The fate of any production lies in the hands of its lighting and compositing artists. It’s here, in the final stages of the post-production pipeline, where all the pieces of the puzzle are finally brought together: from concept design, modelling, and shader work, through to animation, look development, and FX. In the right hands, lighting and compositing enhance everything that has come before, with carefully managed lighting bringing out the best in each frame and the compositing ensuring a seamless marriage of scene elements. Badly judged lighting or botched comp work, on the other hand, is something nobody forgets in a hurry. Developed and taught by mentors with extensive industry experience, our Lighting/Compositing Track features a set of intensive classes that teach students the ins and outs of lighting and shading using physically-based raytrace renderer Arnold, how to harness industry standard node-based compositing tool Nuke, and also provide an introduction to the science, technology, and art of lighting for video games. Upon completion of courses in this track, students will be ready to pursue a career in lighting for fx, animation or games development, or in compositing for fx and animation work.
As you complete each course, you will receive a certificate of completion for that course. In order to qualify for a course certificate of completion, students must complete at least 80% of the class assignment during the duration of the course.
The role of Lighting Artist/Technical Director exists across the visual effects, animation, and video games industries and is one that demands strong artistic abilities alongside a good amount of technical knowledge. For, while the work notionally involves the wrangling of geometry, lighting/color reference, HDRI maps and shader settings, this is really a role more concerned with artistic direction – balancing, accenting and enhancing the lighting in each frame for the optimum visual result.
The Compositing Artist, meanwhile, works at the very end of the fx/animation pipeline, combining every disparate digital and (if appropriate) practically filmed element into one virtual space, and – crucially – striving to make the entire process invisible to the viewer.
As you complete each course you will receive a certificate of completion for that course. In order to qualify for an in course certificate of completion, students must complete at least 80% of the class assignment during the duration of the course.
Nestor is really good at his craft. I enjoyed learning from him. He has shown various techniques to improve our foliage work.
I felt the instructor (Nestor) was very understanding of where students were at in terms of having time to apply to the course and outside issues that would affect weekly submissions
I really like Clinton’s style of teaching. He explains any topic in a way that’s very accessible and detailed. I would love to have gone through another course with such a great teacher.
Clinton was a great instructor providing excellent feedback great tips and techniques. He also provided extra material relating to each week’s theme or area. This adds more value to course, providing tutorials and documents to continue study.
Clinton is amazing; I would absolutely take another class with him in a second. Very personable and active in the forums, great with specific feedback examples, and he clearly knows his technical stuff.
Clinton is a very good teacher. He explains things well and is easy to understand. He went above and beyond the class material and explained other things too, and answered our questions about the industry.
Great teacher. Really solid directions and explanations around ‘why’ you use the tools your doing as opposed to just outlining general best practices.
Clinton is by far the best teacher I’ve experienced on CGMA so far. He’s kind, patient and very much into detail when answering a question.
This is my first time learning the Unreal Engine, it’s a LOT to take in, but really good clear information was given through the course, and Clinton is an excellent Instructor who broke things down into chunks for easier learning! At the end of the course, I feel that I understand the basics and can have some confidence moving onwards in learning
The feedback given was great, Frederic pointed out things that can be improved and all the question were explained in the live QnA very clearly. Frederic was very cooperative in explaining material that students did not understand.
The instructor clearly knows the subject extremely well, and he was very good at explaining how things worked in detail, and making everything clear. In the live Q&A’s he was very dedicated to answering students’ questions, was approachable, and we covered a lot of good material.
Frederic is a wonderful instructor. Not only he is good at explaining a difficult software into something easier for students, he is also patient and provides extra learning resources to students. Both the weekly tutorials and live sessions are helpful. Thanks Frederic.
He is very patient and his teaching is very easy to follow. I learnt some amazing new techniques which I wasn’t aware of and how to approach.
I really loved how Frederic started with the basic info about lights and shaders, and worked his way up to the advanced stuff. It was really clear that way.
He did a great job, he always answered forum questions quickly and provided feedback on time. The lessons were all very clear and covered a good range of useful and industry relevant topics.
Very happy with this course it was exactly what I was looking for to get me jump started in Nuke.
My instructor was very detailed when explaining the functions and steps to complete the desired task. He didn’t just give the technical reasons but shared his experience from an artistic point of view. His personality and approach to handling students is friendly and met with enthusiasm. Assets of a great teacher.
Behnam Shafiebeik is really a great instructor. He made the process of learning Nuke for production quite simple, by breaking it down in to parts that could be understood and exercised in a weeks duration.
Great instructor! Always very clear on videos and feedbacks as well as live Q & A.
Behnam is a great instructor! He was very patient and answered questions in detail.
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