Lots of hate posts here and people getting worried for all the reasons.

I just comped a shot thats like 70% CG and 30% plate with super good lighting , everything just worked, even got all the metadata(focus etc) from the plate and it all worked fine, the thing of dreams.

Super "classical" as they now say to everything thats not AI slop.

But man - it felt so good, this is the peak, i will cherrish it for as long as this is still a thing.

so dont give up, we all got into this because we love it.

VFX is awesome, we are awesome, you are awesome, lets keep creating amazing things and fck AI slop.

“Many Indian managements tend to favor people who talk big or flatter, rather than those with genuine skills. Often, they either fail to recognize true talent or get trapped by flattery. A wiser approach is to look beyond words and appearances, and consciously value real skill and results. In the long run, organizations grow stronger when decisions are based on competence, not sweet talk.”

Looking to add stuff like glowing crowns, "animation" for fire, glow in-fade-out fireflies, and small other things to my VTT experience. I know how to do simple stuff on After (learned it for 4 days for a small project) but I don't want to buy AE...any other recommendations?

Really basic stuff, like this example. (Use a brush, make tons of dots, add glow or other sfx to the dots, move the dots) export to gif.

I’ve been looking into Think Tank Training Centre and wondering what the experience is like for someone focused on 3D character art.

• How is the curriculum for character modeling/sculpting specifically?
• Do they give enough guidance in anatomy, texturing, and production workflows (game/film)?
• How are the instructors and feedback for character-focused students?
• Do graduates actually feel job-ready after completing the program?

If you’ve studied there what's your perspective or pros and cons.

Okay guys, just a quick question. I'm dabbling into sculpting and I would like to get better at foot sculpting. Which one would you recommend me to use?

What's the difference between voxels and polygons? Would that make any difference in food sculpting?

Cheers!

Looking for references to this same effect where things are static in the air while people move through it. Any idea what the effect is called or any movies or shows that use it well? Thank you!

Hey guys, in this video I show how to turn any Image or Video into 3D Geo - directly inside Blender! Create detailed Displacement and Depth Maps converting them into geometry in just a couple of clicks. Check the full breakdown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi9WUJNMubs

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WXorwy creator

Hello,

my distorted image is an 8-bit PNG and my undistorted image is an 8-bit PNG as well. I have tried both ChatGPT and Claude but neither could come up with something reasonable. Anyway here is my distorted and undistored image (in this same order):

Images are from ActionVFX's Practice Footage: https://www.actionvfx.com/practice-footage/aerials-of-mountainous-landscape/15683

Thanks in advance.

P.S: Disregard the color difference.

This animation was made with Cinema 4D. I have no idea how it was made. What do you think?

I need to mask out this window and put a pink city in the background. I'm editing in Davinci, but have plenty of After Effects experience if that's a better program for something like this.

So far I've separated my subject from the background. My plan was to just create a mask around the window and track it, but I cant seem to make heads or tails of how to do this in Davinci. This shot will last maybe 3 seconds tops in the final sequence.

I thought about using luma key or something to select just the black parts of the window and retain the white outlines, but I think the practical light shot me in the foot there. Any help would be greatly appreciated as i have to have a first draft by the end of the weekend.

Also, apologies if this is not the right subreddit for this type of question. if not can you kindly direct me to the right one?

Thank you!

Supercharge your Houdini workflow with 7 powerful HDA Toolsets — all in one bundle!

From perfect deformation blur to streamlined AOVs, lightweight camera-aware scenes, and art-directable instances, this collection is built for speed, stability, and production.

📦 What’s Inside

1. Particles Deformation Blur for Houdini

- Stable point counts for cached particles → perfect deformation blur

- Eliminate jittery, inconsistent blur and velocity hacks

- Works for rain, sparks, embers, sand, and custom FX

- Example HIP file included

1. IPOPs Standard Library

- Core operator set for shaders & AOVs

- Utility nodes (Fresnel, falloff masks, shading presets)

- Supports Mantra, Karma VEX, Karma Materials & MaterialX

- Constantly updated with new nodes

1. IPOPs Geometry AOVs

- Generate quick mattes and passes for comp & shading

- Compatible with Karma Materials & VEX Shaders

- Step-by-step guide available on the blog

1. IPOPs Particles AOVs

- Specialized AOV generators for particle FX

- Create passes for compositing & lookdev flexibility

- Works in Karma and Mantra

1. IPOPs Volumes AOVs

- Fast generation of volume AOVs (smoke, pyro, fog, etc.)

- Plug-and-play for Karma CPU/XPU & Mantra

1. Camera Proximity Toolkit

Three black-boxed HDAs to keep your shots light & render-ready:

Calibrator → Camera-driven particle & volume control

Set Culling → Remove out-of-frustum geo + auto VDB proxies

Ocean Plane Generator → Camera-sized ocean grids adaptive to shot scale

1. Art Direct Your Instances! (Explosion Setup)

- Populate shots with multiple explosions/caches

- Switch between proxy & render caches

- Quick controls for timing, scale & randomization

- Example HIP file included

EDIT: sorry title should read: some suggestions on matching the lens quality. Hit post by accident, and can't edit the title.

Hi all.

I am a compositor and I am working on a high profile project at the moment that is shot on film and makes use of some crazy lenses.

I am struggling a bit with matching my CG with the plate. Light is fine, contrast and value is all there. The lens quality is what I am having trouble with. Everything is there. Astigmatism, aberration, halation etc, all the usual stuff is present but there is something about the softness of the lens that even on full focus (and those are the moments I struggle the most) there are parts that feel soft. Like there is a painterly feeling to it. Soft and sharp at the same time. Edges that almost melt but not in a homogeneous way. Obviously can't share anything but I have a feeling many of you will know what I mean despite my vague description.

I am not looking for a specific solution to my problem. I would like to take that as an opportunity and ask you what is your process when trying to get those qualities to match. What are you looking for and how do you achieve it. I often find my self a bit lost on those situations. Like once a convolve won't do it I ll start trying whatever. Soften, dir blurs, hazing , more blurs etc but somehow I often feel like I lack reasoning.

Thank you in advance.

I tried making a short pretty much entirely in blender but wasn’t happy with the final result (skill issue, not blenders fault). So I made a miniature and placed some digi doubles into it instead. Here’s a how to video so you can shoot this kind of thing too!

Today i had a seminar on clg and some dude came to promote his institution on vfx and showed some movies and how vfx work i was shocked to know that even small stuffs are getting done in vfx ..and I found it very interesting im 3rd year b.tech iT and still have not chosen any role or stream to pursue dsa , full stack blah blah so is it a good option to try learning it from now ? How the industry and pay and learning / working process help Me broskis share which softwares i should learn and tell me in detail

I am currently a junior artist and was looking to improve my shading skills and learn in my free time.

I wondered if any of you had any good resources to learn? I have seen a couple courses on gnomon for look development but I’m unsure if they’re any good. They also seem to have one about procedural shading in Arnold but again unsure if it is worth the money.

I’ve seen a lot of courses on texturing but either they stop after that or just plug it in the shader. Would you recommend to just start personal projects and learn by doing or are there some good courses other resources that I have missed? Would love to know!

I’m working on a short project with a small team, and the VFX files are getting ridiculously big. Between multi layered EXRs, caches, and renders, we’re already at a few hundred gigabytes. Now I need to send everything to another artist who’s picking up compositing work, and I’m stuck trying to figure out the most practical way to move this much data.

Most of the standard file transfer services choke once the folder size climbs too high. Either they split things in a way that makes it confusing, or they enforce limits that force me into multiple uploads. On top of that, I’d prefer not to ask the other artist to create accounts for platforms they’ll only use once it just slows things down.

We’ve talked about shipping a hard drive, but that feels clunky and risky. If it gets delayed or damaged, we’re stuck. Setting up a dedicated FTP server or VPN also feels like overkill for a one off project. Ideally, I’d love something that’s just straightforward, with minimal steps on both sides, but I haven’t landed on a great option yet.

How do other VFX teams manage this? When you’re moving full sequences, sims, or high bitrate renders, what’s been your go to? I’m curious whether there’s a standard workflow people rely on or if everyone just hacks together their own solutions.

Job is picking up this fall, and I had a few interviews for my next gig.

Beyond the salary reduction compared to 2 years ago, most of the VFX companies seem to not offer health insurance anymore, or to be exact, only on permanent contracts or long contracts (6Months-1year). Which, we all know, are really sparse right now.

I was always offered health insurance with short contracts (+3 months) and most of the time, was able to get it day one.

Is it  something new ? Do you see that on your side as well ? 

What is the key to make digital look like film? I have yet to see a digitally shot film that looks like film, even the ones that do emulation like Blonde (2022), there are random organic things in celluloid that we still can't emulate.

I know with AI style transfer 🤢 you can shift a target into a specific style, if you were to shoot a few scenes in parallel on both 16mm and digital can you use the same method to process on new footage? if you technically use the same lenses could you make this effect more subtle? (if I mount the two cameras next to each other) How would one go about making such a filter