Advanced Visual Effects DVD

[FUG1T1VE]

So it's finally out eh. Excelente. :thumbsup:

[urgaffel]

Wonderfull news amckay! Your tutorials have always been interesting, and to have a whole dvd is really nice :) Good work!

[oshiroii]

Allan McKay rules man! I learned a lot from him. Did I hear 14 hours for 60 bucks???? :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: YAAAAY

EDIT:
Has anyone seen the DVD? Are the tutorials the same as on his website and 3dluvrs's website? Like the dripping system and the acidburn and the reactor things? I hope they're new one :D

[pluMmet]

Allan- Nice price...however $12 shipping (Ground) within the USA is very expensive...

I ordered it anyway ;)

[amckay]

yeah I know about the shipping :\ kinda out of my hands unfortunately
siggraph I think it'll be for sale too - although I guess I need to double check that.

RE: oshiroii - They're all new, I did include the dripping system, but I go a lot further with that into a more complex flow as well as cover how to build the shader/geometry for it and script up an interface to control it etc. etc. so basically all the material is new

Thanks for your enthusiasm guys :)

[Lee3dee]

hey Allan,

I checked out the grainy tutorials on your website ;) yesterday, i was looking for some additional particle flow tutorials for aniamtion Im work on using particle flow and then this morning I saw your DVD was released :D So, I picked one up instantly. I hope the tutorials are as helpful as the ones on the website, except now i can see the settings that your doing to get the results.

I'll post a review when the dvd comes in 2 days :D

ps. turbosquid seems to charge alot for all of the shipping, maybe thats another way for them to make money. i agree 12 for ground for a dvd is extremely high! 5 dollars maybe.

[amckay]

hey lee3dee - yeah some of those tutorials were during my testing phase when I was trying out different ways of recording, needless to say they're rediculously grainy/blurry ;) obviously the DVD is crystal clean quality.
Yeah as I've said earlier I'm really happy with what I cover - the presentation isn't as polished as lets say maxscript 101, but I was stuck between paycheck and scooby 2 at the time so it made it hard to reedit and tweak areas. But in terms of the content it covers I'm extremely happy with it!

I agree too that it's a lil costly for shipping which is a bit of a shame. I think Beau is still sorting out the UPS stuff .. but the altermatum if you're going to siggraph is to purchase it there as there'll be plenty of units of the DVD up for grabs there.

Also for those attending discreets master classes - Turbosquids kindly donated a license of Afterburn to give out during my class if you're interested ;)

[Pufferfish]

GREAT NEWS! a must have for all particle addicts out there :buttrock:

[oshiroii]

Allan, that's good news, all is new and more advanced, very nice :thumbsup: I'm still a little amazed with the 14 hours :D Oh, by the way, I didn't notice you posted the first post your self, that's why my post might have seemed a little odd ^_^

[slime]

Congratulations for finishing it, Allan!

[Lee3dee]

A quick review from work ;)

DVD just arrived from DHL, I payed for 2 day, but it came next day. lol. Anyways, the packing is a standard DVD case, with a printed insert about the DVD. To my surprise, the DVD is not a mastered DVD, but rather a DVD that you can buy in the store, purple sided. Took out the DVD and there's a massive scratch down the middle. Hmmm, maybe it will be ok in the computer drive? Still, I called turbosquid about a replacement immediately, just incase. The tutorials are encoded with Techsmith, the videos are very clean and you can hear Mr. McKay very well, especially the Australian accent :D

The dvd is laid out similar to the Gnomon DVD interface. You can either use the interface from the dvd, or use windows media player which I prefer for fullscreen on the second monitor. Looks like i'll be staying late for some particle flow action. lol

[oshiroii]

Lee3dee, that sounds really good :D too bad you had a scratch :sad:

[WillRyan]

This was an immediate purchase as soon as I saw the headline! ParticleFlow has been on my list of things to get to whenever production slowed down at work, but now, I'll be falling asleep at home next to the dvd player. Having learned so much from those tiny movie clips on Allan's site, I can only imagine what those dvd's contain!

And this is one of those few purchases alongside the Gnomon dvd's that I don't care spending upwards of $75. Keep it coming, Allan!

[amckay]

Doh! yeah I ordered a DVD a few weeks ago from someone and it was litterally cracked in half :) and THAT was fedex too, so know what you mean! Hope you get your replacement sent out asap.

wasn't going to mention this - but basically they were originally converted to high quality .wmv format so you didn't need techsmith.. but litterally the night it was meant to go live they realized that with macromedia director IT CAN'T PLAY WMV FILES unless you have administrator privelages! Which is why it suddenly took another week to make, as that's a major bug in director.. quite frustrating, but I guess in the end they stayed in techsmith, which is a better codec in a lot of ways.

Thanks guys - I'm hoping to have a lot of cool new material coming soon for my website etc.- although hopefully the DVD keeps everyone entertained for the next few months :)

[Lee3dee]

I'm glad u choose techsmith codec, because its awesome compression and the video is clean.

I'll have to post a sample of what i made with the dvd :) on the 3dsmax forums :)

[amckay]

can't wait!
I've already been emailed a few samples from people who've received the dvd - sounds like everyone's having a blast ;) which is great to hear!

Bring it on!

[Whoot]

Sounds really great and i was already in the ordering process but when i saw the shipping costs...I live in The Netherlands and its $35 to ship it...that's almost as much as the dvd itself. (total is $94,95)
Like you said Allan you cannot do anything about those costs but isn't there another way to get this dvd without having to pay that much for shipping?

[hamu73]

well yeah that would be nice!!
35$ is a lot for just shipping a small dvd
that's the only reason I waited to get the dvd..hope there will be another solution soon...
I really have to get this dvd..it's just too awesome to miss

[amckay]

yeah it's a bit unfortunate.. I originally had an option to have a european distributor although in the end went with letting Turbosquid by the sole distributor.. which I'm very happy with - although it'd be nice for people outside the states to have an optional distributor as this way they'd probably get it for cheaper.
Hopefully there's an updated option - last time I spoke to TS they said they were working on it, although not sure if it's up yet.
fingers crossed eh?

[oshiroii]

Whoot, :argh: :argh: :argh: I live in the netherlands too. 35$ OMG, that's a lot. I think I'll wait and keep my fingers crossed!

[plug3]

yeah it's a bit unfortunate.. I originally had an option to have a european distributor although in the end went with letting Turbosquid by the sole distributor.. which I'm very happy with - although it'd be nice for people outside the states to have an optional distributor as this way they'd probably get it for cheaper.
Hopefully there's an updated option - last time I spoke to TS they said they were working on it, although not sure if it's up yet.
fingers crossed eh?How about an option to download the files via internet instead of shipping a CD. I know 3Dtutorial offer this option and it is very convenient and cost effective (only for broadband users of course): no wait, no scratched CDs, no shipping costs.

Just an idea...

[amckay]

Hi _d1. Yes assuming it was a normal length CD or DVD that would be practical as compressed to an avi/wmv it wouldn't be that big. Although this DVD's 14 hours long so it's close to 5 gig in size as I've pushed as much stuff onto it as I could.
So I personally wouldn't want to download that much :)

But like I said, in terms of shipping/handling etc. I have nothing to do with that.

[Darknon]

I've allways been a fan of you Allan.. And this is great news.. can't wait to get my gready hands on this baby...

-Ronnie Ree

[Daniel-B]

Are there any screen caps of the AfterBurn explosion tutorials? I'd really like to see the final results of the tutorials before I buy them. I am just curious how photorealistic they are.

[amckay]

Ronny, cheers mate - thanks for mate, saw your film you sent me - great stuff!

Hi Pixelmagic - good question.
I haven't aimed at a huge focus on explosions in AB. I do cover two different ones, although probably not to the point of photorealism. Perhaps in the future I might try and make a pyro section on my site or something like that ;)
I've uploaded a sample render of one of the explosions below if you wanna check it out.

http://www.allanmckay.com/tmp/5.6.explosion2.animation.avi

There's a lot of cool fluids plugins in development for max right now that I'm playing with - once they're closer to release I'll be able to show some great tutorials on that kind of thing. With this DVD I've tried to focus on all areas of 3D, so it does cover fireballs, explosions etc. If you check out the fireball blasting down the tunnel on my reel - that's kinda old but I over that in a bit more improved state on the DVD as well.

[pearl3d]

a special thanks to amkay........i am definitely gonna take the dvd soon.......

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Daniel-B]

Cool, Allan, thanks for letting me see that sample. I'll definately have to look into getting this DVD. However, I just bought a book about Combustion compositing. So when I earn enough money to get AfterBurn off Studica, I will definately get your DVD as well.

[plug3]

Hi _d1. Yes assuming it was a normal length CD or DVD that would be practical as compressed to an avi/wmv it wouldn't be that big. Although this DVD's 14 hours long so it's close to 5 gig in size as I've pushed as much stuff onto it as I could.
So I personally wouldn't want to download that much :)

But like I said, in terms of shipping/handling etc. I have nothing to do with that.
5 gig is definitely too big... I was thinking CD ROM. :shrug:

[amckay]

by the way FYI - the DVD comes with a demo version of AB. not much but still means you can play around and do most of the tuts ;)

Also if anyone wants afterburn - I'll be giving out a license of it in a raffel during my vfx masterclass at siggraph.

[Autarkis]

Does the dvd tuts require afterburn on most of them? i saw there was one chapter about it, and since i dont have it (thankyou for including the demo version on the dvd btw :) ) i'd have to get it off an online educationnal vendor.

And you were saying it might be available at Siggraph, any updates on that? It would save me shipping ;)

[amckay]

The chapter on afterburn is the only AB stuff
this essentially is a good swiss army knife for all fx artists, it isn't necessarily all 100% particles either, as there's plenty on procedural modeling, animation, dynamics etc. so AB's only required for the AB chapters. But there's PLENTY of pflow stuff as well as even a lil bit of non pflow particle material in there too.

Pending on how well this DVD does - I'll try and focus on tackling a few more DVD's down the line that focus even more on vfx for film, covering stuff like what I've done with blade and other films as it'd be great to focus on specific fx shots from start to end etc.

and YES, there'll be bucketloads of the DVD available at siggraph for you guys to check out at the discreet booth. I'll try and stop as much as I can - hopefully blur's big party won't leave me with a massive hangover or anything :) Yeah I understand what you're saying about shipping costs, I think a lot of people will probably be going to the booth at sig to get it to save a lil cash.

groovy!

[Gary2]

i just ordered my copy of the dvd today and spent the extra 10 bucks to get next day shipping

i hope i dont get burned by another online retailer...

im really looking forward to this dvd as i think i could learn alot from it:thumbsup:

[Darknon]

I have ordered the dvd myself... It is damn expansive to get it to denmark, damn.. but what the heck, this one, I really need to own. yeah baby

[Gary2]

solved the problem

the dvd is awesome, its exactly what i was hoping for, someone going thru these effects step by step showing you how to do them in a nice high resolution.

the fact that they will play under windows media player and have all of the actual 3dsmax files included with them makes it pretty much the best dvd ever:thumbsup:

[mattt]

by the way FYI - the DVD comes with a demo version of AB. not much but still means you can play around and do most of the tuts ;)

Also if anyone wants afterburn - I'll be giving out a license of it in a raffel during my vfx masterclass at siggraph.Allen - Already signed up for your masterclass so that's nice to here. Also, had your DVD on my list of things to check out at Siggraph. They sound awesome. VFX is something I've just recently started to explore more. Look forward to seeing you there.

[hamu73]

any updates on the shipping to europe???

[amckay]

matt - excelent :)
Yeah the class should be fun - will be covering a lot of unique stuff.


hamu - there'll be no european distributor or anything.. I assume by now turbosquid's fixed up shipping costs a bit, or at least I hope so.
It's expensive I know.. but whatever it's set at now will probably be the standard costs for the DVD :\ Like I said I don't have much to do with that part of it.
Although still 14 hours for that price isn't "too" bad :)


put up a new website, still very work in progress but a lil less ghetto :)
http://www.allanmckay.com

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