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Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist
 
 

Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist [Paperback]

Steve Wright (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)

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Book Description

0240809637 978-0240809632 December 17, 2007 1
Put the essential concepts and techniques of digital compositing to work for you without the need of a single mathematical equation. Compositing Visual Effects is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of film shots, figures, illustrations and diagrams to help the visual reader gain a valuable vocabulary and understanding of the full range of visual effects, in which digital compositing plays a key role.

Beginning with an inspirational tour of the scope and magnitude of digital compositing you get a solid overview of the kinds of digital effects routinely executed today. See how CGI (Computer Generated Image) is composited with live action, how set extensions are done, and what a match-move shot is. Following that, you learn each of the key applications of digital compositing, which include bluescreen compositing, bullet time shots, motion tracking, and rotoscoping, and you get a primer on digital images, key concepts, and terms used in the compositing process. The subsequent chapters dig down into each of the major digital compositing applications, introducing the fundamental concepts and processes behind them. This includes the many ways to composite CGI, bluescreen compositing, animation, creating masks, working with digital keyers, and many more; but most importantly, the art of digital compositing-making your shots look not just photorealistic, but cool.

Learn what is easy and hard, possible and impossible, and what to expect when working on a job that entails digital compositing. There are tips on when not to use the new low-end DV video cameras and tips for the client, such as guidelines on how to shoot a quality bluescreen or greenscreen to get the best results at compositing time. All the while, special attention is paid to defining new terminology and telling a clear story from the ground up, with the only requirement being that you have read the previous chapters.

* An accessible introduction to a complex subject for novice compositors
* Full color presentation illustrating the art and techniques of the practice
* An experienced book author of 20 years compositing experience; with 60 feature film credits including Vanilla Sky, X-Men 2, Swept Away, and Solaris

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Customers buy this book with Greenscreen Made Easy: Keying and Compositing Techniques for Indie Filmmakers $12.60

Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist + Greenscreen Made Easy: Keying and Compositing Techniques for Indie Filmmakers


Editorial Reviews

Review

"Steve Wright has hit it out of the ballpark again. After his wildly successful book Digital Compositing For Film and Video he tackles digital compositing anew, but this time from the perspectives of the curious beginner all the way to industry professionals. In easy to follow terms he leads the reader through the entire process and techniques used to create blockbuster effects, but makes the journey easy for the lay-person. This is a MUST HAVE book for anyone who wants to know just what is this digital compositing magic."
-- Jeffrey Jasper, VFX Compositor, New Deal Studio (The Good Shepherd, X-Men 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3)

"Steve Wright is the master of clarity. His new book Compositing Digital Effects is easy on the brain and on the eyes, as he deftly explains fairly complicated computer graphics and digital effects in a way that is so easy to follow, augmented with hundreds of color pictures. It is the perfect textbook for students who are just becoming familiar with computer graphics and filmmaking. I'm excited to begin using it for my animation and special effects courses."
-- Larry Elin, Associate Professor, Television, Radio, Film, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

"Every time I come out of a conversation with Steve I know a lot more about how visual effects are done than I did before and am more confident that I can handle whatever the movie I'm working on is going to throw at me next. Reading Compositing Visual Effects is nearly as much fun as talking to Wright in person because he writes just like he speaks: entertainingly, concisely and accurately. Now when we can't get him on the phone we can pull him off the shelf."
--George Merkert, Visual Effects Producer (As Good As It Gets, Total Recall, In The Line of Fire, Starship Troopers)

About the Author

Steve Wright is a visual effects compositing veteran with 70 broadcast television commercials and over 60 feature films credits. He's developed video games at Atari, done 3D animations for Robert Abel and Associates, and was senior compositor and 2D technical director at Kodak's Cinesite. Steve is now a freelance, digital-compositing guru, who teaches, trains, writes, and develops on-line training programs.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 264 pages
  • Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (December 17, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0240809637
  • ISBN-13: 978-0240809632
  • Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #800,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

30 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (30 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars For Video, Film, and Animation (Not Photography), November 25, 2011
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Overall this appears to be an excellent book for learning how to composite when working with film, video, and animation. From the title, I thought it would include digital photography--which it basically doesn't do.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun way to get a solid foundation in compositing visual effects, July 28, 2008
By 
T. Church (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist (Paperback)
This book is valuable because it gives the reader a solid foundation in a straightforward and fun way. I read slowly and it still felt like a quick read. Readers with a background in motion graphics (for example Flash or After Effects artists) who don't think of themselves as "compositors" will probably take away much that can improve the quality of their work. The author does a particularly good job at explaining the structure and attributes of digital images. The writing is precise and well edited. From learning the basics of color correction, to gaining a working knowledge of video and film workflows, the book delivers. It comes across as an industry veteran who likes what he does, giving "Aspiring Artists" a simple and strong foundation. Well done!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars High level and comprehensive, December 17, 2011
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
As someone who has taught herself how to use a number of image processing applications, including photo and video editing programs, I was hoping that Compositing Visual Effects would help me ramp up my skills a notch. The introduction goes to great lengths to describe the book as "digital compsiting lite, readable by all" and "carefully written not to confuse or intimidate the newcomer." And I guess if you pick up this book hoping to skim a lot of pretty pictures amidst a flurry of technical terminology, you will be mildly entertained and perhaps even edified. If you are getting this book as an encyclopedic wiki-view of the compositing world, you may be satisfied. But if your objective is to master new techniques, you may have a hard time getting any traction. The 250+ sections zip through topics such as "spline warps" and "articulated rotos" with lots of before and after pictures but very little practical information about how to get from point A to point B.

I see that this book has gotten lots of stars, which is understandable. The author invested a tremendous amount of effort in assembling photos, illustrations, and charts. I appreciate that he hoped the book would be "extremely accessible and informative" and he seems like such a friendly, upbeat kind of author that I hate to let him down by telling him that it was neither. Three stars for effort, scope, and attractiveness, plus a few regrets for the valuable work that could have been produced with a little more focus.

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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
compositing visual effects, bluescreen layer, despill operation, image blending operations, unpremultiplied version, premultiply operation, digital keyer, scaled foreground, warp splines, camera move data, color correction operation, pixel behavior, digital compositor, backing region, raw matte, bluescreen composite, matte pixel, backing color, depth compositing, spline warp, garbage matte, clipped pixels, holdout matte, visual effects shots, matte edges
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Adobe Photoshop, The Art of Compositing, Digital Images, Creating Masks, Apply Image, Image Size, Las Vegas, Bluescreen Compositing, Visual Effects Today, Scene Salvage, Mesh Warp, Academy Aperture, Color Corrector, Pixel Aspect Ratio, Match Move
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
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