Nuke 101: Professional Compositing and Visual Effects

by Ron Ganbar

This start-to-finish, complete guide to Nuke will give you the foundations on the state-of-the-art visual effects software used by professionals in the film and television industries. Along with the hard-won advice and techniques from expert compositor and teacher Ron Ganbar, each chapter covers a complete lesson in the fundamentals, with step-by-step instructions included so you can easily follow along and start using the program right away. The projects used throughout the book are based on real-world examples of professional productions and project files are included with each chapter so you can work through all the examples. After discovering how to use the tools and understanding the compositing workflow, you’ll learn about basic and advanced compositing techniques, color correction, RotoPaint, keying, and tracking, as well as more advanced topics such as CGI and the 3D engine. In addition, you’ll learn • Working with nodes and process trees • Using CGI passes in Nuke to control 3D render looks • Camera Tracking techniques to combine 2D and 3D elements • Camera Projection to turn a single frame into moving images • Gizmos and all about creating your own tools in Nuke • Stereoscopic compositing  Ron Ganbar has been a compositor since 1996 and visual effects instructor since 2001. He currently works on a variety of projects as a gun for hire as compositor, consultant, VFX supervisor, and trainer. Ron was made a “Teacher’s Trainer” by Apple for Shake in 2005 and has written, taught, and evaluated courses for the National Film and Television School, Apple, Peachpit Press, Westminster University, and others. "As both a talented compositor (with years of in-the-trenches experience) and an excellent teacher, Ron Ganbar has the unique ability to make even the most difficult concepts crystal clear. If you want to get up and running with Nuke as quickly as possible then start by buying this book!" —Ron Brinkmann, author of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing

402 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 7, 2014