Blue \ Green Screen Comparison

This is a Comparison note between blue and green backdrops. this is just few point, it maybe more depend on the use.

Sometimes Rotoscope will be used even after keying for more cleaner matte. 

Note About Visual Effects

here is some notes from a TED video about visual effects.

- Visual effect is based on principles of all illusion :
       Assumption: things are the way we know them

       Presumption: things will behave as we expect

       Context in reality: knowledge of the world as we know it

- Playing with the world and our perception of it, is the assents of visual effects

- Never betray the illusion 

To see the video: Don Levy: A cinematic journey through visual effects

Notes About Edges

I found these Notes laying around my hard disk, thought of sharing it.
it belong to someone,I do not remember from where I took it or saw it.
let me know if you know the owner.



In general, edges are:
Harder in the light, softer in the shadow
Harder in bright light, softer in dim light
Harder in focused light, softer in diffused light
Harder in the foreground, softer in the background
Harder on smooth forms, softer on textured forms
Harder on hard forms, softer on soft forms
Harder on flat forms, softer on rounded forms
Harder on thin forms, softer on thick forms
Harder on still forms, softer on forms in motion
Harder at the center of interest, softer as you move away

Notes About Reducing Render Time Out of 3D software

To Reduce Render Time One Can:
   - Reduce poly Count
   - Bake Light And Ambient Occlusion for non moving Objects
   - use Light Linking
   - looking into Shadow Size
   - using image plane where possible
   - Rendering In layer
       no need to render a BG for 300F when the camera, light and the object not moving ONLY the characters are. Just render one frame then comp it later.
   - Consider Compositing in the workflow

there are many other little settings in the render option or in the shader option could help to reduce the render time.

Generalist VFX production pipeline For Short Film

This Pipeline is meant for one who is working on short film from A to Z ,involved integration between CG and live action. this chart gives general look on the stages from beginning to end. one not necessarily to follow the step exact way, one can change it depend on how comfortable one feel with the step. It depend on the film, these steps maybe less or may other steps add to it. Image Original Size

Some Important Render Passes

These some passes that will help to easy manipulate CG when comping it.  One may need all of these or more or just few of them, it depant on the final output.
Beauty
Diffuse
Color
Ambient Occlusion
Indirect
Shadow
Reflection
Refraction
Specular

Some other helper passes to add effects and other things:
Z Depth
2D Motion Vector
Normals
World Space (point world)
Id\ Mask
UV

Using RGBA in other then what made for

Many people think that RGBA only used with image pixel information and to define the color of an image. But  idea of RGBA can be used to hold masks, depth values, xyz and some other things. when render out form 3D software, in case that it needed some masks for the objects in the scene so it will be easy later to edit in compositing software, use RGBA to hold these masks by assigning these colors to the objects then render it out as a normal image. (red, green, blue, black, white) (be sure not to assign same color to object next to each other). also RGBA can hold XYZ values, which can be very helpful in compositing software. can be use in color correction, relighting, position 2D object in relation the 3D object...so on.