The Refinery Project is a four chapter tutorial that demonstrates, in real-time, how to bring a static image to life in seven hours. Starting with a static photo of an oil refinery, Alex integrates 2D and 3D elements using Maya, After Effects and Photoshop. In chapter one, sprite rendered smoke is added to several of the refinery's smokestacks. In chapter two, the original sky and static water of the refinery photo are replaced and color corrected to match the lighting of the scene. For the water we use Maya's Ocean Shader to create animated water that integrates perfectly into our scene, including reflection of the backplate and shore/pier intersection through the use of camera projections. In chapter three, animated fog is added to the Maya scene using volume emission, fields, sprites, expressions, disk caching, hardware rendering and motion blur. All necessary steps are discussed as we build the effect from scratch and integrate it into our composite. Final tweaks are added in After Effects including color correction, level adjustments, masking and movement. In the final chapter, we begin by adding a new foreground shoreline and some rocks in the water. We then move to Maya to create a dynamic flock of birds that fly into frame. The bird effect is created from scratch including joints, skinning, looping animation, UVs, texturing, particle instancing, emitters, fields, expressions, lighting, rendering and the final composite of the Refinery Project.

• Importing the image plane
• Aligning the 3D camera
• Adding 3D reference geometry
• Volume emission
• Fields
• Sprite set-up
• Expressions
• Adjusting particle speed without changing behavior
• Hardware rendering separate elements
• Motion blur
• Particle disk caching
• Compositing
• Color correction
• Final integration

Chapters
1. Sprite Rendered Smokestacks
2. Sky and Water Replacement
3. Rolling Sprite Fog
4. Shoreline, Birds, Particle Instancing

• Product Code: AAL19
• Duration: 380 minutes
• Formats: Download Only

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Alex Alvarez

Founder, Director The Gnomon Workshop
Gnomon School of Visual Effects

Alex is founder and director of The Gnomon Workshop and of the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Having dedicated the last decade to educating students and professional artists around the world, Alex has helped change the face of computer graphics and design education. He has been published in industry magazines, websites and books - plus he has taught courses at several major trade conferences. Alex is president of the Los Angeles Maya Users Group and sits on the Advisory Boards for Highend3D.com and CGsociety. He continues to work on personal and professional projects, recently as a creature development artist on the James Cameron film Avatar. Prior to Gnomon, Alex worked for Alias|Wavefront as a consultant and trainer for studios in the Los Angeles area. Alex is an alumnus of the Art Center College of Design and the University of Pennsylvania.