The pipeline: from acquisition to delivery

• The importance and methods of retaining the quality of the source material.
• The general VFX shot pipeline, including general knowledge of all artists roles within the shot’s lifetime.
• The film and/or TV shot pipeline, from pre-production, through shoot, editorial, VFX to grading.
• The VFX production pipeline, including shot bidding, turn-over, briefing, reviews, client reviews, deliveries and final de livery
• VFX terminology

• Select and use appropriate software tools and techniques
• Use appropriate techniques to reduce degradation of the source material. The quality of the filmed footage should always be retained.
• Use appropriate VFX terminology
• Show competence in at least one industry standard compositing system

Principles of colour space

• How digital images are encoded and stored, especially colour spaces and their appropriate use
• The differences in linear light, gamma encoded and logarithmic encoded pixel values
• The implications of working with high and low dynamic range images
• The VFX colour pipeline, from acquisition to working space, balance grades, look grades and delivery

• Convert between common colour spaces
• Select the appropriate colour space for the given task
• Combine images from multiple colour spaces
• Apply colour adjustments at the correct stage of the composite, using non-destructive adjustments where possible

Pixel math operations

• The maths involved with common compositing operations (for example
• Colour Corrections, Layering and Matte Operations)
• The differences between 10,12,16 bit integer pixel values and 16,32 bit floating point pixel values
• The meaning and implication of pre-multiplication and it’s use
• The makeup of an image, in terms of channels and pixel values

• Reproduce simple compositing operations with equivalent maths expressions
• Select and use the appropriate pixel bit depth format for the task
• Correctly use (un)pre-multiplication for colour correction or transformation operations.

Project organisation

• How composites are created in either layer or node based systems, the created logic is referred to as workflows or scripts
• The importance of building efficient and flexible shot workflows
• The importance of naming conventions and version control
• How readability of shot workflows is important in a team environment
• The impact of accurate bidding/time estimating of shots and the implications to other team members of delivering to the allocated timescale

• Demonstrate how to build efficient workflows and identify how to improve efficiency in existing workflows
• ·Build workflows with flexibility in mind, to be able to quickly respond to changes to the brief
• Use labels, colour and thumbnails to effectively document workflows to enable sharing of workflows amongst the team
• Accurately bid/estimate how long tasks will take
• Complete tasks within the time allocated

Roto-scoping

• How to determine which technique is the correct method to generate the matte
• Motion blur, how it affects the matte and the principals of animation to effectively replicate in the generated matte
• How to analyse the shot to determine the most efficient breakdown of shapes and keyframes
• How to produce a consistent matte edge and to reduce unwanted artefacts such as stray shapes or inconsistent motion along the matte edge
• How the matte will be used in the composite

• Generate mattes by roto-scoping and luminance, difference and colour keying
• Produce accurate roto-scope by correctly placing shapes, control points and keyframes
• Accurately replicate motion blur within the roto-scope generated matte
• Use point and planar tracking  to increase roto-scope efficiency
• Combine several matte generation techniques to produce a consistent matte for the shot
• Produce a range of mattes for various uses - garbage, articulate roto- scope, soft and hard keys

Plate preparation and painting

• How to determine the most appropriate method for removing unwanted artefacts in live action footage
• Camera moves and how they impact patching or frame-by-frame painting

• Use patching techniques to remove unwanted objects within the live action footage
• Use frame-by-frame painting to remove unwanted objects within the live action footage
• Demonstrate consistency of paint strokes across all frames to ensure a smooth result
• Accurately remove wires, rigs, tracking markers and camera/lighting equipment
• Use appropriate techniques to remove dust and scratches from live action footage

Image Feature Tracking

• The process of following image features across a series of frames in order to record the position of an object in the source footage
• Camera moves, how they impact the tracking process and how to select the most appropriate method to produce an accurate track
• The technical process of tracking and how you can improve the accuracy and efficiency of tracking the shot
• Lens distortion and how to model the amount of distortion in live action footage

• Create accurate point tracks
• Create accurate planar tracks
• Correctly remove lens distortion to improve accuracy of tracking

Image manipulation

• The effect of filtering in transformations and how to reduce image degradation
• Colour correction operations and their correct use
• Retiming techniques and the technical process underlying the tools

• Apply appropriate colour corrections to seamlessly blend several elements
• Use various retiming techniques to slow down or speed up the source footage, including cleaning of any image errors that may be created by the software tools
• Apply transformations and image warping to seamlessly blend elements

3D Fundamentals

• 3D space, including projections and UV texturing
• How ‘match-moving’ is used to track the movement of a camera through the shot footage

• Able to build a simple 3D scene, including cameras, simple geometry and projection cameras
• Produce a virtual camera that matches a simple live action camera move by using ‘match-moving’ software tools
• Extract 2d co-ordinates and 3d planes from match-moved cameras and scenes in order to place new images into the shot footage in perfectly matched perspective

Compositing

• How Computer Generated Imagery can be rendered in multiply passes in order to be adjusted more efficiently in the composite. These passes can include: colour, diffuse, specular, shadow and beauty lighting
• The concept and purpose of a template or hero script
• Perspective, depth of field and scale and how this relates to a seamless composite
• Photographic composition, light and colour

• Complete basic composites demonstrating keying, colour grading, re- timing and screen insertion
• Complete basic live action and CGI composites demonstrating set extensions and simple CGI objects integrated into live action elements using multiple render passes

Team working and division of work

• The importance of accurate briefs and feedback notes
• The importance of timely delivery of briefs and feedback, to increase efficiency within the team

• Effectively break a shot into smaller tasks that can be completed by other team members
• Produce briefs that accurately describe the tasks, including time estimates
• Review the work provided by other team members and give accurate and clear feedback