Digital Visual Effects and Compositing

Im Not a VFX artist. I've always wanted to learn, just for fun, since where I come from this is not a career (or something you can make a life from). This book takes you step by step, combining techniques and moving on. Basically "this is the new trick.... Now add the previous chapters to make it work". It's true, not all the materials (pics, footage, 3D models) are available to download, but hey, VFX is about doing tour own stuff, isn't it? As a guerrilla hobbyist I just finished my first reading and I'm about to take my camera, shoot my footage and practice my VFX with it. The book is amazing, seriously, of course, there are lots of things that are left for you to study (say, After Effects, Mocha, 3D software, etc), but the greatness of this book is "hey, you know how to use your software? Now use it this way and make something awesome", no matter what your favorite software is.

This book is the required text for my VFX course. I like the fact that you can use it with different software. The VFX techniques I,II,III.,walk you through a shot, which you can easily follow with your own projects. Chapter Seven 3D Tracking and Matchmoving CG is really useful because it explains it in a way that students can understand and then you can go into the different software choices that they can use. He covers Stereoscopic 3D and 2D to 3D Conversion VFX. which is still useful in 360 3D VR software like Nuke 11. Chapter 15 on Cutting Edge 3D VFX, I used the Reallusion iClone, 3DXchange, and Mocap Plugin. I bought two X-Box 360 Kinects used from GameStop and had Mocap working for $50, plus the iClone software. This book covers everything from beginning to end, including "Starting Your VFX Career"

I've read many books on compositing and VFX, and too many simply rewrite the first few chapters of a software manual. Some authors get so lost in the sound of their own voice in their heads that you're bored to tears by the time they finally arrive at their point. This book is the Real World of VFX. Every chapter is so useful that to this day I glean insight from them all. Read it, absorb it, do it, and repeat!

Thanks I got my book & happy!!!

I like it a lot. Haven’t had time to get through it. The first few chapters are dense but good. Just getting past the basics now. The book was smaller than I thought, not in length but in heighth. It’s almost square. It makes it hard to read or prop open. It’s very much a text book. It goes into all the advanced topics. Thats why I bought it. It’s not a beginners guide while that information is there.

GREAT

This book is a MAJOR disappointment! I am a visual effects instructor and thought I had actually found a definitive volume for my beginning to intermediate students. In fact, upon initial review (I read the book, cover to cover), I was fully convinced that this book was it. Clearly, the author knows his stuff, and conveys his knowledge to the beginning to intermediate VFX artist exceptionally well; very deserving of a 5-star rating, IMO. Upon closer examination of the Bonus Content, i.e. the practice files, the book revealed itself to be virtually useless. The practice files are an empty promise! They are merely the book's publication images, in CMYK. While the examples that the author illustrates are very good, there is nothing available for the student or user to "Follow Along with" as described in the book's introduction. Certainly, a resourceful student (or instructor) could create or otherwise acquire his or her own similar examples, but at a published price of $65, one would expect this book to deliver on it's claim of functional examples. In the end, my stark criticism may be due to an honest oversight by the publisher and/or the author, but the book has been available (and in my hands) for a few months, and I have not seen any update to the downloadable content. I have repeatedly checked both the author's site, which seems to be a work in progress, and the publisher's site. I hope that this matter will be remedied in the near future, until then, be aware that you will be paying a premium for non-existent materials.

Jon’s explanations and examples of the various VFX tools and techniques are easy to digest and covered in a way that I believe beginners will love and professionals will appreciate. I like that the book isn't software specific and the examples given are in all of the major compositing programs like After Effects, NUKE and Fusion. I picked up some amazingly helpful techniques, one of my favorites being the advanced tracking strategies in chapter 3. This is the book I wish I had when I was getting into compositing and it will definitely be my go to resource on future VFX projects. I’m impressed with just how much information is in this single book.

Excellent book, well laid out and full of handy tips and shortcuts. Well worth the money for anyone looking to learn or advance their knowledge of VFX techniques.

Great book on compositing visual effects into your own video projects. I am a user of HitFilm myself, and while it is not specifically covered in this book, the concepts are explained clearly enough that they can easily be applied to HitFilm or any other comparable software.

Tra i libri più belli e ben fatti che abbia mai studiato!! Consigliatissimo!!

Nice book.... Thank you Jon Gress 😊😊😊

Excelente libro, claro y conciso, va al punto sin dar muchos rodeos, es todo una biblia para los vfx de hoy en día