cmiVFX: Autodesk Composite (Toxik) Introduction

Autodesk Composite, formerly known as Toxik, is now available as a packaged application with Maya and soon to be 3D Max. This long format, detailed explanation of the ins and outs of this robust application come to fruition as several projects take your through the standard operation procedure of this node based compositor.
Introduction
Learn how to navigate through the various components of the Composite UI such as navigating views and adding tools via the Gate UI. Discuss User and Project Preferences and begin to lay down a basic foundation to working with Composite, which the rest of lessons will build upon.


Creating Compositions and Working with Footage
Create your first composition file and learn important composition settings. Discuss using multiple compositions and versions as well as importing and working with footage and playing footage in Composite's Player View.


Creating the Alien Visitors Composite
Continue exploring Player Outputs, Context Points and using the Comparison Tool. Then shift gears and begin work on the Alien Visitors composite, which covers connecting nodes and creating a comp over operation via the Blend & Comp Tool. Through the alien composite, you will learn several tools and important workflows in Autodesk Composite.

Creating Masks and Color Correction
Continuing through the Alien Visitors composite, discussing the aspects of using the Garbage Mask tool to masks the alien ships. Take a look at color correction using the CC basics tool and discuss methods of color correction through CC Basics Color Match and by matching color through channels.


Alien Visitors Composite Wrap Up
Complete the Alien Visitors composite by using a Depth Pass to mask color correction. Learn to create lighting effects via the Blur and Color Source Tools. Also take a look at utilizing the Luma Keyer Tool to aid in mask creation.

Creating the Assault Composite
Begin creating the Assault composite and continue to build on important lessons covered in the Alien Visitors composite. Learn to the process of keying green screen footage using Composite's Super Keyer Tool. Learn to create a light wrap effect to realistically blend the foreground and background elements.

Wrapping Up the Assault Composite
Discuss Composite's animation tools to create muzzle fire. Learn to use Composite's Tracker Tool to apply tracker data to masks. Explore Composite's animation graph editor to create and manipulate key frames as well as using basic expressions to link attributes in Composite.


Introducing Vector Paint
Explore the new Vector Paint Tool found in Composite 2011. Take a look at using Vector Paint's Paint, Clone and Reveal modes as well as discuss options for modifying brushes and strokes and utilizing the Transform functions of Vector Paint to finesse clone operations. Discuss the usage of Clone and Reveal to remove or replace portions of an image, as needed in everyday Rotoscoping tasks.