In this course you will learn about the exciting world of Immersive Entertainment. From LBE (Location Based Entertainment) venues to the emerging world of VR we will employ a combination of complex view dependent techniques to create imagery that is meant to be projected on a flat surface but look three dimensional and have parallax from the point of view of the observer. These techniques are used for multimedia rides at theme parks, building projections, and VR technologies.
This course will be NUKE centric but will also jump into other software such as Maya, Modo, and Mari. We will learn about the design and fundamentals of this exciting technique. Then we will design the path for our experience and previz the shot. Setup stereo cameras and render layers. Composite the shot together using NUKE and diving into its use of 3D projections. Then we will be taking the final shot and creating a mock up of the experience by compositing it in lat long space and creating a 360 degree video that can be viewed on GearVR, Google cardboard or the Oculus Rift platform.

Daniel Smith is a visual effects supervisor and teacher with over 24 years of production experience in every facet of the pipeline. He is an Official Certified Trainer by The Foundry®. He has been the VFX Nuke Instructor at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School in Orlando Florida for six years. He is an expert on Stereoscopic technologies including VR and has worked on several feature films, television shows, and special venue attractions that used these moving points of view.
course syllabus

Class 1
Introduction and core concepts and history. We dive into the history of this technique, where it is used and how this knowledge shapes our plan of attack for our shot.

Class 2
POV Pre Distortions. We set up and understand some practical and CG based POV distortions to further understand the optics that go into planning or shot. Using NUKE and Maya as well as a practical photoshoot.

Class 3
We design and build a path for our shot and animate how it will move though 3D space. We look at issues surrounding camera alignment and creation of View Dependent Imagery.

Class 4
We focus on the forest set and get the environment ready for rendering. We will shoot an IBL style background, design a projection dome, setup textures, test and prototype the renders using Hardware 2.0, and go back into NUKE to set up our slap comp to prepare for final renders.

Class 5
Nuke comp. We set up a stereoscopic render camera and bring the passes into nuke. We build up our forest environment using beauty layers and Non Color Data Passes. Learn to pack files efficiently and how to use position passes for more effective depth and creative lighting.

Class 6
Nuke comp part two. We set up and take render layers of the troll and build up the composite. Injecting new passes into the image stream and we learn about using a different resolutions to give our "hero" more pixels in the end format.

Class 7
Nuke comp part three. We add in some Paint FX grass and rocks into our layers. Finish our shot with some motion blur, work out some dust particles with Nuke and render the final to be put in our VR ride screen.

Class 8
Nuke - Setting up the final project, Part one. We take our final shot that would be put into a location based venue and build it into our own VR venue. We will build out some VR based simulator and ?Practical? set elements. We will also Animate the Ride simulator.

Class 9
Nuke Setting up the final projections Part two. We setup a 360 camera rig to re-render our VR experience of the shot we composited projecting into our VR experience. We fix some of the issues we had in the shot and update the motion base textures.

Class 10
We wrap up the course, take the final video, and get it ready to experience on GearVR, Google Cardboard, and the Oculus Rift.