Randall Bender drops by the Animation Mentor blog today to share the five visual effects tips he learned while in our CG Basics class. Major props to Randall on his awesome work and for sharing the vfx knowledge. If you are ready to produce work like Randall: apply to CG Basics by July 26 to get started this Fall.

-The Animation Mentor Crew

The Five Things I Learned:
1. It is important to understand how the production pipeline works and what your role is in the process.  All stages of the process are interconnected each part can affect all the others.  Small mistakes made in one stage can be magnified as it continues down the pipeline.
 
2. It is important to learn the fundamental concepts of how the CG process works. There are a lot of resources out there that can show you step by step how to do something in CG, but Animation Mentor is very good at teaching the concepts behind those steps so you can build on what you have learned and figure out how to do things without step-by-step instructions.
 
3. Observation and how to study reference material is crucial.  It is good to have as much reference material as possible and keep checking back throughout the entire process.  It’s easy to make mistakes by assuming that you know how something looks without consulting your reference material.
 
4. Understanding the rendering process is essential.  Knowing how to tweak the render settings will save a ton of time and frustration.
 
5. Getting feedback on your work is critical.  It is easy to miss the obvious things because you are so focused on the details.  It is also easy to get in a place where you can only see what is wrong and not what is right.

Work from CG Basics:

Remember to apply now to join us for the Fall 2013 term.