FXPHD has just made the two XSI classes I taught available through their vault. So, if you sign up for the current term (January 2010), you can purchase those classes separately. Both of the classes have re-run once already, so this is probably the last chance to get access to them. The vault isn’t available or visible until you register, so I’ve pasted the class descriptions below…
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XSI201 Lighting in XSI
This production-centric course will explore a variety of lighting techniques, and how to get the most out of XSI’s lighting tools. The first half of the course will focus primarily on the technical skills required to light a shot, while the second half will apply these skills to real world scenarios and explore ways to enhance storytelling through lighting. The class will be taught by Lucas Martell, a freelance visual effects artist best known for his video podcast about the making of his animated short film “Pigeon: Impossible.”
Class 1: Lighting Techniques: Lighting a basic scene with 3 different techniques: a traditional setup, global illumination, and HDR. Special attention will be paid to the strengths and weaknesses of each technique and their place in modern production pipelines.
Class 2: Multipass Lighting: This class covers the basics of passes, partitions and overrides. It follows the process of lighting a simple shot from scratch using a multi-pass approach, compositing with XSI FXTree, and then tweaking settings to improve the look of the shot. We also cover basic mental ray settings, establishing a light-rig for texturing purposes, and tips for dealing with XSI’s pass editor.
Class 3: This class covers more advanced pass setups and how to override specific parameters for better interaction between objects. It continues where class02 left off and completes the setup and final comp for the pigeon shot. We also cover depth passes and the more advanced visibility parameters for rendering purposes.
Class 4: This class covers a variety of tips to help render large scenes. We discuss optimizing materials, reflection passes, merging materials, referenced models, .map files, breaking scenes into z-slices, geometry approximation, and combining multiple scenes.
Class 5: This class covers additional ways to speed up your renders including occlusion optimization, rendermaps, splitting up expensive raytracing techniques by using multiple passes, and 2D motion blur. We also cover how even a scripting novice can harness the power of the event logger to dramatically increase their productivity.
Class 6: This week’s class focuses on some techniques for lighting CG elements to be incorporated into visual effects. We cover topics ranging from final gather to linear workflows, and a cool trick to create environment maps using a variation of the “shiny ball” trick often used on set to capture lighting setups.
Class 7: Class 7 is back to Pigeon: Impossible, but focuses on lighting the interior of the briefcase using an all-in-the-render approach. We balance quality with render times, show how you can use photographs of lights to create more realistic renders, and explore several of the more creative aspects of CG lighting.
Class 8: This class addresses several questions from the forums and also introduces geometry deformers and the math that goes into them.
Class 9: Class 9 covers some techniques to add mood to a scene, as well as a further discussion of composition and how to lead the viewer’s eye with lighting. We also discuss color and light direction through three different setups for a product shot of a scooter; the classic “white void” setup, a heroic setup, and a scary setup.
Class 10: Class 10 continues with the scooter product shots from the previous week. We cover a few aesthetic issues as well as some ways to make the volumetric light look more realistic. We also discuss some tips on interacting with clients as well as an exploration of lighting setups for different times of day.
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XSI202 – Production with XSI
Lucas Martell returns with his second course, this time covering production concepts using XSI. The primary objective of the class is to introduce some of the more technical aspects in a way that artists can immediately and confidently take advantage of. The course begins by discussing rigging, but in a way that’s designed to ease post-grads into scripting, expressions, and eventually lead into the second half of the term which applies the same concepts to the visual programming nature of ICE. Along the way we’ll also discuss pipeline considerations, including custom tools to help speed up production, as well as some useful tips for taking control of simulations. The class is aimed at a wide range of people, from younger students who generally have not dealt with some of these higher-level issues, to experienced artists who could benefit from a more intricate knowledge of Softimage’s inner workings.
Lucas Martell is a freelance animator who recently completed the 5-year production cycle on his short film “Pigeon: Impossible.” In addition to his own projects, he has taught through the training site: fxphd and is widely known for his weekly podcast that chronicles the techniques and obstacles he’s faced throughout the course of producing his films.
Class 1: Expressions This class covers expressions from basic construction, to more advanced scenarios with nested functions and condition statements. Several examples are shown including IK feedback and a rig for horizontal window blinds.
Class 2: Synoptic Editor This class begins with an intro to some fundamental scripting issues, and moves onto some basic scripts that are tied together into a control panel using the synoptic editor.
Class 3: Autorigging This class creates a vehicle rig using some more advanced expressions, then builds an autorigging script that can assemble the rig on the fly from a guide model.
Class 4: Building a pipeline An in-depth look at the data pipeline for PI, some useful tools, and best-practices.
Class 5: This class picks up several things we couldn’t fit into the first 4 classes. We discuss some additional rigging and pipeline tips, as well as some very cool uses for scripted operators.
Class 6: ICE particles This class discusses several tips and tricks with ICE particles. We create our own custom force compound and introduce state machines. We also cover some handy tricks to keep in mind when rendering ICE particles.
Class 7: This class addresses several questions from the forums including getting data in and out of ICE, shading smoke and fire, and using ICE kinematics to create custom constraints.
Class 8: ICE deformers Creating your own custom deformers using ICE.
Class 9: Simulation Case Studies Several tips and tricks for getting the most out of simulations. We cover loopable cloth simulations, blending simulations, and several Rigid Body techniques.
Class 10: In this final class we address several questions from the forums including selective particle trails, changing particle colors based on a texture map, a very cool dominoes simulation with ICE and some final scripting tricks for creating folders within XSI.
This was the romantic spot, just outside the Abbesses metro stop in Montmartre.
