This course, taught by Lloyd Alvarez, will provide an introduction to the main scripting tools available in Adobe After Effects versions CS3 and above.  Scripting automates tedious tasks that can be done by hand in After Effects so a good working knowledge of After Effects is strongly recommended before taking this course.  After Effects can be scripted in ExtendScript (Adobe’s extended implementation of JavaScript.) on both mac and windows as well as Applescript on the mac and Visual Basic on Windows.  This  course will only cover ExtendScript because of its cross-platform nature and larger resource base due to its JavaScript foundation.

Teaching programming can be dreadfully boring so this course will aim to teach by example instead of by theory.  The course will cover basic scripting and programming concepts that will then be applied to several real scripts that will be created over the term.  The scripts that will be developed during the course will be chosen in part by the students so that they can be relevant and the students can participate in the problem solving necessary to successfully create them. 

Based in New York City, Lloyd Alvarez is a highly demanded multi-disciplinary freelancer, from art directing and design to compositing and animation.  Lloyd began scripting in After Effects to solve workflow problems for his freelance projects and soon began sharing them with the community starting with his very popular BG Renderer script.  He has since released several more very popular scripts and is now the curator of aescripts.com, which is the top destination for the best After Effects scripts from the top authors from around the globe.

Most of our intro courses are “100 level”, but due to the base level of After Effects knowledge needed for scripting, this course is targeted at the intermediate level.

Dive deep into the powerful world of motion graphics and visual effects using the go-to app After Effects, paired with tools from Red Giant. Frank's previous offering at fxphd was a hit with members, and this one is sure to be no exception.

This course is based around the type of work any mograph designer might be called upon to build: the creation of packaging and IDs for a broadcast network. The project for this course will be for a fictitious broadcast network, with design motifs revolving around the basic elements of water, fire, wind and earth. Using these themes, members will work towards creating dazzling visual effects and motion graphics in After Effects using the various tools available from Red Giant, including Trapcode Suite, Knoll Light Factory, Magic Bullet Looks and more. By popular request, the course will take the time to explore key mograph plugins such as Form and Particular, providing hard core tips and techniques that will help take intermediate users to an advanced skill level.

Harry is a designer, animator and product guru for Red Giant. You can see his numerous tutorials on RGTV at redgiantsoftware.com/videos. As freelancer, Harry has worked on numerous projects with clients such as Blur, Bl:nd, Digital Kitchen and more.

This course builds upon our extremely popular After Effects project-based courses, with a creative concept that has a bit of a laugh with some of Hollywood's current offerings. For this course, the profs and members will be creating effects, graphics, and animation for a :30 trailer promoting our fictional movie "Chutes and Ladders". As a stark giant to giant killer robots -- or battleships -- New York City is "invaded" by giant smiling cardboard cutout characters who build ladders between buildings and run slides to the street.

Leading the course is fxphd prof Danny Princz, who is serving as co-director of the project along with the The Diamond Brothers (Jason and Josh Diamond). The course will cover a variety of subjects during the term, starting out the actual shoot as well as a discussion about the concept, since it's the creative that drives everything else down the line. Next, Jason and Danny will work through the edit and talk about prepping the files for post.

Danny will be heading up the compositing for the course, but he's brought in some friends to help with the various tasks. Michelle Higa will work through the process of character animation. Instead of using a separate 3D program, she'll be working through how to work in After Effects with the most flexibility. She'll start by building a reusable character rig in After Effects and then work on animating the character for one or more of the scenes (as time allows). She'll also work through the caveats of working in AE, such as the various angles from which we'll see the characters. Also, Lloyd Alvarez will spend several classes creating the titles for the trailer as well.

Due to the wide scope of the "Chutes and Ladders" trailer, this project will also include a second course during the July12 term at fxphd. But even if you don't take the second course, you'll still get a variety of HD shots to work with this term that you can put on your reel.

Michelle Higa started her career in the animation trio Mixtape Club. During that time, Mixtape Club directed videos for Yeasayer and J Dilla, and produced commercials for Google and Showtime. The team won an ADC Young Guns award, a “Best Music Video” award at SXSW, and appearances on “Best of the Year” lists for MTV2 and Pitchfork.com. Since leaving Mixtape Club, Michelle has been working on interactive public artworks and served as the assistant editor at Motionographer.

Lloyd Alvarez is a highly demanded multi-disciplinary freelancer, from art directing and design to compositing and animation. Lloyd began scripting in After Effects to solve workflow problems for his freelance projects and soon began sharing them with the community starting with his very popular BG Renderer script. He has since released several more very popular scripts and is now the curator of aescripts.com, which is the destination for the best After Effects scripts from the top authors around the globe.

This term we return to our magazine style format where each week is covering a different aspect of the industry that we feel you will find helpful and informative as background to your daily work. The term will cover both interviews and some hands on effects work. We start the term with an in-depth catch up and interview with Paul Debevec of the ICT in California. Paul is a good friend to fxphd having features since term 1. Mike sits down with Paul to discuss the latest Lightstage X and the advances in facial relighting and scanning. These techniques have been recently used in Underworld and Journey 2. Mike and Paul geek out over the latest techniques and cutting edge research.

Later in the term we will be looking at composing various effect sequence from a couple of fxphd projects as well as discussing the newest developments unveiled at NAB in Las Vegas. These will include new optical flow and stereoscopic workflows.
As always we will have two BKD challenges and their reviews for all members, plus loads of material for you to download for your reel.

The Cinema4D 101 course will be a practical approach to learning Maxon's Cinema4D. The course will cover everything needed to obtain a solid foundation in using the application. From understanding the interface, to modeling using the built in primitive and NURBs objects. An exploration of lighting and material creation, through to animation techniques, use of expressions and rendering possibilities. Specifically aimed at new users to the application, some experience of 3D would be advantageous, although not essential. After completing this course, you will have an in-depth understanding of the workflow and techniques required to work with Cinema4D in a production environment.

Based in Sydney Australia, Tim Clapham is a multi-disciplinary animator and compositor. Evolving from a solid foundation in traditional animation using both Film and Video, Tim soon transitioned into the digital domain and has forged a solid career in the world of Motion Graphics. With over 11 years of industry experience, Tim is accomplished with many 3D animation and Digital Compositing applications.

This knowledge has been the bedrock of his many successful training courses as a Professor for fxphd and a continuing relationship with Maxon Computer where Tim has worked as a beta tester for many years, and also contributes tutorials to their online learning resource cineversity.

As the owner of Motion Graphics and Animation company Luxx, Tim is hands on with every project that the company produces. With a history of working with many global Advertising and Broadcast companies, the work Tim produces is both technically challenging whilst maintaining innovation and high quality.

This course will complement the C4D101 course and further develop your skillset when working with Maxon’s Cinema4D. Alongside the core Cinema4D concepts, the 102 course will include classes on using some of the popular modules available for Cinema4D, including Cloth, Sketch & Toon and MoGraph, as well as an introduction to using Bodypaint3D and understanding the concept of UV mapping and texture painting within the application. The classes will be both practical workshops and project based classes, further enhancing your experience of using the core Cinema4D application, Bodypaint3D and the available modules.

Tim Clapham is a multi-disciplinary animator and compositor and one of our members favorite profs. With over 11 years of industry experience, Clapham is an industry recognized expert in Cinema 4D and After Effects. As Company Director at Luxx in Sydney, Australia, Tim works with a wide range of global advertising and broadcast companies, producing world-class content that is both technically challenging and innovative.

Tim Clapham from Luxx returns with another course for Cinema4D and After Effects users. Primarily aimed at intermediate users, some knowledge of Cinema4D is definitely useful. However, Clapham is very thorough with his explanations and most competent users should be able to follow along without any problem.

The term is compiled from a selection of classes that were previously included in our C4D203 and C4D205 courses. Due to advances in the application and our industry in general, many of the techniques that Clapham covered have been superseded by superior features and methods. Therefore, we felt it was a good idea to remove the redundant and update the relevant. Clapham will be using Cinema4D release 13, although users of release 12 should also be able to follow the course. Although the emphasis is on working with Cinema4D, The course will certainly be dipping into After Effects from time to time, specifically to cover the workflow when transferring 3D information between Cinema4D and After Effects.

The updated and re-written classes discuss and explore lighting in Cinema4D, as well as multipass rendering and compositing in After Effects. The classes have also been updated to include the latest features of Cinema4D such as Linear Workflow and the Physical Renderer, as well as configuring your project settings in After Effects to ensure the correct composite. This course covers many useful features in Cinema4D such as MoGraph, Xpresso, Multipass Rendering, Lighting and Animation Techniques. Tim also covers smaller but incredibly important issues such as scene management, render optimisation and workflow.

This term Tom Gleeson returns and is joined by Mike Seymour for a camera production course that focuses on the technical side of film making. Each week the team will pick an area and discuss the technical issues associated and along the way show the newest cameras on the market. Rather than look at a different camera each week, the team will cover the technical topic and use several cameras to illustrate the key points. The topics include:

• High Speed Photography


• Underwater Photography (The world's newest and sharpest material ever!)


• Matching live action on a green screen, shooting interior and exterior greenscreen.


• Compression and Codecs (including sensor biases)


• Log, LUTs and workflows


• Filters and Variable NDs

The cameras will cover Canon to RED, Sony to Arri. The new cameras that will be used and tested include (but not limited to ) - the 5D Mk III, F65, the C300, Arri Alexa, RED Epic & RED Scarlet, plus some new cameras not yet public.

Plus each week the guys will flag a new and perhaps unusual lens - allowing you to see some really exceptional and rarely used lenses that might spark your thinking on any upcoming project. Where possible we will provide sample clips also. These will include lenses no longer in production and new cutting edge production lenses.

In this class, hosted by senior editor Liz Tate, we will investigate the theories and workflow of editing in the world of advertising post-production. Students will learn techniques for enhancing their editing skills in dialogue editing, sound design, pacing, and FX/design. By following a project from start to finish, the class will focus on the role and responsibilities of the editor in the post-process.

For the first time at fxphd, individual projects and critique will be integral to a course. Students will be given two editing projects to accomplish and critiques will be given as part of the classes. It's a great way to learn and we hope that a large number of members will take part in these assignments.

Liz Tate graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Radio/TV/Film. In her 20+ year career in editing, she has mentored more than a dozen assistant editors to help them polish their skills to become editors. She recently partnered to start her own post-production company, Hootenanny, in 2008. Past and present clients include American Express, Southwest Airlines, Crate&Barrel, JCPenney, and Reebok.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Flame, we're bringing in a variety of Flame (and Smoke) artists to share projects and knowledge which they find particularly interesting. So much has changed in the software over the last several years, sometimes the best way to see what you've missed is by watching others work. The course will feature five different artists over the duration of the term. Profs include Randy McEntee (The Mill, NYC), Brian Mulligan (WTHR-TV, Indianapolis), Victor Wolansky, and others.

More details coming soon...

Building upon our successful Craft of Editing series, The Craft of Color Grading looks to explore the world of the colorist and the craft of grading from an application-agnostic approach as much as possible. The lead prof who has helped develop the course is Chicago-based Craig Leffel, who has over 20 years of experience grading the top commercials finished in the city. He'll be helped along the way with some of his friends who are some of the top colorists based in the United States.

The goal of GRD201 is to tap Leffel's and the other colorists years of experience from both a creative standpoint as well as a practical standpoint. So we'll not only be covering how to make beautiful imagery, but also things such as how to deal with the often-conflicting viewpoints of dealing with divergent views from clients. They'll also be sharing some of their favorite grades they've seen from movies and other projects and crtically breaking them down and speaking about why they feel it's top work.

If you’re a CG artist who has always been curious about Houdini, or if you are just wanting to brush up on your core skills and learn new techniques for working in Houdini 12, this is the class for you. Taught by John Moncrief, this course we will cover the fundamentals of working with Houdini. You will first learn the basic concepts and work-flow of Houdini, then work through the different contexts of the software in more detail by creating specific effects and solving real world production problems.

The majority of the concepts for this course apply to any version of Houdini, however this course will be taught using Houdini12 with special focus on the work-flow techniques and improvements available in this new version. You can work through all of this course using the free Apprentice version of Houdini available at sidefx.com.

John started working in VFX over ten years ago and has experience in Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max, After Effects, Shake, Nuke, and just about every NLE you can think of. John just wrapped up 6 months working at Side Effects Software Inc. in Santa Monica where he created a library of Houdini training courses on FLIP fluids, DOPs and VOPs for industry professionals from various studios including Blizzard, Sony Entertainment and DreamWorks. He has one insane long-haired cat, horrible allergies, and is currently pursuing his Masters of Fine Art degree in Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design.

This intermediate (pushing advanced) level course discusses fluid effects in Houdini. Profs Jonathan Gilbert and John Moncrief will help members of the course become familiar with Houdini’s Dynamics Operators (DOPs) and the different fluid types: SPH, Voxel-Based and FLIP fluids. With this knowledge you will endeavor in a production oriented project to integrate a cg water fountain into a live action background plate. We will explore Houdini’s Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD) for collision detection, FLIP fluids for the bulk of the water effects, DOPs Forces for wind, foam and spray using some built in shelf tools (whitecaps) and lastly, lighting, shading, rendering and compositing the final image.

Gilbert is a freelance VFX artist with over six years of Houdini experience. He graduated with his MFA in 3D Animation and Visual Effects with a concentration in fluid dynamics from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He then worked at Side Effects Software Inc. building and teaching a series of basic and intermediate Pyro Effects classes in Santa Monica. More recently, Jonathan finished working on the last Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as a Technical Director at Gradient Effects. He also is currently a Professor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, building and teaching Advanced Houdini.

Moncrief started working in VFX over ten years ago and has experience in Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max, After Effects, Shake, and just about every NLE you can think of. John just wrapped up 6 months working at Side Effects Software Inc. in Santa Monica where he created a library of Houdini training courses on FLIP fluids, DOPs and VOPs for industry professionals from various studios including Blizzard, Sony Entertainment and DreamWorks. He has one insane long-haired cat, horrible allergies, and is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Art degree in Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta.

Our first ever course in Mari is designed to get everybody up to speed with this new and excitingly powerful 3D painting package from The Foundry. Mari is a great leap forward in professional texture painting by being both users friendly and capable of dealing with a staggering large amount of resolution. Professor Gareth Jensen been working with Mari for the past few years as it was developed at Weta Digital and has continued to use it at Double Negative where he currently works. fxphd members will have access to Mari on Linux via the fxphd VPN.

Jensen comes from a background of physical film effects including make-up/prosthetics and painting ranging from props through to miniatures. Mari allows him to take a similar approach to texturing a digital asset by automatically seaming multi-patch UV's giving a much more complete hands-on feel, similar to that of painting a physical model.

In this course we will be covering the basics to get you up and running, including a breakdown of the tools and palettes that you will find yourself most often using. We will be covering such great tools as paint through, heal/tow and the remarkable warping tools. We will going through the concept of Mari's shaders and channels system as well as its comprehensive masking options.

Over the course of the term we will be taking an asset from start to finish. f you work like Jensen you probably like using all the tools at your disposal so we will also show how Mari works easily with other packages. I will be going over basic process of working in conjunction with Nuke and also the wonderfully simple to use camera projection set up for all your Photoshop projections.

In Jensen's 10 years of experience within the film industry, he has had the opportunity to work for both physical effects as well as digital and even began his career as a creature actor for Lord of the Rings. Having previously studied make-up and prosthetics for film in New Zealand his role in the industry further progressed with the renowned Weta Workshop where he was involved in major productions such as King Kong, 30 Days of Night, District 9, Prince Caspian and more recently Avatar. Developing his skills amongst some of the best artists in the industry, Jensen has also trained as a creature and props painter and it was during the production of Avatar that he made the decision to expand his role into the digital world. Switching over to Weta Digital as a texture and look dev artist on Avatar, Jensen has been able to work with Mari during its development and has now used it for over 2 years and is continuing to use it within Double Negatives production pipeline. His background in physical effects has left him with a strong base understanding of how to paint realistic textures and being able to use Mari as his digital medium has made this transition a lot smoother.

In this term Gareth will be going into the application of Mari on a high resolution creature for film. He will be covering using Mari in conjunction with other packages and show how you can fit it into your work flow with relative ease. Gareth will be using Mari with Mudbox, Nuke and also show how you can easily use Mari textures in your MentalRay or Renderman set up at home. He will also be covering how to prepare high resolution textures in Photoshop for use in Mari. This will be a project based term showing Gareths process from texturing through to rendering.

The course goes into the techniques used in doing visual effects work with 3DS Max and its plugins - Thinking Particles, Rayfire, and FumeFX. Coming from a feature film production background, the focus is on quality and efficiency. It is a holistic view of the process - from planning, through fragmentation, rigid bodies, particles, fire/smoke, down to management and assembly.

Hristo Velev is an effects artist at Pixomondo, delivering FX for projects like '2012' and 'Sucker Punch'.

In this course, Hristo Velev will introduce you to the rich intricacies of creating a feature film level effects shot, in the challenging scenario of earthquake style ground collapse. We'll go all the way from planning and sharing experience through detailed multi level rigid body sims, volumetrics, debris secondaries, and to assembling and rendering everything that would make for happy. We'll employ 3DS Max, Thinking Particles, Rayfire and FumeFX in a process shaped by experience and efficiency.

Hristo is a feature film VFX artist, specializing in destruction with 3DS Max. Experienced in productions like '2012', 'Sucker Punch' and 'Red Tails', he shares the experience and lessons learned from large scale VFX production work.

Mocha has established itself as an essential part in many workflows, for getting fast and accurate tracking and shape data from challenging footage. This course focuses on a practical breakdown of various techniques for more challenging shots. We start with an examination of the most important tool in mocha - its planar tracker.

Building on this foundation we look at the flexibility of this data, with sharp stabilization, rotoshape creation and a 3D camera solve. To complete the tasks we will be taking trips into compositing apps to further the shot and demonstrate the wider workflow. All of the classes are based upon mini-projects; exactly the type of work you might be called upon to complete as an artist.

Ben Brownlee is a VFX artist, digital media specialist and instructor with 11 years of industry experience across a number of disciplines. He works extensively with leading Scandinavian fashion brands as co-owner of Husk Os and has worked on various broadcast, TVC and feature projects across the globe.

For our first environment modelling-centric course at fxphd, Wayne Robson will be covering the creation of the highly detailed cathedral interior of Durham Cathedral in England. Its final use is as background to fair number of green screen live action plates, so a photo real asset is needed. Robson will cover the creation , texturing and final lighting and materials using combination of Mudbox and 3DSMax. Although these apps are used, other applications can be used as well using the same or very similar methods to those shown. The course will show from how to break down and plan a highly complex model to the final model and renders themselves which can be then used along with tracking data in the final shot.

The course is for the vast part practical and targeted to the more advanced cg modeler. Whenever possible, Robson will show more than one way of achieving a goal so that the viewer has options when making models of their own when dealing with complex architectural forms such as the ones found in the cathedral interior of this course.

Robson is the only digital sculptor to receive the Autodesk Master award for Mudbox. He has worked as a freelance digital artist and taught 3D & digital sculpture around the world and has lectured at the Vienna science academy. He is the programmer behind 'MudWalker' and the 'Wayne's Vector Displacement Shader' and as a freelance artist his work can be seen in TV, Games and Film. Robson is also the Author of many DVD tutorials, books and articles on 3D and has give the Autodesk Masterclass on Mudbox in 2009 & 2010. He is also an Autodesk Authorised Developer and Publisher. He is also a beta tester for more 3d applications than it is possible to list here.

Mark Bowey returns with another Broadcast Design course. This course follows the creative process, via real-world examples, as a promo, packshot and teaser are designed for a TV Channel.

In co-operation with the BBC and Foxtel Television, the course shows the design and production workflow, as characters from the iconic TV show Doctor Who are integrated into a graphical broadcast package for UKTV’s The Greatest Doctor Who Weekend Of All Time.

The course includes design and live action segments, as well as looking at tips and tricks with guest Maya artist Mikey Tiong.

Footage is provided with the brief [working up your own packshot] over the last four classes.

Although the course covers After Effects, Illustrator and other applications, it is more focused on overall communication and design issues than individual software. Bowey is an experienced Art Director and motion designer, and has created graphical on-set sequences for several James Bond feature films, and award-winning TV title sequences. He currently works as an Art Director at Foxtel Design in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Bowey returns with a broadcast design course that looks at the psychology, styles and graphical expressions of the Sports Promo. In this course we will look across the board at the layers that comprise this broadcast stalwart, as well as create our own teasers and major promo, using hi-res studio sports footage specially shot with the Weisscam HS-2.

Mark Bowey is an Art Director and Motion Director/Designer whose work has won awards including a Daytime Emmy for 'Best Title Design' for 'The Upside Down Show', and Gold for 'Best Direction' at Promax ANZ 2011, for UKTV's 'Get Into Fridays' promo.
Until last year he headed up the creative at Foxtel Design in Sydney, where, among others, he created broadcast promos and design for the BBC, UKTV, and Foxtel's Olympics Unit. Prior to this he was Creative Director for Post, Film and Media Group Omnilab Media, and Digital Pictures Sydney.

Mark recently formed his new studio 'Motionia', and current work can be seen at vimeo.com/motionia

Tim Clapham returns with a brand new course aimed at motion graphic designers and animators. This term, it's a bit of a departure from Clapham's previous typical course structure as he will be taking you through the development and animation of a channel ident from the initial concept stage, right through to the final rendering and delivery part of the process. In a previous term at fxphd, members were invited to design a logo for a fictional TV channel. The chosen design is the logo we will be using for our ident.

The structure and workflow of this course will be similar to the typical studio workflow you would find when working on a real world production. Starting with design and concept, we then move on to discuss the shoot itself. Working with footage which was shot on the RED Epic, we will be choosing selects from our bin of clips and exploring various grade options within RED Cine. Next, we will take the selected clip into the animatic stage within Adobe After Effects, using this as a tool to block out our basic design and timing. Once the animatic is complete, the footage will be tracked and the 3D solution exported ready for match moving.

An important part of any production is the design process and this will be an integral part of the course. Alongside creating our animatic and completing technical tasks such as tracking and modelling, we will also be exploring design options throughout the production. We will be working with Adobe Illustrator to develop various designs and graphic features. Creating elements using 3D modelling and texturing techniques in Cinema4D. Bringing all of this together in the form of style frames which will be the foundation for the ident look, grade and overall feel.

The term will continue with elements being animated in both 2D and 3D. The indent will progress as the 3D multipass renders are output and the composite is developed. Finally, 2D graphic elements will be added and animated in post and the grading completed ready for final rendering.

Taught by Matt Leonard, this first of our two part introductory Maya curriculum is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or artists who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage but want to expand their software skills. The course will lay the groundwork by focusing on a single project called ‘A Robot’s Surf Shack’. We'll be cover modeling, animation, lighting, shaders and working with cameras along with rendering, render passes, and finally a small section covering compositing which will be done in Nuke. Throughout the term we'll be looking at many of the new features found in Maya 2012 including ‘Alembic’ I/O, the Camera Sequencer, the Node Editor, and ‘Ptex’ support.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 19 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk, The Foundry and eyeon Software and has had articles published in magazines and journals. He has worked as a beta tester for Maya, Mari, Mudbox, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own on-site training company in the UK and has trained artists from companies such as Double Negative, Ghost VFX, Dreamworks Animation and Framestore.

Taught by Matt Leonard, this Maya course is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or post-grads who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage but want to expand their software skills. It covers many new features of Maya 2012 and the Subscription Advantage Pack.

This course continues where MYA103 left off. We start by looking at character rigging and animation using the new Characterization Tool. We then move on to look at nDynamics (nParticles, nCloth) and Maya’s new Effects Assets. After break week we shift gears to look at Fur and Hair followed by Maya’s Fluid dynamics system and the new Liquid Simulations tool. Finally we finish up the term looking at the new Digital Molecular Matter plugin suite which can be used for various types of destruction effects.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 19 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk, The Foundry and eyeon Software and has had articles published in magazines and journals. He has worked as a beta tester for Maya, Mari, Mudbox, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own on-site training company in the UK and has trained artists from companies such as Double Negative, Ghost VFX, Dreamworks Animation and Framestore.

This course, taught by Robert Harrington, will cover lighting, shading and multi-pass rendering in Maya and mental ray. It will work directly with what Russell Dodgson will be doing this term in Nuke, using the same plates and providing all renders he wants. We too will be dabbling in Nuke, finding out why its good for us lighters in a way that Photoshop isn't.

This course will reflect the production reality where you are part of a pipeline. The modelling, UV'ing and animating will have been prepared already, meaning our time is focused on getting the lighting and shading correct, and providing compositing with the render-passes they need. Along the way we will cover tricks, theories and guidelines to help get closer to reality.

Harrington is a TD at Framestore, London, working in commercials. He first tried 3D while on a product design degree course, swapping marker pens and gouache for blindly clicking labels and pressing function-keys in 3D Studio for DOS. When his final year's work included an animation of a London Underground station just to show off a vending machine it became clear he'd found something interesting. He would go on to spend many years as a freelance illustrator, mostly doing stills in Lightwave.

As using a hundred lights and motion-blur on one still made way for the mass global-illumination epoch, he returned to office life, working mostly on large-scale "architectural-branding" animations and the occasional more-fun escapade too. With the demise of easy credit leading to the demise of making cities, he moved to Framestore.

Taught by Sean Devereaux, this new introductory course will expand upon the Foundry Nuke tutorials produced by fxphd. Nuke version 6.1 software will be available over the VPN to fxphd postgrads for non-commercial use (OSX, Linux, and Windows versions). Devereaux has pushed pixels on over 25 feature films and 50 commercials. He is currently a vfx supervisor at ZERO VFX in Boston. His feature credits include Transformers, The Proposal, Peter Pan and Vanilla Sky and he has worked with some of the best studios in the world including Pixar, Digital Domain and Industrial Light+Magic.

Our new second-level intermediate Nuke X course picks up where the 100 level offering leaves off. Using Nuke X version 6, professor Sean Deveraux will work through concepts in the app as well as lead several project-based classes. The 3D compositing environment of Nuke is one of its strengths, so several classes will dive fully into this feature with practical, real-world examples. Deveraux will also be covering the nuts and bolts of setting up Nuke for automation as well as taking a first look at Gizmos, Nuke's "macro" functionality. The focus is on the type of work that any compositor might run into while working at a facility.

Deveraux is our lead Nuke professor at fxphd. He has been using Nuke since 2000, working as a compositor at Digital Domain on Hollywood blockbusters such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I, Robot, and Star Trek: Nemesis. Using a variety of compositing packages, his freelance work has taken him to ILM (Transformers), Hydraulx (Rise of the Silver Surfer), and others. He is currently working at Brickyard VFX in Boston.

This course serves as a replacement for NUK202, updated for Nuke version 6/X which will be available on the VPN once the release ships.

Taught by Daniel Smith, this intermediate level class builds upon the Nuk203 course and takes stereoscopic techniques to the next level. We will be looking at Nuke 6.2 and using its new tools like Point Cloud generator, Dope Sheet, and Modeler tools to enhance stereo production. We will address the significant changes that have happened to Ocula and delve deeper into the robust tool.

The class will tackle each topic and then implement the technique into a few shots building them into a final comp from a FXPHD stereo short film. High quality footage with be provided and render passes to work along and build your reel. Later in the course we will cover using XYZ color space and creating DCI compliant DCP's for cinema projection.

Daniel Smith has worked as an animator, compositor, and VFX supervisor for over 20 years. Daniel's career took him to pioneering previz on Judge Dredd, animating the famous M&M characters, compositing on films such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Spy Kids 3D. He has also been involved with stereoscopic film making for over a decade. Daniel is now the stereoscopic director and Nuke instructor for the Digital Animation and Visual Effects school in Orlando Florida.

In today's industry, the boundaries between matte painting, compositing and 3D are fading out. Taught by VES award-winning artist Eran Dinur, this course stems from the belief that compositors should not only be able to seamlessly incorporate CG elements into photographic environments, but also have a real understanding of matte painting techniques as well as the ability to create 3D elements, particles and simulations.

The pivot of this course will be Nuke compositing, with an emphasis on environment integration, color, depth and light. We will strive to achieve photo-realism through plate matching and studying 2D imagery as three-dimensional environments. We will explore different Nuke techniques for lighting, volumetrics, atmospherics, reflections, adding grime and dirt and breaking up the “CG look”. We will also cover advanced techniques for extractions and edge treatment, as well as using point position and normal passes for 2.5D relighting.

On top of that, we're going to go beyond NUKE and use 3D packages to create elements for our shots: Vue for 3D environments, Maya for animated plants, and Blender for particles and smoke simulation. The course will be project-based, and will culminate with a deep-sea environment comp that uses exclusive fxphd footage, shot underwater near Tasmania with the brand new Deep X housing for Red Epic.

Eran is VFX supervisor at Brainstorm Digital. He is the recipient of two VES awards for his work on season 2 of HBO's Boardwalk Empire (outstanding compositing in a broadcast series, outstanding modeling in a broadcast series). Before joining Brainstorm Digital, he was senior compositor at Framestore NY and ILM Singapore. Films he worked on include: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Clash of the Titans, Salt, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Surrogates, Terminator Salvation, Star Trek, Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He is currently supervising Brainstorm's team on The Men Who Built America (a History Channel miniseries), the Untitled James Grey Project and Boardwalk Empire season 3.

This course, taught by returning Nuke prof Russell Dodgson is a fully production based course. It is designed to tie in directly with it's companion course, MYA214: Production-based Lighting and Rendering being taught by Robert Harrington. The class will be dealing with a full vfx sequence shot bespoke for the course. The classes will attack a variety of compositing tasks week by week and will pay attention to how we view a sequence as a whole as well as concentrating on the minutia of each individual shot. One of the courses main goals is to get full understanding of how we should approach the compositing of cg elements, and correctly using renders to rebuild our cg in comp so that we can adjust certain passes without incorrectly corrupting the contribution of others.

The course will have the flow of a usual production with assets being passed to and from 3D. We will learn how to assess 3D passes for their usefulness and discuss when it is appropriate to ask for a re-render or when we should just fix it in comp. Although this course is designed to run in parallel with it's companion course it will also be arranged so that it can be taken as a stand alone course. Rest assured we will be tackling some tricky problems and some dramatic footage that will be sure to light up your showreels!

Based in London, Dodgson is currently the Head of Nuke at Framestore Commercials in the UK. Tasked with developing a Nuke department within a commercials environment he focuses his attention on simple, effective workflows and the integration of his department with the other stages of the production process. Having used Nuke since just before it was acquired by The Foundry, Russell has worked closely with the developers and has taken an active role in teaching their Masterclasses as well as some of their online training videos. His recent credits include "The Tale of the Three Brothers (HP7)", Kia's award winning "Soul" campaign, the in game cinematic for "DJ Hero" and Coca Cola's latest all animated Superbowl Commercial "Siege".

PFMatchIt is The Pixel Farm's first tracking package to come from a new internal architecture that was built from the ground up. it also offers a much more affordable price-point than the company's previous offerings. Teaching our first course in the application is Victor Wolansky, who has been using PFTrack for years and was part of the PFMatchIt beta program.

Wolansky's tracking courses have been perennial favorites at fxphd and this one is sure to be no different. While this is an introductory course designed to get you up and running with a solid foundation, as usual Wolansky will be pushing the learning level higher during the course.

PFMatchIt will be available on the fxphd VPN so that members may follow along in the software.

In this advanced PFTrack course, the focus is on complex shots, long shots, and those shots that make you lose your sleep. fxphd favorite Victor Wolansky will also be focusing on the critical details and skills that can take your tracking ability to the next level and really stand out in your job.

We'll be covering workflows for extremely distorted footage, from fisheye Canon 4.5mm shots and to special EPIC shoots in 5K. Wolanksy will be using user survey info to solve shots which are in other ways impossible to solve. This will include extracting information from an exclusive fxphd LIDAR shoot and scan, perfectly matching cameras to the scan. Wolansky will also cover the tracking of objects in scenes. The course will also naturally cover all the beauty and complexity now possible with the nodes and trees available inPFTrack. This brings a power never-before seen in 3D tracking, with almost infinite combinations to adapt to the artist's needs.

Wolansky started working in postproduction 20 years ago… in Argentina, about 12 years ago and discovered what was 3D tracking, and since then he was unable to stop tracking shots, even if just for fun. He discovered that was the most fundamental skill needed to master in order to do anything on any shot. "All starts by a 3D tracking right? If you don’t have a 3D tracking," says Wolansky, "you can't put the CG in there. right?" Postproduction took him from Argentina to Chile in 2000 and to the US in 2005 where he has worked at E3 post since then.

In the last few years Python has grown from being a rather obscure scripting language developed by a man with an intense love of Eric Idle to being the de facto standard for scripting applications in the post production domain. This new introductory class will focus on the fundamentals of python scripting, building up to quick, tactical tools that can be used by vfx artists in facilities large and small to make their lives easier and their financial masters happier.

As The Foundry's Nuke has been converted to a Python underpinning since the release of version 5.0 a great deal of interest has developed in existing and developing nuke artists for some understanding of the TD magic going on under the hood. Nuke is now an incredibly scriptable program with a very powerful set of core tools that can, in the hands of a compositor with a good basis in Python, dramatically improve the efficiency of many of the more redundant compositing tasks, and can even make the bit that remains a lot more fun in the process.

This course will spend a fair bit of time getting compositors with little or no programming / scripting knowledge up to speed; Python is very accessible to non-programmers and as you will learn a little Pythonic knowledge can go a very long way towards making your compositing life a lot easier. This course syllabus will likely change as we delve in and see how everyone does getting their feet wet. The last two classes, especially, will evolve in response to the type of examples that you, the student body, would like to see and explore.

Suggested Text: Learning Python, 3rd Edition by Mark Lutz ISBN 0596513984

Taught by returning prof Michael Morehouse, PYT201 will explore the use (and, only occasionally, abuse) of Python in solving the fundamental problems of a VFX pipeline. Rather than focus on the various APIs of the dozens of proprietary and commercial packages you might encounter in your career moving from facility to facility, this class will emphasize the core fundamentals of building robust, efficient, well-documented and easily maintained modules and command-line tools that do the job well and do it often, and yet remain customizable enough to be empower future development as you build a library of useful tools. We will focus on keeping your code and skills as portable as possible, leveraging on the versatility of the core Python package and a few basic open source packages such as PyYAML. You will learn to document code using the Sphinx document generation system and ReStructured Text, and you will learn to check your good coding habits using Pylint.

Throughout the semester the emphasis will remain on thinking through a problem and attacking it with a library or command line tool, then testing and optimizing your code, while documenting it all the way through. While some of the more glamorous and exotic solutions will have to wait for later classes, this class will give you the fundamental skills that will help get you and keep you employed in the pipeline.

For this course you should come prepared with a reasonable familiarity with the basic Python language. Be comfortable with the idea of creating several modules which import from each other. Be familiar with how to define functions and classes, and have at least a passing understanding of object-oriented inheritance. Be prepared to work along in the command line and be reasonably familiar with terminals and their operation. Some basic shell scripting and administrator knowledge is desirable, and ideally you are comfortable enough to download and compile some simple code from source. The classes assume you are either working in a Unix-style environment, or have your Windows configured sufficiently to engage in Unix-like command line operations. Additionally it is presumed that you have a working copy of Python 2.X installed, preferably at least Python 2.6, as well as the text editor of your choice that supports Python syntax highlighting.

Having come from a life where he rose through the ranks and changed careers more often that some people changed their pants, it's pretty surprising to realize that Morehouse has been a 2D TD at Digital Domain for almost three years now. At Digital Domain he has been responsible for large projects involving cross-facility asset and software syncing, outsource data ingestion, and the overall Nuke pipeline while also supporting films such as Tron: Legacy and Thor. Prior to that he worked in motion tracking while teaching himself Python, and before that he did everything from build and prep cameras to inventory management, tax accounting, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance in the production rentals end of the industry. In short Michael is far more flexible than a rubber sheet and equally as hard to pin down.

In this advanced technical look at grading and managing EPIC footage, we will aim to both build upon our earlier EPIC production courses and our color science understanding. This course presents a range of detailed options for EPIC workflow. It will present some simple workflows but also aim to cover more complex issues leading into grading. All EPIC footage is shot to be graded, and while we will cover some effects work, our primary aim will be to present a way to get great graded footage from the EPIC and make sure that what you are shooting produces the best possible footage.

fxphd has had an EPIC M since March 2011 and then one of the first EPIC X (#22) as well as one of the first field EPIC Canon mounts.

We will have a series of micro shoots in the term so we can examine a really wide range of material from Macro food shots to luxury cars, from Primates to exotic night fire shoots. Material will be made available as .r3ds for you to download and explore.

Taught by Christos Obretenov, this course covers the use of the software in production. Artists and Technical Directors will find this course useful for expanding their shading knowledge in Renderman, as well as learning some of the newer advanced ray tracing, physically-based shading, and image-based lighting techniques being used in production today. Coming out of the course the student will be able to put into practice, in a production environment, the procedural shading techniques we cover and understand their use more thoroughly, as well as design a shading/lighting pipeline around the physically-based shading and lighting paradigm.

Obretenov has worked in a variety of roles, designing and developing shading software for Walt Disney's The Wild feature film, followed by shading and lighting for Superman Returns, Spider-Man 3, Beowulf, Christmas Carol, and Mars Needs Moms feature films.

The week by week curriculum is broken up into three sections:

Part 1 - Procedural Shading

Why is procedural shading important and interesting? Dealing with complex models and sets in production, its very useful to explore shading solutions that can solve detailed procedural variation. We look at all aspects of the pipeline from design, modeling, shader development, and rendering to incorporate procedural shading variation.

In addition we explore procedural patterns for surface and displacement shaders, creating complex organic shading solutions for things like snow and ocean surfaces. We expose all the complex noise parameters and clearly define each one.

Part 2 - Raytracing and Global Illumination

Finally we are seeing a large shift towards ray tracing in production. With PRMan16’s improved ray tracing features and speed, including the radiosity cache, raytrace hider, and weighted sampling, we dive into some of the newer production techniques.

Also important is making our scenes and shading efficient for ray tracing, so we discuss different approaches to efficiency.
Also new in PRMan16 is the “Physically Plausible Shading” paradigm, including coshaders and multiple importance sampling. These are advanced topics we explore in this section of the course.

Part 3 - Image Based Lighting

In CG film production, we rely on captured HDRI maps to drive realistic lighting response from the environment.

In the class we test multiple unclipped HDRI Lightmaps using fully raytraced importance-sampled shading. With proper unclipped HDRI maps and importance sampled energy conserving shaders as our tools, we demonstrate how we can properly configure materials that are consistent and physically correct under different lighting conditions. Topics covered include showing the requirement of high contrast lighting environments to correctly setup materials, ie low contrast lighting environments will not be sufficient for materials to be tuned across all lighting scenarios. Also key is making sure our BRDF’s are normalized and energy conserving to be able to set material properties (balancing of diffuse and specular) that hold across all lighting environments.

In addition to importance sampling the HDRI dome light, in some cases it is more accurate to “cut out” the extreme bright spots in the HDRI and place those on geometric “area lights”. These textured area lights are then placed in the correct position and size with respect to the CG object and sampled during rendering, with the resulting cutout area filled with a neutral color in the original HDRI. As is often the case of the CG object not being in the exact space of the HDRI capture, this cutting out and placing of the area light textures can be more representative since the solid angle math is only accurate at the exact spot of the HDRI capture. Also, the resulting importance sampling on a given area light with super bright exposure can be more efficient than sampling that same region on the entire dome. Most importantly, the correct distance from object and size of highlight is preserved.

Educated at Simon Fraser University in Computing Science and Computer Graphics, Christos started contributing to the Animation and Film industry during "co-op" work terms at Mainframe Entertainment in conjunction with Simon Fraser University. He continued his career by designing and developing shading software for Walt Disney's The Wild feature film, followed by shading and lighting for Superman Returns, Spider-Man 3, Beowulf, Christmas Carol, and Mars Needs Moms feature films. Recently co-founding LollipopShaders.com, Christos develops procedural solutions to shading and lighting, currently experimenting with Physically Plausible Shading and Image Based Lighting. He currently resides in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The release of Smoke on Mac has opened up the software to a much wider variety of users than any other Autodesk systems product. This course, taught by Randy McEntee, will provide an advanced introduction to Autodesk Smoke on Mac. Focusing on real-world finishing, color correction and visual effects tasks, we’ll be working through several projects and tasks, taking footage and turning it into a finished piece, exploring the breadth of Smoke's toolset along the way. Particular consideration in this course will be paid to transitioning users familiar with desktop applications into the Smoke on Mac mindset.

Smoke and Flame Artist McEntee joined The Mill New York in 2007. There he has finished spots for Apple, Coca-Cola, Chrysler, Cadillac, Verizon, AT&T, Virgin Mobile, ESPN, Mercedes, Skittles, Microsoft, and Nike, some of which have gone on to win awards from DA&D, AICP, Cannes, and the Daytime Emmys. Previously,McEntee began his post career at Mode Project in Chicago as an Assistant Editor, later moving on to Filmworkers Club Chicago. He has a passion for mastering visual effects toolsets and an even greater passion for teaching.

Members will be able to license Smoke on Mac 2012 via the fxphd VPN, lifting the short 30-day demo version restriction so that they may dive more fully into the software.

We continue our curriculum of Autodesk systems offerings with a new combination Smoke/Flame course featuring multiple artists. As more and more of the creative tools merge across the applications, including Smoke Advanced which contains all the features of Flame's Action module, the combo courses have been incredibly popular.

This course brings a mix of projects and approaches that will help take your skills to the next level. From daily tasks that improve your workflow to high end Action tips to motion graphics, we've got a great slate of profs sharing session-proven techniques.

About the profs:

John Montgomery has worked on Flame for years, as well as Smoke (actually it was called Fire) since the very first pre-release beta. Concentrating on commercials post, Montgomery has worked on flame for over ten years. He now owns a combination Smoke/Flame system which is used by fxphd and our post partners Hootenanny in Chicago.

Brian Mulligan has been working in broadcast television for 20+ years. He has been working with Smoke since v5, and has been a part of the beta testing program for the past 6 releases. Brian uses Smoke for promo and commercial work... using Smokes tools for editing and graphic work.

Victor Wolansky is a Flame artist who works at e3post in Virginia. With 19 years of experience on the VFX world he fell in love with Flame about 5 years ago.

Randy McEntee is a Smoke artist at The Mill, New York City, where he specializes in working on national television commercials.

Paul Carlin is a Smoke Artist at Company 3 in Santa Monica. His most recent accomplishments have been Jack the Giant Killer, Underworld 4, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the trailers for Avatar. He specializes in stereoscopic digital intermediates at the moment, but comes from diverse background that includes the Imagineer Systems product line, SynthEyes, After Effects as well as Avid Media Composer and the product formerly known as Final Cut Pro. Paul has 15 years of Smoke experience and comes from a tape-based linear online background.

fxphd grew out of the fxguide website, which was originally formed as an online community for flame artists. So it should be no surprise that we'll be the first with a new course covering the 2012 release in both smoke and flame. This is arguably the biggest release in years for flame and smoke, with a great number of creative and workflow improvements. Check out the new feature overview videos at fxguide.com -- it's over two hours of material. Our slate of profs has been involved in the beta program for the release, so they're ready to hit the ground running.

I like to call this a "Victor Wolansky" release, with the improvements in lighting, shading and rendering in Action. These new features are exactly the types of features he uses on the job and he'll be leading several classes showing you how to get the most out of them.

The Mill NYC's Randy McEntee will again be taking you through the kind of tasks that you'll find useful almost every day on the job. Working for agency clients he's under the gun to do creative work, yet get things done quickly and efficiently.

And fresh back from a smoke training tour in India, Brian Mulligan returns to bring his broadcast perspective to the course. For those of you not in broadcast, don't think these classes aren't for you. There's a ton of techniques that cross disciplines and our members have especially enjoyed Mulligan's classes.

Take your Smoke knowledge and put it to a creative use. Now that you have tried the Smoke demo or have taken the Introduction to Smoke on Mac course here at fxphd, now is the time to really see what you can do with all of Smoke's tools.

Our Intermediate Smoke on Mac course is being taught by returning prof Brian Mulligan As a promo/commercial editor working with broadcast deadlines, Mulligan has utilized not only Smoke's strong finishing tools, but also many creative ones. This class will dive in to projects and workflows for getting the most out of Smoke, as a creative editor, and effects compositor. We will get to know the best way to use all of Smokes tools in the Timeline, Action, Keyers, & FlameEX - and see how they all work together in a creative project. I'll include some tips and tricks, and show you some alternate ways to use some of the tools in Smoke for even more fun.

Brian Mulligan has been a Broadcast Editor for over 20 years, and has been working on Smoke since 2004. The workflow in broadcast is unique with daily on-air deadlines, and open creative. Often you have to be your own writer, producer, editor and graphic designer. Working with Smoke, cutting commercials and promos on a daily basis, Brian has explored all parts of the Smoke software as finishing tools and as creative tools. Brian is also a beta tester for Smoke and active in the Smoke Online Community.

In this course course, participants will be learning the fundamentals of 3D tracking, creating good starting point to understand several techniques of 3D tracking and image modeling. We will look at how to tackle several problems that are the day to day in 3D tracking, and understand how to avoid them or how to work around them, we will look at workflows of lens distortion correction, from start to end (including compositing) and stereo tracking.

Taught by our fxphd tracking specialist, Victor Wolansky, the course will be using the SynthEyes 2011 release.

Victor Wolansky's tracking courses have been favorites at fxphd and this course should be no exception. In SYN203, Wolansky will be tackling common issues in 3D tracking such as techniques for working with manual tracking to help difficult solves. Also, he’ll look at getting objects in the correct position when they go offscreen and then come back on after long gaps such as 1000 frames. And finally, as usual, he promises to find and conquer “whatever twisted and complicated shot I can find to make course member’s lives miserable”.

Wolansky started working in postproduction 20 years ago… in Argentina, about 12 years ago and discovered what was 3D tracking, and since then he was unable to stop tracking shots, even if just for fun. He discovered that was the most fundamental skill needed to master in order to do anything on any shot. "All starts by a 3D tracking right? If you don’t have a 3D tracking," says Wolansky, "you can't put the CG in there. right?" Postproduction took me him Argentina to Chile in 2000 and to the US in 2005 where he has worked at E3 post since then.

Taught by Eran Dinur, this course offers a comprehensive approach to learning Vue, with an emphasis on workflow and techniques needed for effectively using it in various professional production scenarios. From creating assets for matte painting and compositing to animating and rendering complete 3D scenes. Vue has gained a prominent position in the industry as a tool for creating rich and detailed 3D natural scenery and there's an ever-growing demand for competent Vue artists.

We will first cover all of the main aspects of Vue - the different atmospheric models, polygonal and procedural terrains, EcoSystems, animation, materials and plant editing, and then dig deeper into more complex areas such as fractal functions and multi-layered shaders. Keeping in mind the needs of matte painting and compositing, we will also explore Vue's extensive multi-pass rendering, matte generation and export options.

Dinur has worked for several years a senior digital artist at ILM Singapore and at Framestore NY, and is currently compositing supervisor at Brainstorm Digital NYC. He has created visual effects for films such as "Clash of the Titans", "Salt", "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", "Surrogates", "Terminator Salvation", "Star Trek", "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Dinur is a true Vue veteran, and has been using the app extensively since version 2 in numerous projects. He has written Vue tutorials for various publications, including 3D World Magazine (for which he is a regular contributor), and has created many sample scenes for Vue xStream, Infinite and Esprit.

Members of fxphd will be able to purchase the educational version of Vue to use for non-commerical purposes. Details will be available beginning the week of July 5th.

This course follows up on the Vue201 course, and offers intermediate and advanced Vue artists an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the program and to acquire new practical techniques for production work. In the first half of the course we will concentrate on specific areas and tools in Vue, while the second half will essentially be a detailed work-through of a VFX shot involving Vue – from initial planning stages to final Nuke compositing. Throughout this course we will also get a chance to explore and use the great new features of Vue 9.

Eran Dinur is compositing supervisor at Brainstorm Digital. Previously he was a senior digital artist at ILM Singapore and Framestore NY. He has created visual effects for films such as "Clash of the Titans", "Salt", "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", "Surrogates", "Terminator Salvation", "Star Trek", "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Dinur is a true Vue veteran, and has been using the app extensively since version 2 in numerous projects. He has written Vue tutorials for various publications, including 3D World Magazine (for which he is a regular contributor), and has created many sample scenes for Vue xStream, Infinite and Esprit.

Mark Christiansen, author of Adobe After Effects CS5 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques, returns for a new project-based course featuring composting and effects for PROJECT ARBITER.

The type of shots Christiansen will be working on run the gamut of the type of shots an artist would see on a sci-fi action film. From rig removal to matte paintings, cgi multi-pass to bullet hits, blood splatters, and explosions.

PROJECT ARBITER, scheduled for release in Q4 2011, is a sci-fi espionage story about Special Fields Op. Captain Joseph Colburn who has been tasked with infiltrating a Nazi villa on the Polish border to discover its mysterious operations. The film was written and directed by Michael Chance, who has an efficient eye for independent filmmaking - creating high-production value projects at a fraction of what it would cost a studio to produce.

As PROJECT ARBITER is a visual effects heavy film, Michael has Visual Effects Supervisor Jesse Boots overseeing all the details. Boots is a visual effects specialist at Ntropic in San Francisco (Underworld, Grindhouse) where he’s worked on numerous projects as an editor and VFX artist.

PROJECT ARBITER website and trailer

One of the most popular articles in recent months over at fxguide was our story about Gareth Edward's work on Atilla the Hun. Edwards was one of the first traditional film students to combine live-action drama with digital effects. After graduating, he went on to work at many of the UK's leading post-production facilities as a freelance visual effects artist. Eventually becoming frustrated with the "factory approach" to every project, he soon branched out on his own creating many high-end computer graphics for television clients including BBC and Discovery, all of which were completed entirely on own "from his bedroom". Some of his work went on to win various accolades, including a British Academy Award and Emmy nomination.

He has since returned to his filmmaking roots directing the BBC drama "Attila the Hun", which contained over 250 HD visual effects shots, all of which were created by himself in less than five months. The post used After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Mocha, and 3dsMax -- all easily accessible tools for visual effects artists. Needless to say, we thought this whole experience would make a great "real-world" fxphd course and are excited to be adding this new course to the mix at the site. The course will cover a ton of techniques and approaches Edwards uses on the job, focusing on the art, the artist's eye, and the craft. If you're a compositor who doesn't use After Effects you'll still pick up a ton of useful information from the course.

Edward's course will begin by breaking down shots, techniques, and workflow used in the actual production of Atilla the Hun. This in-depth coverage of the real world project will then shift gears into producing a complex visual effects shot with footage shot specifically for the course. Members will recreate the techniques used in one of the signature shots of the project -- that of 30,000 Huns storming across an open field in an aerial shot.

This course is aimed at the intermediate 3D software user, and is intended to introduce 3D artists to Character animation workflow in a 3D application. Taught by Kai Pedersen primarily in Cinema 4D, the program is intended to be platform agnostic, utilizing on common tools and workflows found in most 3D applications while focusing on theory and workflow.

There are no small exercises to cover the basic principles of animation here; this course will cover a complete shot from start to finish. Users will learn to think about their shot, plan ahead, act out and study reference before diving in and working through each stage of animation from blocking through to a completed shot.

Pedersen has been a Technical Director at his own Vancouver-based boutique, LucentDreams Animation, for several years, working on commercials, films, and even Broadway productions. He has also worked with MAXON Computer as the Technical Support Manager to aid in high-end, studio-level technical support and training for Cinema 4D as well as a MAXON beta tester and demonstration artist for nine years and is considered an expert on Cinema 4D. Currently Pedersen also teaches Cinema 4D and After effects for the Digital Design program at Vancouver Film School.

The Media Composer made a major change in software in the last year with the release of MC 5.0, and its follow up this year, 5.5. This class takes you through the latest software in detail, including new workflows, the redesign of the timeline, and various added features within the Avid tools. Students should come to the class with a bit of knowledge about the software and ready to delve into the features within the toolsets. fxphd professor Liz Tate returns to helm the class.

Tate graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Radio/TV/Film. In her 20+ year career in editing, she has mentored more than a dozen assistant editors to help them polish their skills to become editors. She recently partnered to start her own post-production company, Hootenanny, in 2008. Past and present clients include American Express, Southwest Airlines, Crate&Barrel, JCPenney, and Reebok.

This general interest Background Fundamentals collection includes some of our most popular Background classes to date. It consists of both magazine style interviews and complex on-screen compositing demonstrations, including stereo work. Mike talks ABOUT Photo Jounrnalism, with the team at ILM and RealViz, and gives us his own take on the future of Post Production, and how to have a successful career as a vfx artist.

This Background collection covers on-set issues. Whether you're running your own production, or going on-set as a representative of your post facility, you'll find here a wealth of information on topics from basic lighting, lens selection and on-set behavior to more more unique situations such as shooting Super 8 and underwater photography. In addition to lectures and demonstrations by the crew at fxphd, a number of very experienced DOPs and other experts appear as guests.

This package consists of a collection of our efforts to explain and demystify one of the most challenging issues in day-to-day vfx workflows: dealing with LUTs, gamma, and general color pipeline issues. Taking advantage of the technical nature of this collection, we've also included some classes on 3D, Virtual Cinematograhy, and rendering with Renderman and Mental Ray. And, for a fun break from the tech talk, there is a round table discussion about Directing Live Action and Animation.

This term, to mark our 10th Background Fundamentals, we've got a blockbuster in store for fxphd members. Throughout the term, we'll look at what it means to be a Visual Effects Supervisor. What are the pressures, the roles and how do you manage a large Hollywood film?

To find out, we engage in lengthy discussions with the world's best supervisors including John Knoll, Scott Squires, John Dykstra, Pablo Helman, Dennis Murren, Mike Fink, Ken Ralston, Kim Libreri and others. These are some of the finest visual effects specialists in the industry with a stunning 5 technical or special Oscars, 24 Oscar nominations and 14 Academy Award wins between them. This truly one of the most accomplished group of visual effects experts ever assembled.

They July 2011 Background Fundamentals focuses on color, gamma, LUTS, HDR and a piece of VFX History, the optical printer. Special guests John Alexander, Stu Maschwitz, Matt Leonard, and Charles Poynton talk to Mike throughout the course.

While BKD212 examines the Red Dwarf: Back to Earth project from an overall and on-set perspective, this course focuses on the visual effects by breaking down shots from the television specials. Mike Seymour, who served as vfx supervisor and 2nd unit director, will be the hosting professor for the course as he works through how shots were planned and executed for the show.

Serving as guest professors, members of the fxphd "special ops team" will have dropins which show how they completed the shots. The plan is to break down a single shot over two or three weeks of classes, spending time to fully develop the shots and focus on selling the shot. Footage from the show will be supplied as part of the course, allowing members to follow along and re-create the visual effects themselves. We expect to send out an average of 500MB of footage files per class during the term -- so ramp up your bandwdith.

The course will cover multiple areas of visual effects post -- from camera tracking to cleanup, visual effects to keying, cgi and matte paintings. This will be a hard core compositing course covering a wide variety of applications, creative techniques, and more. If you're a compositor at heart -- this course is definitely for you.

In this course, award winning Jason Wingrove provide his experience in what it takes to direct. Wingrove has years of experience gaining brilliant performances from actors, children and telling stories that have a humanity and warmth. Wingrove works primarily as a TVC director, having started his career in the Camera department and worked his way up. Many of you will know Wingrove from the fxguide Red Centre podcasts and we have had numerous requests for Wingrove to work through a real production from pre to post.

This term Wingrove will be directing “Moving Day” at fxphd. This film will combine effects, children, drama and humor. Mike Seymour will be hosting the classes as we follow Jason from casting to mixing as he shows what it takes to be an effective and award winning director. This is really an amazing chance to shadow a director in a way we have never been able to do before. 

Every day more and more productions are exploring the use of high end DLSR for HD video. Stu Maschwitz rejoins the team and the guys in Tokyo to give the most comprehensive guide to the new phenomenon of DSLR cinematography. In this course we will cover:

• What it takes to shoot cinematically with camera such as the Canon 5D MkII
• How to shoot for post
• Tricks and techniques for camera control and camera movement, including the Red Rock Micro and the Mini-Steadicam
• Compression and camera settings recommendations, covering 24P, Manual settings, Tricks of compression etc.
• Rules of thumb for evaluating what camera and lenses you need
• Color grading DLSR video footage for Hollywood professional looks
• Sensor and optical 'behind the scenes' including rolling shutter
• reviews of 720 P with the Nikon D90, Full HD with the Olympus PEN, Panasonic GH1 and the Canon 5D MkII

Mostly shot in Tokyo and Kyoto, but as a special event later in the term, we will go on base with the US Army 55th Combat Camera Unit to look at the Canon 5D Mk II in war zone correspondent use, an unparalleled and unprecedented chance to see how these cameras are used in the most dangerous and unforgiving environments imaginable. Literally, we hope to have Stu and John putting the camera through its paces with Blackhawk helicopters and some of the bravest cameraman and women in the world with the US Army's Canon 5D Mk II specialists. A rare honor, and one we are most appreciative to have the chance to bring you.

DSLR video is a growing if not exploding area of cinematography. In our second DSLR course we contrast the urban intensity of our Japan course with the majestic intensity of the landscape of Yellowstone national park. Without a doubt the best person we could think of to teach this course is Captain Tyler Ginter of the 55th Combat Camera Company. Tyler is well known for his work in helping the Army's camera company move to DSLRs and has worked in some of the most rugged and unforgiving environments on Earth. No one is better suited to discuss what you should take into the field to shoot away from the protected environment of the studio than Tyler.

We have done some great courses in recent times on using the new range of DSLR cameras in a variety of situations, but this term we want to focus on scripted based narrative drama and comedy. We have teamed up with legendary UK Writer and Director Doug Naylor (Red Dwarf co-creator) to produce an episodic comedy called "Over to Bill". Mike Seymour will be working closely with Director of Photography Ed Moore, to bring practical on-set tips to light. The entirely new and original story is filmed in and around London in the present day and captures the best of scripted DSLR approaches.

If you were hoping to make a short film with great actors, funny original dialogue that looks like a million bucks, this course is for you. We discuss extensively lighting approaches, lighting diagrams and maps, audio recording, location work, set work, indoor comedy, steadicam, car to car, slider rigs and much more but all completely story focused.

This is the perfect course for someone wanting to make their own short film - that looks great, flows well and ultimately finds an audience.

In the past, we've traveled to Japan as well as the wilds of West Yellowstone to focus on DSLR filmmaking. In DOP213, we're staying close to home and focusing on one photographer's base of knowledge to bring a very approachable and practical course on DSLR filmmaking. Professor Billy Sheahan (billysheahan.com) has been shooting stills and video for over two decades. With the developments in DSLR cinematography, it's only in the past few years however that he's become happy with the the image he is able create with motion technology. His background as an award-winning editor and a passion for photography makes him the perfect fit for fxphd. His passion for both has enabled him to contribute his motion photography to major projects and national television commercials -- most accomplished more easily than you'd expect. He'll be showing you how this term.

The course will walk you through filmmaking from Sheahan's perspective, with a bit of focus on model/live talent photography (though other areas will be covered as well) and how taking the simple path can lead to excellent visual results. Each week will feature an easy to accomplish mini shoot and resulting exercise for members. One week it might be to light with sources you might find in the average living room. The next week, to shoot day for night. Members will be encouraged to share their work with others in the forums.

Our new introductory flame course is designed to get artists up and running in the software so they can be confident working on scenes and spots in the app. We get a lot of questions from potential flame artists asking if they should take the course even though they don't have easy access to a flame or flint system. The answer is an emphatic "yes". The course is designed with the understanding that your time might be limited on the system -- for instance, maybe you're a junior artist who can only get on the system at night or you will be doing an internship at a facility in the coming months. By taking FLM102, when you get time on a flame, you won't have to waste hours finding your way around the software.

Taught by fxphd co-founder and longtime flame artist John Montgomery, the course begins with an exhausting overview of the system and the UI. This is important considering flame doesn't follow many of the standard desktop conventions users might be familiar with. Once that is done, we'll quickly dive into the various modules with a project-based approach to learning them. Our goal is to have course members be able to execute entry to intermediate level jobs on the flame by course completion. At the end of the term, an online certification exam will be available in order for you to test your knowledge.

This course is in the spirit of our most popular courses here at fxphd: doing some cool shots and providing the footage for you to work along on the shots yourself. Professor and Dean Mike Seymour will be compositing a bunch of shots and looking at a range of new features in the 2009 versions of Flint/Flame. In addition to compositing shots using Flame's built-in tools, this course will also use the Foundry's Furnace plugins to tackle the work.

Areas covered over the course of the weeks:

• Flame and HDR, grading and working in high bit depths
  
• Keying and working with Digitally captured material
  
• Wiretap Central
  
• Workflow Improvements
  
• 3D Tracking
  
• Updates on keying and tricks for better keys
  

Generally we will just work through shots we have done and along the way explain the new features of Flame while also using the extremely cool Furnace plugins. Mike and John have done entire courses in the past on Furnace and these new classes hit our favourite plugins and cool tricks to do with them. It will also explain some of the theory behind the tools.

Recent versions of Flame and Smoke have blurred the line between products, as Smoke gains BatchFX and Flame gains a more versatile editing timeline. This class is designed to be appealing to artists and editors alike, covering topics which are generally applicable across both products. The common thread throughout the term will be taking a look at expressions and how they can help you as an artist and editor. Professor and Dean John Montgomery will tackle a wide variety of workflow expressions -- ones any artist can use on a daily basis to simply changes to more esoteric, hard core maths which demonstrate both the power and limitations of the feature.

In addition to expressions, Montgomery will also be covering other aspects of the software such as infrastructure (Configuring for Open FS vs. Stonefs, Wiretap Central) and working with RED and XML/AAF.

This course will deal with some subjects and material that has been covered in other (now retired) fxphd courses such as the FLM201 expressions course. However, with changes in the 2009 and 2009X1 releases a lot has changed in the software, so we felt a need to retire the old create a new course. We realize many of you have taken our past offerings and will keep this in mind to bring new and useful material into this offering.

We've finally been able to tap fxguide co-founder Jeff Heusser to teach a course at fxphd, and he'll be showing work he did for the Red Dwarf: Back to Earth production. A long time flame user, Jeff has worked on commercials, feature films, TV shows, music videos and network promos in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. He will share his experience working in small shops to large as well as the freelance world.

Jeff will start out with an overview of setting up a project on flame, gleaned from his variety of experiences over the years. Next, he'll start tackling shots and share tricks for dealing with various compositing problems which come up on the jobs we do every day. Probably the most common shot of all in visual effects is the monitor replacement shot and this show is no different. With shots ranging from a fairly basic 8 monitor replacement (complete with depth of field and keying issues) and switches gears to the mother of all monitor shots -- 20+ televisions at all angles and depths, a camera move, varying levels of bluescreen, depth issues, and more. Next, several shots from another sequence will be tackled as we work through this job including topics such as green screen with RED footage, compositing tricks, a look at the next release of flame, and more

The course members will receive full quality footage to follow along and complete the composites themselves.

Matt Leonard leads our Fusion course at fxphd. His sphereVFX company has been doing Fusion training for years, including creating an intermediate level DVD for the app. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets.. He has set up and run animation divisions in five companies, overseen animators and compositors, worked as a CG Supervisor on various projects and has overseen live-action shoots.

Our new Fusion course follows directly on from the 100 level course helping artist to get even more out of eyeon’s flagship compositing system. Utilizing all the power of Fusion 6 including the much anticipated enhancements in its 3D environment, this course covers the essentials need to move forward as a proficient compositor. Topics covered by Professor Matt Leonard in this course include keying, tracking, roto, 2½D matte painting, plate cleanup, particles, 3D, motion graphics and the much talked about stereoscopic workflow.

Leonard's sphereVFX company has been doing Fusion training for years, including creating an intermediate level DVD for the app. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets..

Taught by Valerie Cripps, this new introductory course will give you an introduction to Houdini 9.5, getting you familiar with the interface, procedural workflow, and some basic fx principles. The software is vast and used in most of the big production houses for many types of film effects. Getting these basics is a great way to open the door to creating killer visual fx for film production. Over the course of the term, you will learn the building blocks necessary to create a foundation for further production lessons in Houdini with a mind to creating film effects. The course begins with a solid overview of the UI and application principles and then dives into a sample project for the rest of the term.

Cripps worked at Side Effects Software for 7 years before going into production in 2003. She has worked as a freelance fx and lighting artist at Sony Imageworks, CBS and Rhythm and Hues on films such as Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and Mummy 3, among many others, working on effects such as swarms of flying locusts, flames, crowds, snow, dust, clouds and more.

Members may use the Houdini Apprentice addition, which is available as a free download from the Side Effects web site. For only $99, a Starving Artist Edition of the software is also available which allows for watermark-free renders up to HD resolution -- perfect for adding a shot to your demo reel. Both versions of Houdini Apprentice include all of Houdini Master's features except for the ability to render to third party renderers. Files created using the Apprentice versions cannot be opened in the full version of the software. However, upon upgrading to the full version, Side Effects will do a one time conversion of all your non-commercial work to Houdini's commercial format.

Val Cripps and Lori Smith are teaching the course, two Houdini fx artists who have worked on their share of fx for film.  Val will be presenting the class, and Lori will be working with Val behind the scenes to get the material together.  The topic for HOUD201 is debris, a staple, bread and butter type of fx work that happens on many films and commercials, and that you will do at least once in your fx career. This could include pieces of glass kicked by a cg character's foot, for example in The Incredible Hulk, or bits of dirt crumbling down a roof from a character climbing, like some shots I worked on in They Came From Upstairs/Aliens in the Attic, or many other situations where debris helps set the CG into the live action, or must help to tell the story. 

We'll start with a general introduction and overview to these types of effects and dynamics in Houdini, and then we'll complete a simple shot with debris flying into the scene, much like fx work that Lori did on Pirates of the Caribbean at Digital Domain.  This will include traditional and procedural modeling techniques with instancing, techniques and tricks for DOPs (dynamic operators), POPs,  (particle operators) and of course, some shading, rendering and compositing to get everything layered together.

Cripps worked at Side Effects Software for 7 years before going into production in 2003. She has worked as a freelance fx and lighting artist at Sony Imageworks, CBS and Rhythm and Hues on films such as Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and Mummy 3, among many others, working on effects such as swarms of flying locusts, flames, crowds, snow, dust, clouds and more. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Visualization from Mississippi State University in 1997.

Smith has worked in CG for 4 years at Digital Domain and 1 year at Rhythm and Hues. During this time she worked on commercials and films such as Aeon Flux, Flags of Our Father, Pirates 3, Speed Racer, Mummy 3, Cirque du Freak and Land of the Lost as a technical director and fx artist.  She received her Master of Science in Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M University in 2003.

In one of the most exciting courses ever in our production stream, we work with Adelaide based Anifex. Formed in 1985 by Richard Chataway and Michael Cusack, Anifex is one of Australia's leading animation companies. The company has long maintained a reputation for producing some of the world's finest commercial animation. In addition to its work in advertising, which has earned the company many national and international awards, Anifex has also produced several acclaimed short films. With an experienced production team and world class facilities, Anifex has an amazing collection of talent and equipment including motion control.

We will also visit some of the world's leading model shops and look at general miniature photography. Shot primarily on location at the film studios, this course will provide you with the fundamentals, process and the tricks & tips of stop frame animation and miniatures.

This course will teach techniques and concepts for rendering realistic, physically based CG elements in a visual effects context (i.e. for integration into live action shots). As it is a hands-on course in using Mental Ray to do these things, it will start with a fundamental treatment of everything from light and pixels through to cameras, response curves and compositing, as well as "learning to see". The course will be performed using the 3ds Max application, but most things apply to Maya and Softimage as well.

Professor Hakan 'Zap' Andersson has been working as "Shader Wizard" at mental images since 2004 and is the author of numerous mental ray shaders, such as the subsurface/skin shaders, the car paint shader, as well as the architectural and production shader libraries. Originally educated as an Engineer in Electronics, Zap's passion for computer graphics caused his graduation year "special project" to be an actual hand-built and hand-wired graphics card, for which he wrote his first ray tracer. Today Zap spends his days (and nights) writing shaders, documentation and tutorials for mental ray, and sometimes makes presentations at user events and conventions, as well as maintains a mental ray tips blog mentalraytips.blogspot.com.

This course, taught by Geoff Tobin, aims to give an introduction to the inner workings of Massive from the ground up, introducing core concepts such as fuzzy logic and how it relates to creating an AI brain for a Massive agent. In order to demonstrate each of the aspects of Massive we'll develop a vehicle agent and show how a simple traffic simulation can be created. Massive is the artificial-life crowd simulation software developed for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and used on major motion pictures, TV shows and commercials.

Tobin is a Lead Massive TD working at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. He started working in the industry in 1993 as an animator using SideFX Prisms, Alias PowerAnimator and Maya. Geoff has been working with Massive since 2000 and was involved with its early development in creating the crowd scenes for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has since used Massive in motion pictures such as I-Robot, King Kong, X-Men 3, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia and The Day the Earth stood still.

Geoff Tobin returns to take this follow up to the introductory MSV101 course. While the 100 level course gave an overview of the Massive software, this course will cover the pipeline and workflow for setting up a typical Massive shot. From planning the mocap sessions and importing and processing the motion through to designing the brains, running the sims and finally rendering with a Renderman compliant renderer. It will also cover advanced features such as dynamics and cloth as well as integration with other software such as Maya.

Massive is the artificial-life crowd simulation software developed for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and used on major motion pictures, TV shows and commercials.

Tobin is a Lead Massive TD working at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. He started working in the industry in 1993 as an animator using SideFX Prisms, Alias PowerAnimator and Maya. Geoff has been working with Massive since 2000 and was involved with its early development in creating the crowd scenes for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has since used Massive in motion pictures such as I-Robot, King Kong, X-Men 3, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia and The Day the Earth stood still.

This course aims to provide a basis for Maths for the Artist that says "If I'd known Maths would have been central to effects and animation I would have paid attention in school!" Mike Seymour works through the major areas of maths that are useful to understand for visual effects and animation. This really is a maths course, teaching you both actual maths and the principles of areas of maths in more advanced areas. The aim is to equip you with the tools you need and to demystify the jargon - so you can understand the principles and approaches we use maths for everyday in production and post.

This course, taught by Matt Leonard, is going to be slightly different from our other Maya offerings because we’re going to be working alongside a new and very exciting project called ‘Moving Day’. This short film is being directed by award wining director Jason Wingrove.  ‘Moving Day’ tells the story of a young girl and her fight against the fairies who inhabit the garden of her new home.  Our short film is literally being produced throughout the term and we’ll have first hand experience of working in post during a live project.  

From the outset we will be discussing the post workflow, file and image formats, storyboards, and how we’ll be taking the shots through to completion.  Very quickly we’ll be in the full flow of production covering the modeling of fairy wings, rigging and photo-real shader and lighting setups.  Once background plates start to be fed through we will be tracking the live action fairies with a view to attaching our CG wings to them, getting the animation underway and the shots rendered in multipass ready to move on to compositing.  Once we have shot approval from the Visual Effects Supervisor, our own Mike Seymour, we’ll move into compositing the CG elements seamlessly into the live action backgrounds and getting the finished shots delivered.

Our main 3D software will be Maya 2010 which gives us access now to both Matchmover and Maya Composite (Toxik). We’ll also be using Photoshop,  PFTrack and Nuke 5.2, our main compositing system.

Leonard is especially looking forward to this term because of the unique nature of this course.  As a member you will have the opportunity to work on a live project and be involved not only in producing real elements and shots but also having your say in how we progress though the production. There is not a week to week outline specifically because we will be working in a more fluid non-linear fashion but by the end of the term we will have produced some amazing shots for this new and exciting project.

Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 17 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has been involved in setting up post production departments, overseeing small teams of animators and compositors, along with acting as CG Supervisor on a number of projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk and eyeon, had various articles published in magazine and journals and has beta tested Maya, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own company, Sphere VFX, which is based in the UK.

fxphd's popular camera tracking specialist Victor Wolansky teaches this course using PFTrack version 5 in production situations. The reality of post production compositing and visual effects is that an artist is often called upon to use several tools over the course of a job. Even at large facilities where artists' work is incredibly specialized, being familiar with workflows and other applications is incredibly helpful -- knowledge is power. That's where this course comes in.

Throughout the term, Wolansky will cover tracking situations in the latest release of PFTrack. But in addition, for several of the shots, he'll not solve the camera, but spend several classes taking the scene into other applications and finish them off. This might include doing previs in Flame, compositing in After Effects, or using 3DSMax to model, animate, and render. One project for the term will be sharing work he did for a client, creating a fighter jet fly through a cloud scene. He started by tracking the camera in PFTrack and then took the track into Flame where he could quickly and interactively animate the jet during a session supervised by the director. Next, he exported that data and did the final rendering in 3DSMax before compositing the footage.

PFTrack version 5 also introduced new features such as stereoscopic tracking and reference frames, which will be covered during the term. Members will have access to stereo footage filmed specifically for this course -- and Wolansky will solve the camera and use that data to generate 3D renders. As always, The Pixel Farm has been kind enough to provide access to their software via our secure VPN. The software is only to be used for educational purposes or building shots for a personal (individual) demo reel.

The specific class outline and schedule is dependent upon the projects -- rest assured that members who have taken Wolansky's courses in the past have not been disappointed.

fxphd's popular camera tracking specialist Victor Wolansky teaches this third PFTrack in production course continuing his tendency to tackle only the most difficult shots. You're sure to pick up a ton of new, high-end techniques for both object and camera tracking.

Note: this course is taught on PFTrack 5. Victor Wolansky's tracking courses have been perennial favorites at fxphd. In his new advanced course, he’ll be covering many high level issues which come up during production. For instance, he’ll take a look at dealing with lens distortion - a big problem which is sometimes overlooked. Bad tracks can often be attributed to a bad lens distortion correction and he’ll show you how to avoid these pitfalls.

The course will also include different approaches on how to set the workflow to work with lens distortion and CG, fixing the BG and tracking, fixing the FOV after tracking, and more. Rolling shutter is a big problem of many of the popular new digital cameras, and Wolansky will work through how to deal with the issue. The course will also work with stereo footage and look at the advantage of the extra parallax provided by this footage. He’ll also include some face tracking, object placing, and much more over the course of the term.

Victor’s classes have always been well received at fxphd and this one should be no exception.

There are a lot of aspects to photography, so we have decided to make it commercial and focus on all sorts of everyday issues.

Professional photographer Tim Wheeler will show how to shoot high-end professional photographs.

We are joined by Steve Anderson who will focus on photography for VFX artists. The course will cover generating textures, HDR, shooting for matte paintings, timelaspe, how to photography normal mattes, and much more. This terms focus is really on specialist photography and showing how a DSLR can be the number one tool for a VFX supervisor on set. If you do on set work and provide assets to other members of your team this course will show you a number of ways to provide better material and speed up both workflows and render times on larger projects.

Steve is a highly award visual effects supervisor with a very strong 3D background. Many of the classes will be relevant to people with 3D skills, as well as 2D. Steve is also a very accomplished stills photographer in his own right.

Recent releases of Adobe's Premiere Pro have truly added more and more "pro" features to the software, opening up editors' and artists' eyes to the software. With that in mind, Tyler Ginter, professor of our Yellowstone DOP211 course, leads this production-based course which relates his real-world experience working on various jobs in the software.

The reality in today's post world is that artists, editors, and other post pros have to work with R3D, Phantom, and DSLR footage all on a single job or even a single timeline. Ginter will be utilizing a variety and footage and formats to show where Premiere Pro excels on the job. The course will also include an honest appraisal of where it falls short and ways in which you can work around these shortcomings. Ginter has a great perspective, having used Avid and Final Cut Pro in the past, more recently has been using Premiere Pro due to its speed and flexibility in working with various types of footage.

This course serves as a perfect tandem to PRM201, our feature-based Premiere Pro course led by Tim Kolb. It's not only applicable to editors, but graphics artists, compositors, and anyone who needs to work with the digital formats that are prevalent in the industry.

Just over a year and half ago, Liz Tate and Jim Annerino opened up their new boutique editing facility Hootenanny. They had previously worked at Avenue Edit, at one time Chicago’s largest post house and felt it was a good time to strike out on their own. One could argue that it was one of the most difficult times to start a new business, considering the worldwide economic downturn. However, the business thrived due to their creative strengths in addition to the smart ways they structured their new venture.

This course will examine how Tate and Annerino formed their business, starting from the early days of planning and budgeting though their first year of business and need to move to a new facility after only 18 months. The majority of the course will be discussion based as they share their personal insights, trials and tribulations, and suggestions that they’ve learned over the last year. If you’re not looking to build your own facility, this course will give you valuable insight in how the business works from the perspective of owner-artists.

This course provides the type of perspective that you can only get at fxphd -- real world experience with the desire to share knowledge with others.

How to understand and shoot with the RED camera. We will explore the theory and practice of shooting with the RED, discuss how the Mysterium sensor works and how to get the most out of it, and test the RED lenses. We'll also examine what .r3d files are, how they are encoded, rate and explore recording media, and compare RED with other common capture tools and show how to use it on set and show how to use the latest RED software builds and versions. This course would be ideal if you have just gotten or are about to get a RED camera.

Note: This course replaces RED 201 which will no longer be repeated. It contains some footage from the previous RED 202 course, but is primarily new footage

In this course we will explore the new EPIC camera. Stu Maschwitz will anchor the course, which was filmed on location on New Zealand\'s beautiful South Island. With some help from Mike Seymour the course shows how this new camera performs in variety of situations from helicopters, cars, sliders, boats and even 70km/hr through the NZ forest on wires.

While this course will focus on production issues, it will also include some key post-production approaches, as they are released during the term. As most of you know, fxphd had RED ONE #22, and we are really proud to be the first training company in the world to get to work with the EPIC.

Pixar's Renderman@ is a core rendering technology that has been powering production pipelines since 1985. Leading digital effects houses and computer graphics specialists use Pixar's RenderMan@ because it is the highest quality renderer available anywhere and has been production tested through successful use in feature films for over ten years. RenderMan’s powerful features such as programmable shading language and anti-aliased motion blur allow designers to believably integrate stunning synthetic effects with live-action footage. RenderMan is used for Pixar’s own feature film productions.

The RMS 101 series of classes is aimed at the beginner user wishing to discover how to enhance a small to medium sized production pipeline with Pixar's professional suite of integrated shading and rendering tools. RMS101 will introduce all the different components of the suite, such as Alfred, Slim and show how these workflows integrate with Renderman Pro Server. The class is structured around a progression of small projects, each uncovering new features and workflows of the Renderman Studio Pro suite, always focusing on practical applications for shading, lighting and rendering.

Manuel Kraemer is currently a software engineering technical director in the Production Engineering group at Pixar Animation Studios. He received a M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Teesside (UK) in 1996. In London, he contributed to projects such as the BBC Science documentary “The Planets” and Universal's sci-fi thriller “Pitch Black”. In 2000 he relocated to the US at the Walt Disney Company, working on the stereoscopic ride “The Magic Lamp” and then moving on to the research project “Gemini Man, exploring photorealistic facial capture and rendering technologies. He started at Pixar Animation Studios in 2002, developing the skin rendering software for the Oscar winning “Incredibles” movie and contributing to the shading and rendering technologies of titles such as “Cars”, “Ratatouille”, “Wall-e” and “Up”.

Pixar's Renderman@ is a core rendering technology that has been powering production pipelines since 1985. Leading digital effects houses and computer graphics specialists use Pixar's RenderMan@ because it is the highest quality renderer available anywhere and has been production tested through successful use in feature films for over ten years. RenderMan’s powerful features such as programmable shading language and anti-aliased motion blur allow designers to believably integrate stunning synthetic effects with live-action footage. RenderMan is used for Pixar’s own feature film productions.

This fxphd course provides an introduction to the core concepts and fundamental features of Pixar's Renderman Pro Server software. It will cover the structures used in the RIB interface to describe scene data and introduce RSL, the Renderman Shading Language through the implementation of a set of simple custom shaders. The course also analyzes REYES, the core rendering algorithm, and the implications on shader design as well as rendering optimization strategies.

By the end of the course, students should have a firm understanding of how to render a scene with Renderman, take advantage of the rich feature set to precisely control render time and image quality. They will also learn how to write custom shaders in the RSL language such as the ones developed by professional shading technical directors in the demanding environment of motion picture production. Note : this course does not cover the RendermanStudio or Slim user interfaces.

Manuel Kraemer is currently a software engineering technical director in the Production Engineering group at Pixar Animation Studios. He received a M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Teesside (UK) in 1996. In London, he contributed to projects such as the BBC Science documentary “The Planets” and Universal's sci-fi thriller “Pitch Black”. In 2000 he relocated to the US at the Walt Disney Company, working on the stereoscopic ride "The Magic Lamp" and then moving on to the research project "Gemini Man", exploring photorealistic facial capture and rendering technologies. He started at Pixar Animation Studios in 2002, developing the skin rendering software for the Oscar winning "Incredibles" movie and contributing to the shading and rendering technologies of titles such as "Cars", "Ratatouille", "Wall-e" and "Up".

RND201 is our second in a series of RenderMan courses at fxphd. In our previous installment, RND101, we introduced the RenderMan specification and exposed some of the fundamental features that have now become the cornerstones of Photorealistic RenderMan, Pixar's own implementation. Students should have taken our rnd101, or have basic working knowledge of Renderman before attempting this course.

This course will build upon the concepts that were introduced in our first set of classes and explore more advanced features as well as refine our understanding of how the geometry and the shaders interact. We will be experimenting with look development through custom procedural shaders for special effects with case studies of problems such as flames and fire as were used in feature films. We will also be taking a closer look at some of the common pitfalls of CGI rendering and some of the methods used to remedy or mitigate these undesirable visual artefacts. And if time allows, we will be introducing some ray-tracing in our images.

This class is squarely aimed at the intermediate level shading technical director or students interested in delving deeper into shading and rendering techniques. As part of this short introduction, we'd like to put forward a little disclaimer : some mathematics are required for this class. I have dedicated specific sections to cover in detail the topics that we will be using.

Also, this course really focuses on Photorealistic Renderman (PRMan). As such, while Kraemer will be using Maya plugins and other Pixar software such as Renderman Studio and SLIM for convenience, he will not be focusing on their functionality. These tools are a topic on their own and covering their intricacies would take too much time away from the topics introduced here.

Manuel Kraemer is currently a software engineering technical director in the Production Engineering group at Pixar Animation Studios. He received a M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Teesside (UK) in 1996. In London, he contributed to projects such as the BBC Science documentary “The Planets” and Universal's sci-fi thriller “Pitch Black”. In 2000 he relocated to the US at the Walt Disney Company, working on the stereoscopic ride "The Magic Lamp" and then moving on to the research project "Gemini Man", exploring photorealistic facial capture and rendering technologies. He started at Pixar Animation Studios in 2002, developing the skin rendering software for the Oscar winning "Incredibles" movie and contributing to the shading and rendering technologies of titles such as "Cars", "Ratatouille", "Wall-e" and "Up".

"We'll fix it in post." No doubt you've heard the phrase before. And while it may get thrown around more than it should, the challenge of 'the fix' often falls to the paint and roto artist. From removing pesky crew members or production rigging in frame, to altering background environments or clothing on actors, we're going to focus on the approaches and techniques of this invisible art using standard tools like After Effects, Photoshop along with supporting apps like Mocha AE and software from The Pixel Farm.

Professor Wes Ball will be examining real-world production shots from recent TV shows as well as newly acquired RED footage. As we walk through the completion of full shots, you will gain a solid grasp on the fundamental concepts of paint and roto and hopefully learn a few hard-won tips and tricks along the way. Ball will be using After Effects as his finishing tool of choice, but the techniques he'll be showing are applicable across many different applications.

Ball's freelance operation, OddBall Digital, works in a variety of areas in film and TV, one facet being paint and roto for prime-time television.

Our Introduction to SynthEyes course got members up and running in the software as well as being able to address common problems that come up in post. This course will build upon the knowledge and tackle trickier and more complex tracks in SynthEyes than were addressed in the 101 course. Taught by our fxphd tracking expert Victor Wolansky, he'll dive into more detail in how to make sure you get the most accurate track possible and minimize camera drifting.

This course will also support the Advanced After Effects 302 course, providing 3D tracks for use in the main project for the term.

Each week, Ron Brinkmann and Mike Seymour explore the fundamentals of visual effects compositing. Brinkmann is well known throughout the industry; a visual effects supervisor who co-founded Nothing Real and helped create Shake. More recently he has served as an advisor on The Foundry's Nuke compositing software. He is author of the recently released second edition of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing (Morgan Kaufmann). This book forms the foundation of the course, and the weekly discussions expand upon the principles found in the text.

This course, taught by Daniel Buck, runs through the basics of V-Ray, from lights, to shaders, to render settings and a few optimization tips. Buck's professional career has been vehicle related, so the course will focus more on vehicle related things than other things, since that's his specialty. He will, however, present basic principals so that the knowledge gained applies to other things, not just purely vehicle related issues.

Buck will assume that course participants have at least basic knowledge of Maya, and preferably some knowledge of lighting and shaders in general. No advanced knowledge of any other rendering software is necessary, but for those that do, Buck will go through a few areas where V-Ray differs from other rendering software. He will be using Maya during the term, but operations are very similar between 3dsMax and Maya. It renders identically, and all the options and settings are very similar...the differences are in how you apply properties and find the settings.

The course will focus on the creation and manipulation of lights and shaders, as well as some basic V-Ray settings. It won't get into to much of the technical nuts and bolts of V-Ray, just giving practical approaches to using the renderer. Ultimately the content will involve setting up a scene where we are creating shaders and lighting for a vehicle. Global illumination will not be covered very much in this lesson, as the main focus will be lights and shaders, as well as touching on basic render settings.

Professor Daniel Buck is located in Los Angeles and has worked at Sway, Method, and currently at Digital Domain. He is a specialist in look development and shaders. More info about Daniel can be found at his web site.

This production-centric course will explore a variety of lighting techniques, and how to get the most out of XSI's lighting tools. The first half of the course will focus primarily on the technical skills required to light a shot, while the second half will apply these skills to real world scenarios and explore ways to enhance storytelling through lighting. The class will be taught by Lucas Martell, a freelance visual effects artist best known for his video podcast about the making of his animated short film "Pigeon: Impossible."

Lucas Martell returns with his second course, this time covering production concepts using XSI. The primary objective of the class is to introduce some of the more technical aspects in a way that artists can immediately and confidently take advantage of. The course begins by discussing rigging, but in a way that's designed to ease post-grads into scripting, expressions, and eventually lead into the second half of the term which applies the same concepts to the visual programming nature of ICE. Along the way we'll also discuss pipeline considerations, including custom tools to help speed up production, as well as some useful tips for taking control of simulations. The class is aimed at a wide range of people, from younger students who generally have not dealt with some of these higher-level issues, to experienced artists who could benefit from a more intricate knowledge of Softimage's inner workings.

Lucas Martell is a freelance animator who recently completed the 5-year production cycle on his short film "Pigeon: Impossible." In addition to his own projects, he has taught through the training site: fxphd and is widely known for his weekly podcast that chronicles the techniques and obstacles he's faced throughout the course of producing his films.