Linear workflow (LWF) is a concept that I try to explain to others when dealing with realistic lighting and rendering. LWF has to do with how we are perceiving the light intensity of our images calculated by our rendering application and it being applied to our screens. (more…)

Arstechnica has a great article that concisely breaks down doing video post-production “at home”. The article covers aspects of codecs, compressions (4:4:4, 4:4:2, etc.), editing and audio.

A definite worthwhile read.

A great post at AE Tuts, presents 42 VFX breakdowns. Head on over and have a look!

I was going to write a big article and have some fancy images to describe the difference between a straight RGBA (rgb+alpha) (unmultiplied) and a premultiplied RGBA image. As it turns out I found a good video over on tv.adobe.com that explains it quite well from the point of view of using a compositor package like After Effects. What this video won’t tell is how to configure your rendering application, but suffice to say there is usually an option that will indicate if the alpha is premultiplied or not.

Generally for many of you, if you’re rendering on black, blue or green and you’ve been using a premultiplied RGBA image, you haven’t really noticed much an issue especially if you’ve been using AE. However, if you are doing full backdrop integration, then an unmulitplied RGBA image is the way to go.

I may still provide an example of using a package like Cinema 4D and rendering out alpha at later date but I hope this video clears it up. If not, leave a comment and I’ll help you out.

While, it is usually better buying the DVD/BluRay discs for the special features, AWNtv.com has a growing selection of VFX breakdown videos that could prove useful.

Before we start introducing a lot of compositing workflow I thought instead to introduce the concept through a variety of concepts provided by some resources by some generous people. Before I end the suspense, I want to quickly discuss a couple of concepts. In my opinion there are two main issues that revolve around compositing and those are bit-depth and alpha mulitiplication.

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