50+ NEW Autodesk Smoke 2015 Getting Started Videos

[Grant.Kay]

Hi All,

To coincide with the release of Autodesk Smoke 2015, I have posted 50+ new videos to the Smoke Learning Channel.

These videos are great for new and experienced Smoke Artists.

Updated interface, new timeline effects, workflows and features covered in all these videos.

You can check all of this out on the Smoke Learning Channel 

Or you can download the videos via iTunes.

PLEASE NOTE: The trial version of Smoke 2015 will be available in May.

Please follow me on Twitter @DiscreetUK for the latest Official Smoke Training Updates

All feedback, requests and comments are always welcome!

Have a great week!

Regards
Grant

[brookstomlinson]

Wow, someone has been busy!! Thanks Grant!!

[BKM]

Wow.. holy crap. 50+  All updated videos. Great!

[Boutchie]

Thanks Grant,

keep up the good work.

And "Chapeau" for the learning channels

[DavidCrites4631]

Thanks very much Grant.

[brookstomlinson]

I'm a little more than half way and really excited about what I'm seeing.  

quick quetion.  In all of Ken's demo's of smoke, he said playback is real time now.  But in everything you are showing, you say click render for the final result.  So what is the deal?  

Thanks

p.s I watched your flame videos, and I don't even own or work on flame, but I know to save my work, I will save the desktop, lol

[arichards]

I think it's a question of nomenclature and with realtime being a poor choice of 'salesman-oriented' words that perhaps ought to be chosen more wisely in terms of Ken's demos. Besides this somewhat hyperbolic statement, there's no question that 2015 is a good step forward in terms of being able to watch your work back sans having to render. You can now scrub the timeline and frameskip on playback so that you get a much more immediate relation to your footage. Perhaps a better choice of term would be 'naturaltime' playback? It doesn't play 'every' frame on playback in realtime but skips frames so that you can get a very good idea of how it's all going prior to rendering.

Great tutorials btw Grant. 50+ tutorials must have kept you busy!

Cheers

Tony

[Grant.Kay]

Hi Brooks,

I did that entire series on a macbook pro with a lacie thunderbolt drive.

You do get varying degrees of real-time playback without rendering. However, I always remind people to render because the finals will need to be rendered if you wish to export or play out of the system.

I do not wish to mislead people that no rendering is required to output a result. So I "subconsciously" work on getting people in that frame of mind 🙂

I'd love a zippy new Mac Pro for even faster performance but everything is budget dependant.

Regards
Grant

[arichards]

AD should buy you one Grant as a prize for producing these 50 great vids! Then you can get onto your next 50!

Cheers

Tony

[Grant.Kay]

LOL…. That would be fun.. but I like my portability and would rather wait for another faster Macbook pro…. But its my personal preference 🙂

Don't worry… I have already started working on my 3D tracking videos….

Regards
Grant

[arichards]

I thought that would be your next port of call!

Am very much looking forward to your take and explanaiton on 3d tracking. Any chance also of including masking out objects in the scene to comp elements behind? I am trying to get my head around this in Smoke but am thinking that it needs some interaction/linking with the camera in the gmasknode  due to the lack of gmasks in action? In any event, no rush but I know that they'l be good!

Cheers

Tony

[Grant.Kay]

Hi Tony,

I already have done some experimenting and basically, the foreground objects need to be rotoscoped separately and recomped on top of the inserted object.

There are two paths you can take.

1. You can attempt to do it in action.
--- This means that you will have to rotoscope the background in the modular keyer. Than you need to connect the layer to a camera in action and offset it to line up with the frame to deal with the 3D space. Don't forget that if you are using any lighting, it will mess with the foreground elements as well. In conclusion it is do-able but personally I found it really messy.

2. Using separate keyers and masks in ConnectFX to isolate the foreground elements. These are than recomped back onto the image after the action node using a comp node. I actually prefer this workflow because the foreground elements just line up with the composited plate and no colour problems occur because the foreground elements are only roto'd and not influenced by action lights.

I plan to cover this but for the sake of not overwhelming people, I will probably choose the second route.  It's also part of the proper workflow to correctly add any shadow casting into the comp...  I touch on this in the post on Ambient Occulusion (the subject line should actually be shadow casting but its besides the point).

Regards
Grant

[Boutchie]

Hi Grant,

I know you're working your socks off.

But as usualy, I need to use the 3D tracker, and urgent.

Where can I find the tuto 3D tracker Flame, if there is one.

Thankssssssss

Emile

[Boutchie]

Ok found on Autodesk channel.

http://youtu.be/ubGKUL7hl8Q

Thanks

[Grant.Kay]

cool!

[arichards]

Thanks for the excellent advice Grant. I'll take your advice and give the second route a go. This certainly bates my breath for your upcoming tutorials! 

@ Boutchie, there's also this great short tutorial from Joel Osis: http://www.joelosis.com/2013/07/analyzer-node-in-action.html

Cheers

Tony

[brookstomlinson]

Thanks Grant,
Are you sure you wouldn't want a Mac Pro at work, and a macbook pro? Seems like to me, being the flag ship teacher of the product, you would want to be familiar with the top end mac, and a portable mac.

[Grant.Kay]

Hi Brooks,

I have already played with the Mac Pro and I have not noticed any operational difference aside from performance.

The other only differentiator I noticed is using a Macbook Pro keyboard vs a full-size mac keyboard with a number pad. This will only affect the way you perform numeric trimming and some other editing functions.

I don't need broadcast out because you'll mostly likely never see that in my videos 🙂

I do have a Mac Pro with an AJA if I ever need it for VTR input/output but that would be the only requirement to use it.

Regards
Grant