Ben's
Comp Newsletter: Issue
018
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Hey,
This weeks' newsletter is by far
the biggest one yet! I've
been pondering this idea for
months, and I'm excited to
finally share it with
you!
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Ben's
Comp Newsletter was
created to encourage open
communication and
knowledge-sharing between the
global Compositing community. My
goal has always been to provide
valuable tools & knowledge
both inside and outside of Nuke,
to help you enhance your skills
as a Compositor, and have a
meaningful impact on
progressing your career.
Ultimately I want to help you
achieve your best, and because
of this, I'm extending this
newsletter project to Patreon,
to provide even more service to
you, and by extension, the
community as a whole.
You're probably wondering how
supporting Ben's Comp Newsletter
can help you more than it
already does? I'll give you
three reasons:
1)
I'm starting a Mentorship
Program! We're living
in a time where there is so much
noise on the internet. There are
many tutorials (both paid and free)
and resources available online, and
I hope this newsletter has
combated this noise and shown you
only the most relevant tools &
techniques.
Although sometimes, you don't want
to scrape the internet to try and
find an answer; you just need
someone to help you find a
personalized answer for a
specific problem. It's even harder
to find answers when the question is
more career-focused!
I hope to solve this problem
with the mentorship program! Whether
you're a student who is wanting to
supplement their education, or you
already have a few years of
Compositing experience under your
belt, this program aims to slingshot
your career to new heights!
With almost 9 years of
industry-proven experience working
with top VFX studios, I'll share the
knowledge I've accrued that I wish I
knew earlier, on how I complete my
work faster and to a higher
quality. You'll find out how to
communicate effectively with
recruiters and land contracts more
easily, and how you can justify
asking for a higher salary. Most
importantly, you will get mentorship
tailored to where you're at in your
career, and where you want to be --
there are no silly questions, just
an opportunity to learn more than
your peers and reach new
heights!
To
ensure the quality of this
program, there is a limit of
10 positions, so act
fast if you're
interested!
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2)
As this newsletter is
community-driven with content from
people like you, I want to start
including a semi-regular segment
that highlights and promotes the
incredible artists that are a part
of this community.
This spotlight is a perfect
opportunity to promote your work,
and share your wisdom with the
community!
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3)
If the first two options
aren't for you, I have some good
news. You are still able to support
this project and the community
by pledging a small amount on
Patreon.
The newsletter is put together by
one person, and will always
be free to receive. Although as
the community grows, so does the
ambition and the cost associated
with it. If you enjoy reading the
newsletter every other week and find
it genuinely useful, the best thing
you can do is share
it with a friend or
colleague so they can learn
too!
Although if you happen to be feeling
extra generous, please consider
pledging a small amount to help keep
this newsletter
running.
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That's
not all...
One of the reasons I run the
newsletter is simply to help people;
to remove their blockers so they can
be the best they can be. To keep in
line with this goal, 50% of
the money you contribute will be
donated to a charity
that helps give people the support
or resources they need to live a
fulfilling life.
This month's charity is Charity:Water.
They provide clean drinking water to
communities in need in developing
countries. I encourage you
to read
more about how they're improving
people's lives here.
Thank you for your
support!
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Now,
onto our regularly scheduled
newsletter!
The following
four items are some of the best I've
come across in recent history, and
I'm excited to share them with
you!
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KEYBOARD
SHORTCUT
GUI
Don't
want to open up your menu.py to add
new hotkeys? This tool is for
you!
I stumbled across this
video earlier in the year
and was blown away by how intuitive
the UI was. Although given the video
was many years old, the code no
longer behaved correctly in Nuke. I
got in touch with this tool's
creator, Taehyung
Lee, who has very generously
spent some time re-coding the tool
from scratch for us!
Click
here to download the
tool!
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ADD
NEW FUNCTIONALITY TO DEFAULT
NODES WITH
ADDONCREATE()
I've found
myself using
nuke.addOnCreate()
quite a lot recently. Since I've
found plenty of uses for it myself,
I thought it would be pertinent to
share a short tutorial on what it
is, and how to use it to your
advantage!
Click
here to read the
tutorial!
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SMART
SCRIPTER
Newly
released online from Cragl
VFX Tools is a neat little
utility that lets you store code
snippets for later use right inside
of Nuke! It's a perfect example of
how something simple can make a big
impact!
Click
here to download the tool from
Nukepedia or Click
here to read more about
it!
Cragl VFX
Tools has some really
neat tools on their website, most of
them for a small price. Even if you
don't want to pay for extra Nuke
tools, it's worth checking out their
videos for inspiration on what kinds
of tools can be created in
Nuke!
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JOE ROGAN
& ELON
MUSK
I love listening to podcasts &
hearing stories of what people do
with their time on Earth. The latest
episode of Joe Rogan
Experience features
none other than Elon
Musk.
Elon is a character who is hugely
inspiring to me, and it's not often
he appears in
casual-conversation-type interviews
(as opposed to many keynote
presentations, or formal interviews
about one of his many products).
It's well worth your time to sit and
listen to the full 2.5 hours and get
a true insight as to how such an
amazing mind thinks and
operates.
Click
here to watch the podcast
episode.
If this is something you enjoy, I
would also recommend you pick
up and read Elon Musk's
Biography -- it sheds some
light on Elon's successes and
failures and is a fascinating
insight on how he became the man the
public knows him to be today.
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If
you've
created a
gizmo or
python
script to
solve a
common
problem or
speed up
your
workflow,
please reply
to this
email and
let me know
about it's
existence!
I'd love to
help spread
the word, to
help us all
be better
compositors
together!
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