Technical Concepts of Visual Effects II
CSE 40777 / CDT 40177
Spring Semester
3 Credits
This course serves to continue the path to understanding VFX concepts by exploring node-based simulation and solvers. Students explore elemental effects like fire and water to understand the benefits of a non-destructive node workflow. The course also explores deeper programming concepts, and concludes by discussing Post-production concepts that most people think of when they think of VFX. Concepts like Green Screen chroma keying, as well as rotoscoping and compositing.
Node-Based Effects
The first part of this course focuses on the non-destructive nature of node-based effects. Students learn to create fire and fluid dynamics, partical simulations, collisions and fractures, and integrate them into existing animation workflows.
Post Production
Students in Tech Concepts II get to work with professionals at ND-Studios to film their own scenes in front of Green Screens over in Corbett Family Hall. Some students bring in their friends, some dive in and record themselves, but the experience of being on a production set helps students as they move through the post-production pipeline and see it from both sides of the camera. Students are taught a few methods to clean up video, remove green screen backgrounds, apply garbage mattes to remove scene junk, and to track and replace objects in video. We then cover concepts of rotoscoping and masking, and conclude by editing their own video recorded at ND-Studios.
Compositing
The course wraps up by bringing students back into Maya to augment video footage with 3D objects. Concepts like camera tracking are explored, and students get to composite a project using real video, 3D animation and objects, or any combination of the two.