When I finished my modeling process, I needed to rig my character, which is actually a diffcult part of me because I have less knowldege about this part actually. Thus, I spent a lot of time on researching how to rig efficiently. Then I found this pipeline.
First, You need to clean up your model using the internal function of advanced skeleton.
Then export the model in FBX format and upload to the mixamo website.
It will automatically generate a skeleton and skin weight. Then you just need to download it and import the folder into maya.
When you get you binded model, open the menu of advanced skeleton, find the namematcher.
Then, choose the Mixamo in files option. Then select one of the skeleton, click the detect button.
Click the Create button, it will generate the skeleton automatically.
Then you need to adjust the eye, jaw and knee joint to the right position and then click the button build AdvancedSkeleton.
Then click the transfer button to transfer the old skin weight to new skeleton.
In the end, you just need to adjust the weight a bit and you will get a perfect binded model.
There are a great amount of interviews with digital compositors and I learn a lot from them and get lots of experience about the requirements and some small tips to be a digital compositor.
This is a digital compositor, named David Tate, from VFX industry who worked on films and shows like Ocean’s Eight, The Greatest Showman and Westworld just to name a few.
He metioned that senior compositor generally won’t be willing to do some cleaning work like cleaning the wire and some unwanted stuff in the picture because it was kind of repeating and boring for them. Thus, they sometimes will drop those kind of cleaning work to the junior compositors. I personally think it is a kind of opportunity because if people can master cleaning work, then they may get the chance to join this industry, at least I consider it possible. From this point, I can get it is a good chance to be a digital compositor by learning cleaning skills. When you get into the industry, learn more from your senior, then be them.
He also mentioned that the way to get a job could be tried to know other digital compositor from twitter, facebook or instgram and ask them what are they doing, what they get and show them what you got. You might get some opportunity to get into a big company in that way. Also, you got be doing some personal projects by helping some people in the industry for free, which help you in the future a lot.
He also mention you got be prepare a showreel, it would be better you choose your work in the industry rather than the college projects, but I personally think puting the college projects are also work if you just have college projects. And let the friends you make put some good words in your showreel is also a good idea.
This is another interview with a VFX compositor specialize in color. Adjust color is one of the most important parts in composition. When compositors get different elements from different group, adjusting every images and make them fit together probably are the main work a compositor will do in their daily work.
His name is J. Bills. He mentioned that hardware is important in composition work. Dedicated GPU, Good video card and good monitors which significantly improved your color adjusting work.
He is Diego Galtieri and he mentioned that different company have different pipeline with different software. For example, some VFX company did the composition based on After effects, others use Nuke. It depends on what the company are familiar with and what they think work better with other parts like rendering group and light group.
As I have a look at the linkedin, most of the digital compositor requirements includes skills in using After effects, Nuke. Thus, this skill should be the basic skill in becoming a compositor. Some company may more focus on your 3D compositing ability, others may more care about your 2D. Most of the companies point out the ability to composite mutiple exr channel, which is a commonly used format in VFX. Some companies will point out the system like if you are familiar with Linux. Possessing a strong sense of composition, colour, lighting, perspective, and scale is also a requirement of some companies. Thus, the basic aesthetic skill should also be pay attention to improve in the study.
Blink Ink company is a world class, london based animation studio. we create short-form video content with our partners in advertising, music, gaming, fashion and broadcast industries.
Very appreciate the opportunity given by my class to visit Blink Ink, which give me more reference for my future career plan.
When I step into their company, I feel the people here very friendly and the environment really beautiful, which give me a very deep impression at the first.
Then they gave us a introduction to their all area of work.
I really loved their working environment, you can see the plants everywhere and the artister here were really friendly and talented.
After the tour, they did a presentation to us.
Their work was amazing, the combination with 2D, 3D and stopmotion and that was exactly what I was looking for. Then they talked about their internship plan and we knew a lot about them. I hope one day I could get to there to work with all of those talented people.
Before I came to ual to study animation, I did some jobs before like animator, modeler, texture artist and compositor. The experience of being a digital compositor actually leave me a deep impression.
The work I normally did was to get all of the shots from different groups and then composed them into a intact film, it was really tired, but also really fun. However, I just did this part of the work for a few weeks, so I wanted to collect more information from it.
This is an interview with a digital compositor, He said his daily work was putting all the pictures together rendered by CG department. He also said the work of compisitors always meet the deadline because it is the last step of a project. That was exactly I always experienced when I was a compositor, which damaged my physical health a lot.
He also said when he got hired, the quality of his work dropped and that was what I felt because you always needed to fulfilled the requirements of your clients whose taste might not that good.
He said the joy of this job was from when making a great work, his clients will feel happy and the audience will happy. When a project was difficult, he and his coworkers worked together to finally made it, which also gave him happinese. This was very important, no one was willing to do something that never bring happy.
The work of digital compositor always comes to clean up the shot. Like the picture above, they need to clean up the wire.
Even clean up the terrain like the picture below.
Another important work as a digital compositor is keying and then composition like the picture below.
Overall, compositors basically need to put all of the shots together. Also, they have to clean up the things which should not exist in the shot. Third, they have to remove the green screen and replace it with other backgrounds. Finally, they also need to adujust the color, add the special effects from other CG department.
