the ground glow
6. Flashing Red Light
- 23 - Creating the flashing light animation
- 24 - Flashing light on the mantis
- 25 - Animating the flashes
7. Finishing the Shot
- 26 - Final mantis color and glow effects
- 27 - Adding the blue ceiling light
- 28 - Final touches