Category: Compositing

Affinity Software

May 3, 2021

There is this relatively new software, Affinity that’s pretty good candidate as an Adobe substitute if you are looking for a non-subscription model. Their current applications are Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher. I’m currently most interested in Photo.

You can download them for a 90 trial.

The Affinity Photo has some nice features that Adobe Photoshop still hasn’t addressed over the years. Raw editing, true HDR workflow, and 32-bit workflow.

What’s nice is you can import/export PSD/PSB file formats and it supports ABR brushes, so you can have the best of both applications.

You can see the UI is very similar to Photoshop so working in it it’s hard at all.

The cost of the software is pretty affordable, just $50. You can purchase these apps at a 50% discount now. They are available for Mac, PC, and iPad. It is not a subscription model. It is a single one-off price. You have full capability whether on PC, Mac or Ipad.

Download for free and see what you think. For me the HDR and 32-bit capability alone is worth looking into.

The Shot List

March 14, 2021

I came across this amazing series on YouTube by StudioBinder. Their YouTube channel goes over everything video and photo production. Their series the Shot List is a must watch on a series of ultimate guides to camera shots, camera framing, camera angles, Depth of field, Camera Gear, Camera Movement, Camera Lens, and Frame Rate. This is a must watch series to increase your knowledge in cinematography and photography. Definitely worth the investment. Enjoy.

If you want to study other movies for their cinematography these two sites are wonderful resources:

Cryptomattes

July 29, 2019

I’ve heard of Cryptomattes a lot lately. My friend, Paul Rivera, first mentioned it to me for Clarisse and loving the ease of use. Then literally the next day in a tutorial I heard about them. And then a co-worker mentioned them about if we’d looked into them at my work.

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So I decided to dig into it a little. Cryptomatte is a tool created by Psyop studio as a way to automatically generate ID mattes using information available at render time. It works with motion blur, transparency, and depth of field. It was presented at Siggraph 2015. This tool has already been picked up by multiple studios and various packages. The nice thing is Psyop has kept this an open source tool. Here is a good intro to them: PSYOP releases Cryptomatte

So far, Clarisse, V-ray, Katana, Maya, Houdini, Blender, Renderman, Redshift, Arnold, Nuke, Fusion, and After Effects can use it.

You can download it on GitHub

It’s super easy to install in Nuke. Takes only a few seconds to setup.

Here’s a Redshift tutorial that was useful: Tutorial #15

A cool update to Cryptomatte looks like their’s a new release of OpenEXR plugin for Photoshop: EXR-IO 2

I’ll be digging into it more over the coming months.

Intro to Nuke

June 12, 2017

I’ve done a projection setup in Nuke video, but I hadn’t made a simple Intro to Nuke. Here’s a quick little intro, it’s a little rushed, but still the basics are there.