Week 1 - Introduction

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Hello all and welcome to my blog for "Perfecting the Look".

This module introduces us to the world of Visual Effects (VFX) and the usage of industry standard tools. This module is taught by Jamie Bhalla.

This week we started using Nuke and learnt its basic functions like how to open the software, save the file, how to organise your assets in your folder.

Let us first see what Nuke is, it is a node-based digital compositing and visual effects application used for television and film post -production.

After starting Nuke we used the assets given to us from a shared directory. The first thing I did was to go to project settings to set up the name for my project, frame range, frame rate, and default full and proxy resolution format.

For the frame range I set it to 100, for the full size format I changed to "hd_1080 1920x1080" to produce the size screen for my footage as shown below, at the bottom of the screen on the node graph I dragged and dropped the asset files, Maya files, recorded footage and still imagery to set up the new film.


After bringing all the assets and the footage to nuke, I tried to colour correct the cg asset i.e. Wall-E using the node ColourCorrect - is used to make quick adjustments to contrast, gamma, gain, and offset. I set the CG asset near the phone by using the node called Transform - a convenient way to move objects around in the 3D workspace.

In order for the asset placed in the footage to look real, I tried to track the asset using the Tracker node - allows you to extract animation data from the position, rotation, and size of an image. Used about 7 tracking points and then averaged the track. After tracking the asset I then created a Transform (Match-Move).

Afterwards, I adjusted all the assets, footage, still image along with the functions across the node graph, I then had to re arrange my node tree so all the assets, functions are clearly displayed and easier to work with, Also organising the tree having the functions displayed clearly helped me to gain a better understanding of the composite I have been building together.


Location: Kingston upon Thames, UK

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