Ben's Comp Newsletter: Issue 030
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Hey,
I'm nearing the end of crunch time on my current project at work, and can't wait to share a new project with you soon! In the meantime, I hope you'll find the contents of this newsletter issue as helpful as I do!
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JOÃO SITA // VFX Supervisor
João is one of those rare people who is the trio of super talented, humble & incredibly inspiring all at the same time. His long and diverse career in VFX spans a variety of Commercials, TV and Film projects, and has taken him from his home country in Brazil, all the way to Canada, where he now works at Framestore Montréal.
I had the pleasure of working with João at Image Engine, where he shared some valuable lessons, and helped me along my never-ending journey towards becoming a better artist. He was gracious enough to share an insightful interview with me, which I'm excited to share with you!
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Script Cleanup
One of the more annoying tasks Compositors have to face is cleaning up and converting their Nuke scripts into a stereo-friendly version. Simon Jokuschies, the man behind Cragl VFX Tools, made this useful tool that helps you find and delete any nodes that aren't contributing to the output of your Write node.
Check out the demo video here.
In addition to this, there's a simple 3-line Python script you can run in Nuke's Script Editor that will find & delete any disabled nodes:
for i in nuke.allNodes():
if i.knob('disable').value() == 1:
nuke.delete(i)
(If you use this snippet, I recommend typing it out yourself rather than copy/pasting, as it's far more likely to stick in your brain!)
These two things have also saved my sanity after inheriting messy Nuke scripts from other artists!
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Autolife
It boggles my mind that some Compositors still drag unused rotoshapes outside the working format & let them sit there not doing anything. Setting the lifetime parameter on all rotoshapes & paint strokes will ensure Nuke only processes them when needed, and subsequently speeds up your Nuke script!
This tool, originally created by Dylan Palmboom and updated by Johannes Masanz, offers an easy way to set a rotoshape's lifetime to the range between the first and the last keyframe of each shape, with a keyboard shortcut (Alt+L)!
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The Learning Curve - Chasing Stars
I scrolled past this article on LinkedIn last week, found it quite inspiring, and immediately wanted to share it with you!
Xavier Martín writes about his thought process behind "learning & adapting to new technologies", and how that translates to a tradition of pushing his own boundaries and creating a new CG Sun every year.
If you only take one thing away from this newsletter issue, make it this.
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Did you find this newsletter informative?
Have you created, or do you know of any outstanding Gizmos, Python Scripts or Tutorials that you would like to share with the global Compositing community? Please send me an email, and I will do my best to include it in a future issue of this newsletter.
If you find value in Ben's Comp Newsletter, please consider pledging a small amount on Patreon to help keep this project running! Contributions are always appreciated but not expected. |
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