Lighting and compositing can be a rather intimidating process to tackle. Lighting is what sets the mood of a scene. Rendering and compositing make the CG elements appear “real” within live action shots. Curriculum Director and VFX Pro, Ben Fischler, worked with some of the visual effects industry’s top talent to build a class that walks you step-by-step through lighting and compositing.

Maya Workshop: CG Lighting and Compositing is a new, six-week workshop to teach you the basic CG lighting principles and the fundamentals of compositing using industry-standard tools. This workshop will provide beginners with the foundations they need to master more advanced visual effects concepts, tools and techniques. Check out the week-by-week breakdown of the workshop to see what you’ll learn.

The best part? You’ll get access to the exclusive, professionally-built Hatch asset (pictured above). With Hatch and Autodesk Maya’s Mental Ray, you’ll learn to light and render like a pro. Not only will you have a polished asset for your demo reel, but you will learn what it takes to light a studio-quality asset. Here’s why we know you’ll love Hatch:

• Custom-made, feature-quality model, created by top talent from Industrial Light & Magic
• Production-ready surfacing and professional-quality textures for Autodesk’s Mental Ray
• Built with lighting in mind and includes an array of material and surface types
• Designed to be lit from a distance or close up
• Discover what lies under the rendering hood — Hatch is a playground for the new vfx artist

There’s more. After you learn the basics in Maya Workshop: CG Lighting and Compositing, you can go in-depth in our VFX Fundamentals program. In VFX Fundamentals you’ll learn the intricacies of visual effects production using Animation Mentor’s exclusive studio-quality pipeline. You’ll render Hatch using Solid Angle’s Arnold and then composite him into a live-action plate with The Foundry’s Nuke. Last but not least, you’ll work on lighting short films created in our animation programs, so that you can show studios that you have what it takes to work in production. Animation Mentor is the only school to teach students in a real pipeline and the skills you learn will set you apart from the crowd when you apply for that dream job.

It all starts with Maya Workshop: CG Lighting and Compositing. Take Hatch for a spin starting May 12, 2014. Register Now to save your spot and pick your class time.

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Check out this blog post describing how the Hatch asset was designed and modeled by a Digital Artist from Industrial Light & Magic.