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If you want a serious job in the post-production or gaming industries, in feature film or video – locally or overseas – or you want to produce your own work, the professors at fxphd will teach you the real world facts and techniques you need to know. Each course in fxphd is run by a practicing vfx or editing professional — what we call a Professor. Each has been hand picked for the expert knowledge in the field. The professors come from a background of working on a wide variety of projects.

SynthEyes offers a complete high-end feature set, including tracking, stabilization, motion capture, and mesh building. It handles camera tracking, object tracking, object tracking from reference meshes, camera+object tracking, multiple-shot tracking, tripod (nodal, 2.5-D) tracking, mixed tripod and translating shots, stereoscopic shots, nodal stereoscopic shots, zooms, lens distortion, light solving. It can handle shots of any resolution—DV, HD, film, IMAX, with 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit float data, and can be used on shots with thousands of frames. A nifty feature simplifies and speeds tracking for green-screen shots. The image preprocessor can help remove grain, compression artifacts, off-centering, or varying lighting; improve low-contrast shots; or shoe-horn shots into available RAM for quicker handling.

In this course, we will look at how to get started developing applications with the Nancy framework. The Nancy framework (or NancyFX) is an open-source micro-framework built on .NET. NancyFX is lightweight, yet powerful. This course is designed to help you familiarize yourself with using NancyFX to build web applications with minimal ceremony.

Taught by Sean Devereaux, this new introductory course will expand upon the Foundry Nuke tutorials produced by fxphd. Nuke version 6.1 software will be available over the VPN to fxphd postgrads for non-commercial use (OSX, Linux, and Windows versions). Devereaux has pushed pixels on over 25 feature films and 50 commercials. He is currently a vfx supervisor at ZERO VFX in Boston. His feature credits include Transformers, The Proposal, Peter Pan and Vanilla Sky and he has worked with some of the best studios in the world including Pixar, Digital Domain and Industrial Light+Magic.

In this demonstration the instructor starts off by giving a detailed explanation of commonly used material nodes. Once the foundation is laid its on to creating several full materials using only a few textures. This tutorial is appropriate for artists on multiple skill levels.

In this first DVD of our series, Hélder Pinto starts by walking you through many of the common features of CryENGINE 3 SDK like Customizing the User Interface, Folder Structure, Viewports, Entities, Panels, Objects and much more. Once a firm foundation has been placed, Hélder immediately begins going through the creation of an entire level from scratch. He begins by creating a custom terrain and from there goes into creating the lush vegetation. Other topics in the creation include using brushes, basic lighting, environment tab, fog volumes and finally water volumes.

In this second DVD of our series, Hélder Pinto continues where he left off on the creation of an entire level from scratch. Hélder starts off by placing particles in the scene and then goes into the “Boids” system to place things like flocks of birds. From there he goes into many other topics including decals, roads, prefabs, archetypes, placing automated doors and ropes, setting up sounds, using voxels, creating an entire cave scene, viz areas, environment cubemaps, reflections, clouds, materials and much more. Hélder concludes the level section by setting up the final lighting.

In this third DVD of our series, Hélder Pinto goes into more intermediate and advanced topics now that the first level is complete. Hélder starts off by explaining how to create and add custom decals, roads, and terrain layers to the level. From there he goes into deferred lighting, lightbox, environment cubemaps and probes for image-based lighting, heightmaps, using the CryTIF exporter, materials, advanced vegetation, and particle creation. Hélder then goes through the entire creation of a custom prop inside 3ds Max and then bringing it into the editor with materials.

In this tutorial we will learn the basics of animating in CINEMA 4D. Throughout the tutorial, you will be guided through the CINEMA 4D intuitive animation tools. Our objective will be to build a solid foundation by familiarizing ourselves with core animation components and techniques. We will start by covering the CINEMA 4D animation preferences and how to record animation.

An introductory course in "ZBrush 4 R2 "which covers over 32 hours of an impressive amount of information under the strict guidance" Ryan Kingsley! " The course in basic skills by working in "ZBrush 4" innovations considered "R2" release, such as - DynaMesh, LightCaps, SliceBrush, CurveTubes and much more ...

In this collection of lessons we will learn about the essential lighting tools and features found in Softimage.
Understanding how the various lighting tools in Softimage work and behave is a very important skill for anyone who is getting started with this 3D application. In this series of lessons, we will discuss the different types of 3D lights found in Softimage, and methods for easily aiming and controlling your lights. We will also explore some of the specialized attributes found in certain light types, we will discuss the different types of shadows available in Softimage, we will see how we can add depth and mood to our scenes though the use of volumetric light rays, as well as many other lighting tools and concepts that will help you establish a solid foundation in Softimage.

Learn all about the Pro Tools 10 software, its history and various configurations as well as the science behind how it processes audio. Get the basics in these AVID Learning Partner Online tutorial-videos by macProVideo.com's very entertaining Bill Burgess and get up-and-running fast...

Blue Crane's Introduction to the Nikon D300. This DVD is narrated by Graham Sterling, a veteran presenter for infomercials and news programs. The Nikon D300 is a powerful piece of equipment. A solid understanding of its features and controls can really unleash its potential.

This course brings the talented artist into the fold of the technical-side of Maya. Learn the basics of Python, and its place in your 3D workflow, with visual examples and real world problems. Get a kick-start on adding some automation into your life, and solving common problems in a fraction of the time. By the end of this video, you should have a deeper understanding of one of the languages Maya speaks under the hood, and how to start viewing your scenes in terms of glorious Python code!

In this series of lessons, we will be taking an introductory look at RealFlow 2012 and many of the key features of this robust fluid simulation software. It is important to develop good workflow habits early in your RealFlow education, so we will start by learning the importance of properly setting up your RealFlow projects as well as how to efficiently move around within the RealFlow interface.

This training product is designed for anyone who needs to learn about shading and surfacing, as well as using the Hypershade to work efficiently and easily in Maya. Taking you step by step and explaining how to use the Hypershade and how to create shader networks in terminology anyone can understand, this training product covers many aspects of working on materials and shaders with in-depth lessons that cover both basic principles and fundamentals, as well as production workflows and methods of trouble shooting issues that can appear during an actual production.

Maya DMM Introduction cmiVFX releases a digital bombshell on the video training industry for the Digital Molecular Matter System (DMM) for Autodesk Maya AND 3DS Max. Creating Destruction and Deformation Animations takes almost no time at all with this ground breaking (pun intended) technology. Now you too can use the same advanced simulation technology that high-end visual effects studios use to bring your artistic creations to life. The DMM Plug-in is fully integrated with Maya and 3D Studio Max and can take advantage of features such as fields as well as keyed kinematic movement.