Double Master in VFX with Houdini and Digital Film

Digital Cinema

The objective of this Master is for you to become a specialist or artist in the Direction and Creation of Cinema Films in Digital format. The mission is to make a professional short film shot with visual effects, using professional cameras on a chrome set, and experience it from its beginnings to the post-production process.

VFX with Houdini

Of all the softwares used in Visual Effects, there is no doubt that Side FX Houdini occupies the first positions. Due to his procedural creation model, its speed and the number of options it has integrated (particles, clothing, hair, explosions, masses, destruction), Houdini is synonymous with employment, thousands of job offers are published daily because demand VFX artists that dominate Houdini is very extensive, especially in Top Studios such as Pixar, Disney, ILM, Lucas Films and Weta.

Parker Knight / pexels

You can train in three different ways:

• On-site: Classes are 3 hours a day from Monday to Thursday at our facilities.
• Telepresence: Students connect live with the teacher and their classmates from Monday to Thursday 3 hours a day. Once the classes are over, they hang out on the virtual campus to see them again as many times as needed.
• Online: Students have time freedom to access the classes recorded and uploaded by the teachers every day, and they have a weekly hour of tutoring with the teacher to resolve any doubts they may have.

Agenda: Digital Cinema Module

Ecnicismos I - Month 1

• Codecs
• 8-16-32 Bits
• Containers
• Banding
• Curves
• Digital Cameras vs Analog Cinema Cameras - Digital Cinema Cameras vs DSLR
• Differences of Optics in Photos, Video and Cinema
• Circular Optics vs Anamorphic Optics (boke, flare)
• Differential between Linear vs Log vs Raw sensors
• Using Blackmagic
• DaVinci Resolve for Color Grading

Exercise: Shooting and Color Grading of planes with the techniques learned in class.

Film Analysis - Month 1

• The World of Cinema
• Brief History of Cinema
• Reading the Interpretation of a Script
• Script Exhibition
• Work with Actors
• Storytelling
• Plane to Plane Analysis
• Making Storyboards
• Sound, color and light, uses and shapes.
• Actors and Technical Team

Exercise: Shooting and Creation of a Cinematographic Narration with the empirical learned in class.

Technicalities II - Month 2

• Rolling a Sequence Plane
• Making a Story Board
• Lighting, types and lighting schemes
• Script Reading and Project scope
• Production needs, optics, chromas, movements
• First economic budget, what to include or discard

Exercise: Shooting and Making a StoryBoard

Planning - Month 2

• Rolling Static Planes
• Rolling Planes in Motion
• Axes, basic rules of the Direction
• SCRIPT's relationship with the Assistant Director
• Technical Script and StoryBoard

Exercise: Shooting and Making a StoryBoard.

Pre-Production - Month 3

• Production design
• Final Budget of a Short Film
• Creation of Concepts
• Create the Storyboard in 2D and 3D
• Offline filming
• Using Adobe After Effects for 2D Animatics

Exercise: Preproduction and 2D Animation of a Short.

Pre-Production - Month 3

• Preparation of a Management Dossier
• How to make a Casting. Techniques and recommendations
• Lenses and Objectives for the Director, Storytelling and point of view

Direction of Actors I - Month 4

• Direction of actors
• Action scene
• Suspense Scene
• Direction of actors
• Horror scene
• Direction of actors
• Comedy scene

Exercise: Actors Direction Practices

FX Essentials II - Month 5

• Offline Shooting - Rotoscopy
• Chroma Key
• Matte Painting
• 3D animation
• Unreal Engine
• Using Adobe Premiere for 2D Animatics

Exercise: Filming and 3D Animation Preview

Direction of Actors II - Month 5

• Direction of Actors II
• Shooting practice
• FX Supervision for Directors
• Assembly, Mixing and Color Grading for Directors

Exercise: Filming and 3D Animation Preview.

Production I - Month 6

• Final Shooting

Exercise: Final Shooting of Plans.

Mocap - Month 6

• Motion capture
• Visit to the Locations
• Thematic Short Filming in Production team
• Final Shooting

Exercise: Shooting a Short Film in Production Equipment.

In each practice there will have to be a Director to lead.

Production II and Postproduction I - Month 7

• Final Shooting
• PostPro and Assembly
• Final Assembly

Exercise: Final Shooting of Plans.

Production I - Month 7

• Final Shooting

Exercise: Final Shooting of Plans.

Post-production II and Sound - Month 8

• PostPro and Assembly
• Color grading
• Grading
• FX
• Rotoscopes, Chromas and Integrations
• Project representation
• Render parameters
• Frame resolutions
• Layered representation
• Sound Post Production

Exercise: Delivery of the Short Film.

Post-Production II and Sound - Month 8

• PostPro, Assembly, Color Grading and Mixing
• Premiere of the Short Film in a Cinema

Unreal and Shotgun - Month 9

• Cinematic with Unreal
• Establish a production pipeline with Shotgun
• Material filming for incorporation with Unreal elements.
• Reel
• Breakdown

Agenda: VFX module with Houdini

Month 1

Procedural modeling and creation of Assets

• Creation of scalable and modular models
• Procedural modeling from attributes
• Creation of tools for maya

Month 2

How to use attributes in Houdini

• Creation of motion FX from attributes

Month 3

Dynamic destruction (Rigid Body dinamycs)

• How to model to break
• Methods for calculating organic and rigid body simulations

Month 4

Particle systems

• Particles for motion FX
• Physics based particles

Month 5

Volumes, modeling with voxels

• Volume modeling
• Conversion between different types of volumes

Month 6

Fluids, gaseous systems

• Explosions, fire and fumes
• Texturing fluids

Month 7

Liquids, from detail to macro scale

• Large-scale simulation of liquid systems
• Small-scale simulation of liquid systems, playing with viscosity

Month 8

How to generate and control crowds

• Agent Creation
• Dynamically control crowds, obstacles, paths and actions
• Tissue simulation

Month 9

Postproduction, the final step

• 3D layer composition
• Motion track and 3D cameras

Accelerator module

Pre-production of the project

• Construction of the project pipeline
• Pipeline structuring with Shotgun
  • Follow-up assignments
  • Optimize the Gantt chart
  • Productivity parameterization
  • Timing assignment and team milestones
  • Tracking of production phases
  • Cloud connection Desktop Experience in person and online
  • Online project visualization
  • Share management
  • On-screen feedback
  • Multitasking review
  • Reduction of uncertainty in productivity analysis
• SCRUM methodology learning

Production

• Calendar calculation
• Feasibility metrics
• Testing
• Quality assurance
• Game pitch
• Marketing plan

Launch - prelaunch

• Market evaluation for departure dates
• Preparation for launch
• Pitch preparatory
• Presentation at events
• Project presentation court
• Presentation to the public

Jakob Owens / unsplash

Teachers with real experience

Top teachers

Luis Lopez

• 3D Artist at Misomo
• Producer and VFX Artist He has worked since 2001 in the 3D and VFX animation sector, mainly as a freelance for various production companies and finally as a 3D animation producer. His works cover many fields always related to 3D, carrying out infoarchitecture projects, corporate videos, advertising, documentaries, video games, animation series or the production of a 3D animation feature film.

Andrés Grueiro

• Film Director, he has won prizes for his projects such as 1st Prize and Special Jury Prize at Cambridge Shortfilms Contest (UK) and is related to the latest techniques of Virtual Cinema representation. He is currently a member of Utopic Estudios, a high-performance virtual reality and MOCAP technology company. He has worked in the world of Video Games making cinematics for Sunburned Games and is former president of AEV, Association of Students of Video Games.

Javier Horrillo

• Director & VFX Supervisor at Virtual Art
• Javier Horrillo has a degree from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. He has also studied at ESAD. He directs the Virtual Art studio of digital effects in Valencia, where he is also a VFX supervisor. He has carried out numerous high-level Cinema and Advertising FX where it is shown that it is possible to create in image anything you can imagine thanks to techniques such as matte painting, chroma or chromakey, rotoscopy, creation of 3D uids, modeling, texturing and lighting 3D, set extension, photogrammetry, camera tracking, digital makeup and a long etc.

Juan Antonio Valverde

• Concept, Visual & Story Artist
• Graduated in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), in 2005, and with a Professional Training Degree 2 in computer systems programming and a Master in Graphic Design, Juan Antonio develops his professional activity as a Freelance in Illustration and Graphic Design from the year 2012. He has had the opportunity to exhibit his works 5 times in his hometown (Valencia), and once as a guest at the Animazing Gallery in New York (USA), in Rodez (France), in the area of the medieval castle Belcastel.

Discover our exclusive Accelerator Program

Last year you will enjoy our 9-month acceleration program, which offers advice and training necessary for the development of all kinds of entrepreneurial projects. Take advantage of our Know how and all our facilities. Finish your training with a successful project and a professional demo-reel.

Work in a real studio

In the 9 months of accelerator you will work on a real project, a project with its objectives, its timings, its deadlines as in a real production company. You will know how to work in a video game or cinema development studio doing a real project, your project.

Your own startup

Do you want to develop your own project? If you have a good idea here you can carry it out. Or if not, you can always join the many ideas that we propose and launch ourselves, whether as a graphic designer, modeller, programmer, etc.

Real publishers

The main objective is that the projects see the light. For this reason we have different financing, distribution and promotion systems such as PlayStation Talents, which finance projects of up to € 200,000

Professional supervision

Because we know that working alone and without supervision is difficult. That is why the students of the accelerator will count from the first day with the help of our teachers and professionals who will supervise and provide constant help for the development of the project.

Custom installations

Working at home is very comfortable but it is not fruitful, we all know that. In our facilities you will work with your team in a professional environment, with a meeting room, a game room, food / drink machines and all the services of a company in the sector.

Multidisciplinary team

You will work with very different career students. Experts in video games, game design, programming, 3D modeling, animation, cinema, concept, all working as a team forming a link for future projects and ideas.

Employment exchange

We will take care of personally searching and managing job offers that may fit with the situation and preference of our students, both nationally and internationally.

Demo reel

And all this so that you have a professional demo reel, a specific demo reel for the job you want to develop, which you can attach to your cover letter or resume, which we assure you will open all doors to your professional future.

Register for free on our Virtual Campus

The most advanced campus in the world

We are the only school that has opened our campus to the entire world. Thousands of people, student or not, access our intranet daily to view videos, tutorials, lectures, demos, carry out missions and in general to interact with other students and professionals in the sector. A whole virtual world is waiting for you with infinite possibilities.

• Create your avatar
• Customize your room
• Vocational training
• Level up
• Talk with your friends
• Conferences and webinars
• Exercises and homework
• HD Videos