Autodesk Smoke Essentials: Autodesk Official Press (2014)
Introduction
When I started pre-production on the movie that served as the inspiration for this book, I was, like you, vaguely familiar with Smoke and curious about what its integrated capabilities could bring to my workflow. And like you, I was new to its ways — just a raw recruit. Over the course of editing my film and participating in its compositing (alongside vastly more experienced Smoke artists than myself), and within the span of three versions of the software, I was in a position to know which aspects of Smoke were easy to pick up and which would require more in-depth explanation. In essence, I was the very first student of this book.
Autodesk has been making huge strides in making Smoke friendlier application than previous versions. It’s no secret that Smoke has a unique interface; reworking it for wider accessibility is a challenge in that the very power that Smoke brings to the post-production experience is what makes it more complex to learn. Fortunately, Autodesk has done a great job of moving the user interface forward in a way that enhances usability without sacrificing functionality.
This book distills my experiences editing and compositing my movie using Smoke, providing you with a fun series of real-world lessons that teach you this application’s many layers as an editor, a compositing environment, and a finishing tool that let you incorporate sophisticated effects at the very earliest stages of your edit. It also extends your workflow by adding high-quality greenscreen keying, 3D compositing, color correction, and text effects to help you complete even the most sophisticated of projects in one integrated application.
It’s often said, but truly I hope this book is as fun to read as it was to write.
Who Should Read This Book
If you’re an editor, a compositing artist, or a filmmaker who’s looking to mix the chocolate of editing with the peanut butter of compositing — all within one environment — then this book is for you. More to the point, if you’re new to Autodesk Smoke and want to learn it in a practical, hands-on fashion, this book is designed to walk you through the various tools available in Smoke while working through real-world examples from an effects-intensive short film.
As you begin to learn about Smoke, you’ll have the best experience if you already have some familiarity with editing and compositing software. This book is designed to give you a quick start by familiarizing you with Smoke basics, but it’s not meant as a primer on post-production fundamentals. However, Smoke’s more advanced editing and compositing tools may be new even to experienced users, so these operations are explained in detail.
What You Will Learn
Autodesk® Smoke® Essentials walks you through a beginning-to-end workflow using Smoke. Beginning with a lesson on setting up Smoke for the first time, you move on to the basics of learning the Smoke interface and importing media. Then a series of lessons covers basic through advanced editing and trimming techniques, culminating in the various timeline effects that you can add, including transitions, timewarps, and Axis effects. Next, the powerful ConnectFX compositing environment is covered, as you walk through the creation of some pretty sophisticated effects. Lastly, finishing tasks are covered, including audio basics, color-correction techniques, and the process of adding titles, culminating in a lesson on how to export from Smoke.
What You Need
This book was written with Autodesk Smoke 2013 Extension 1 in mind. However, the lessons should work equally well with future versions of Smoke. If you don’t already own Smoke, you can download a fully functional trial version at www.autodesk.com/products/smoke/free-trial.
Autodesk Smoke 2013 has the following system requirements:
Autodesk Smoke is currently available only for the Mac.
· Apple® Mac OS® X version 10.6.6, 10.6.7, 10.7.2 or later, or 10.8.x
· 64-bit Intel® multicore processor
· 4 GB of RAM (8 GB or more recommended)
· 3 GB free disk space for download and installation
· Minimum 1440 × 900 display (1920 × 1200 or higher recommended)
· U.S. keyboard (required to map hotkeys properly)
· Wacom® Intuos Tablet (Intuos2, Intuos3, Intuos4, and Intuos5 USB models are supported.)
A detailed list of recommended systems and graphics cards for Smoke can be found at www.autodesk.com/graphics-hardware.
For playback performance, it’s recommended to install Smoke on a system with a separate storage volume/partition for the media storage location (such as on an external Thunderbolt drive or array).
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What Is Covered in This Book
Autodesk® Smoke® Essentials is organized to give you a grand tour of the capabilities of this integrated editing, compositing, and finishing tool. Since Smoke can appear to be somewhat unorthodox to the new user, the lessons are organized to make it easy for you to get started, even if you have no prior experience using Smoke.
Chapter 1: Before You Begin Walks you through the very first things you need to do to configure Smoke after you’ve installed it but before you’ve actually started working on your first project.
Chapter 2: The Smoke Interface Guides you through the different parts of the Smoke user interface, touring the dedicated controls for media management, editing, and compositing and showing you the basics of getting around and controlling program playback.
Chapter 3: Importing Your Project’s Media Covers how you import media using the MediaHub and how you organize it in the Media Library.
Chapter 4: Editing a Rough Assembly Shows you how to create a new sequence and edit together your first simple scene of shots using the thumbnail viewer, drag and drop editing, cue marks, and simple trimming.
Chapter 5: Editing Dialog and Advanced Trimming Takes you through the process of editing a more complicated dialog scene using three-point editing and advanced trimming techniques in order to maintain continuity, create split edits, and add cutaway shots.
Chapter 6: Adding Transitions and Timewarp Effects Teaches you how to add and edit dissolves between two clips, how to create dissolve-to-color effects, and how to add and customize wipes, and ends with a lesson on creating timewarp effects for fast-forward or slow-motion effects.
Chapter 7: Using Axis Effects Walks you through the numerous timeline effects that you can create using Axis effects, including picture-in-picture compositing, motion tracking, and greenscreen keying.
Chapter 8: Introduction to ConnectFX Gives you your first look at using ConnectFX to create powerful compositing effects in Smoke, starting with how to apply ConnectFX to a clip and how the CFX editor is organized, then moves on to how to loop clips and deal with log-encoded media, match moving, rotoscoping, and simple compositing using blend modes.
Chapter 9: Using the ConnectFX Action Node Shows you how to use the Action node inside of ConnectFX to create even more sophisticated composites, including multilayered keying and multilayered compositing.
Chapter 10: Working with Audio Teaches you how to refine your production audio in Smoke using audio effects, editing in music and sound effects with precision, and how to mix audio using timeline controls and the mixing desk.
Chapter 11: Color Correction Covers color-correction techniques in Smoke, including how to use the Colour Corrector and Colour Warper effects to make primary and secondary adjustments, how to add color corrections as gap effects to a scene of clips all at once, and how to limit color-correction effects using a timeline wipe.
Chapter 12: Adding Titles Teaches you how to add text effects on the timeline as well as how to create styled pages of text and how to save and reuse text styles.
Chapter 13: Exporting from Smoke Discusses how to prepare a sequence for export and the different options that are available for exporting projects and media from Smoke.